What does the district consider to be some the best practices in instruction?

Engaged Learning
Engaged learning techniques are based upon cognitive research. Unlike behaviorism, which somewhat views learners as passive, cognitive psychology views learners as active. "Teachers facilitate learning by engaging students in active cognitive processing about academic content through academic tasks. The teacher's selection and presentation of tasks will determine the quality of cognitive processing by students" (Anderson, 1989). Students do not absorb knowledge like a sponge, instead they organize and structure it. Teachers should strive to put students in the most active role possible during learning activities. Examples include:

• Paraphrasing information instead of restating it
• Problem solving activities
• Hands-on activities
• Writing activities
• Tests and quizzes that require more than simple memorization

Constructivism
Constructivist techniques are based upon work by Jon Piaget who believed that children construct their schemata based on the experiences and interaction that they have. Thus, lessons should include direct experiences with concrete examples and personalized materials to help students connect their current knowledge with the new knowledge.

Discovery Learning
Many times classroom learning follows a step-by-step approach in which students seem to master the objectives but are then unable to reproduce their knowledge outside the classroom. According to Bruner, "true learning involves figuring out how to use what you already know in order to go beyond what you already think" (Bruner, 1983). Discovery learning involves allowing students to "discover" how ideas and concepts are related. Discovery learning is sometimes misunderstood and even over used. Since discovery learning takes a lot of time, it must be used only for certain outcomes. Examples include:

• A teacher has students measure the inside angles of several triangles and asking them to compare and contrast their results. (all triangles have 180 degrees internally)
• To discover how haikus are structured, ask students to compare and contrast a set of different haikus.

Problem Solving
This includes any activity in which the goal is specified, but the means for getting there are not. Teaching problem solving encourages students to transfer many of the basic skills into real-life applications. In the following example, students are asked to determine how long it would take for two boys to mow a lawn, but are not given a strategy for generating an answer.

If Bob can mow the lawn in 1 hour, but it takes Tom 2 hours to mow the same lawn, how long would it take them if they mowed it together?

What parts of cognitive research influence our instructional practices?

Schemata
According to Piaget, students do not ingest ideas. Instead they reorganize them and restructure them into their own set of knowledge known as schemata. These networks of knowledge are what students build as the are actively engaged in instruction. The concept of schemata has a tremendous impact on classroom teachers.

Teachers must not only present new ideas to students, but they must also help students make relationships between the new concepts and prior knowledge. (Eggen, 1992) Because students' prior knowledge is so important in new learning, it is also important for teachers to activate the schemata for their students prior to instruction. Examples of schemata activation include: preteaching, discussions, brainstorming. (Brunning, 1999)

Meaningfulness
Although some memorization may get encoded into long term memory, most memorized facts are mearly forgotten after the test. Students who find an answer to the question, "why am I learning this?", will connect the new knowledge with existing schemata and better understand meaningfulness of the concepts at hand. Example: Rather than just teaching students how to multiply fractions, students could be engaged in scaling the size of various recipes. (Eggen, 1992)

Metacognition
Metacognition is the knowledge that people have about their own thinking processes. Studies suggest students who have been trained to use and apply information about their own thinking learn significantly more and retain what they learn longer than students who do not (Delclos & Harrington, 1991). Students should also be encouraged to build automaticity with metacognition by using monitoring checklists (Schraw, 1994). Our I Can Do It! self-assessments are one form of monitoring checklist designed to help students to think about their own thought processes and learning.

Self-reflection
Students should be encouraged to self-reflect on their own personal progress. Through the I Can Do It! assessment, students have the opportunity to self-reflect on their progress.

Transferability
Many times students appear to have mastered a specific objective, yet they can't seem to transfer the particular knowledge outside the school environment. Transfer is when students learn something in one environment and are able to apply it in another setting (Eggen, 1992). One the most important factors in teaching for transferability is meaningfulness. If students can make more associations with a particular concept, then they build a larger, more detailed schemata.

Resources

Anderson, L. (1989) Classroom instruction In M. Reynolds (Ed.), Knowledge base for the beginning teacher. New York: Pergamon Press

Bruner, J.S. (1983) In search of mind: Essays in autobiography. New York: Harper & Row.

Brunning, R. (1999) Cognitive Psychology and Instruction, Upper Saddle River, NJ

Delclos, V. & Harrington, C. (1991) Effects of strategy monitoring and proactive instruction on children's problem-solving performance. Journal of Educational Psychology.

Eggen, P. (1992) Educational Psychology: Classroom Connections, New York: Merrill

Schraw, G., Wise, S., & Roos, L. (1994) Issues in the measurement of metacognition. Lincoln: Buros-Nebraska Press.

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