MASSP News Center

By Diane McMillan
Associate Director

As stated in the January 2008 article, the grade level and high school Content Expectations are huge steps in the direction towards the goal of preparing all students for postsecondary education and work. However, unless implemented with fidelity and in ways that address the learning styles of all students, they remain words on trapped pieces of paper.

To make the content expectations come to life for students, educators must have and be able to use a variety of instructional and assessment strategies to enable student access to the curriculum, motivate student learning, and provide data for achievement.

One of the benchmarks of highly successful schools is the skill of the faculty to use varied and appropriate strategies to foster student learning. As administrators, you would want to see multiple active learning strategies in your classrooms, coupled with multiple assessments to document student learning.

Some Broad Categories of Instructional Strategies
(There are several specific strategies in each of these Categories. Click here for a Glossary of Instructional Strategies)

• Reading and Writing Strategies Across the Curriculum
• Small Group/Collaborative Learning
• Project-Based Learning
• Inquiry Based Learning
• Problem Based Learning
• Demonstration & Presentation
• Coaching/Modeling
• Scaffolding
• Self-directed Learning
• Whole Group Lecture/Discussion

The Problem with Lecture-Based Instruction

Lecture/Whole Group Instruction remains the predominant mode of instruction employed by most secondary teachers. However, most people tend to forget what they hear. According to Mel Silberman, Active Learning: 101 Strategies to Teach Any Subject, There are several reasons why most people tend to forget what they hear.
• The rate at which a teacher speaks and a student listens are different. Most teachers speak about 100 to 200 words per minute. If a student is listening attentively, they hear only 50 or 100 words, because listening requires thinking.
• It’s hard to concentrate for a sustained period of time. One study showed that students retain 70 percent of the first 10 minutes of a lecture and only 20 percent during the last 10 minutes (McKeachie, 1986)

Other Problems with Lecture (Johnson, Johnson, & Smith, 1991)
• Student attention decreases with each passing minute
• It appeals only to auditory learners.
• It tends to promote lower level learning of factual information
• It assumes that all students need the same information and at the same pace.
• Students tend not to like it.

Adding visuals can increase retention from 14-38 percent. Also, the instructor can appeal to a wider audience of students who are visual and/or auditory learners. “But,” Silberman says, “merely hearing something and seeing something is not enough to learn it.”

So, as administrator, you would want to see lecture used at times when the teacher wants to impart lower level factual information and then in short “lecture bursts”, keeping in mind the information above.

Multiple Assessments

Using a variety of assessments will also give educators a more accurate picture of what the students actually know and can do. Performance-based assessments require students to demonstrate higher order thinking skills. Just as the lecture, the paper and pencil standardized test has its place, but cannot tell alone what a student has learned. Used along with other assessment measures, an educator can get a more accurate picture of student achievement and mastery of the content expectations.

Types of Assessment Measures (Examples from MDE High School Assessment Action Team report, March 2006)

• High School Tests (summative and formative)
• Course/Credit Assessments
• Portfolios
• Certificate of Mastery Assessments
• Capstone Projects
• Inventories and Surveys
• Adjudicated Performances
• Exhibitions

By working with faculty, principals can provide professional learning opportunities and collaborative learning sessions, as well as feedback coaching to help in the effective implementation of the grade level and high school content expectations.
Other Resources

Instructional Strategies for Engaging Learners
Instructional Strategies
Instructional Strategies online