Effective Instruction

The evidence

The evidence in this article is a summary of a paper entitled ‘Investigating the intensity and integration of active learning and lecture.’ Essentially, it tested three different approaches to instruction. Pure Lecture blocked (Lecture and Activity) and interspersed (Lecture/Activity/Lecture/Activity).

After the instruction the researchers measured participant learning on three scales – Verbatum, Inference and Composite. The results are below.

Essentially, it shows that presenting material in small steps and checking for understanding after each step is the more effective approach to instruction.

I first saw this article in Ollie Lovell’s threads email. Read the full article here.

What you can do

• Ask teachers to plan checks for understanding into their lessons.
• The younger the student, the more often you need to check for understanding.
• Direct instruction has over 15 checks for understanding per minute. You read that right, per minute!
• Prioritising checking for understanding focuses on what the students have learned, rather than what the teacher has presented.
• For Year 7s aim to check for understanding every two minutes, for Year 12s aim to check at least once every 5-10minutes.