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Research

10 Principles of Instruction

Barak Rosenshine

Research Summary

This research looks across work in cognitive science, studies of accomplished teachers and cognitive supports (effective teaching procedures), in order to identify principles of good teaching that all teachers can use and develop. Though the research draws on three kinds of evidence, the principles can be applied without any contradiction between them.

Researcher

Barak Rosenshine

Research Institution

University of Illinois

What is this about?

What are some research-based principles for teaching that can be identified, in order to help all teachers get better at what we do? (If you go to the original article linked below, you will also find some accompanying suggestions for classroom practice.)

What was done?

As was mentioned above, Rosenshine looked across three types of evidence (cognitive science, studies of accomplished teachers and cognitive supports) in order to identify a series of principles on which teachers can base good practice – that is, practice that will support pupils to learn. The 10 principles – perhaps strategies is the more apt of the two words used to classify them – are listed below in Main Findings and Outputs.

Main findings and outputs

  1. Daily review / begin a lesson with a short review of previous learning. 5-8 minutes makes learning natural or automatic.
  2. Present new material using small steps. Check understanding and re-teach if necessary.
  3. Ask questions. Use discussion, involve all pupils, make them talk about how they got their answers.
  4. Provide models. Demonstrate or talk through a completed task before giving pupils a related one.
  5. Guide student practice. Show them how to process new material before asking them to be independent with it.
  6. Check for student understanding. Frequently ask pupils what they are doing, to summarise their progress, to compare their answers with those of others, etc.
  7. Obtain a high success rate. 80% is about right (they are learning, and challenged): small steps build success – they should not go on to new content before mastery of current content and the class should move on together.
  8. Provide scaffolds for difficult tasks. Provide supports (e.g. cue cards) that can help at first and be taken away later.
  9. Independent practice. Pupils should ‘overlearn’ and become fluent, though needing proper preparation before they can do so independently. Teacher support should be focused in 30-second contact.
  10. Weekly and monthly review. Pupils should read around content and teachers should regularly review or test it, to build up knowledge and memory.

Relevance to RE

The nature of the strategies is to be effective whatever the subject content, though some of them seem to suit particular RE emphases (e.g. 2 when presenting a religious tradition or set of issues previously unknown to pupils, 3 and 6 for dialogical RE learning). It would be good to have examples of specific RE use of the strategies, or better, accounts of how their use has boosted RE pupils’ progress (please email Kevin@cstg.org.uk with these).

Generalisability and potential limitations

Many teachers will recognise the strategies, but also find it helpful to have them spelled out and to read that they are grounded in research. They do need tying to specific content (see Relevance to RE, above), but RE teachers would want to do that in any case.

Find out more

The article is freely downloadable from https://www.aft.org/sites/default/files/periodicals/Rosenshine.pdf

 

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