Thoughtful Discourse
ALL CONTENT AREAS
--------------------------
Research-Based Instructional Practices
Achievement Expectations
The teacher establishes and follows through on appropriate
expectations for learning outcomes.
Curriculum Alignment
Aligning all components of the curriculum create a cohesive
program for accomplishing instructional purposes and goals.
Goal-Oriented Assessment
The teacher uses a variety of formal and informal assessment
methods to monitor progress toward learning goals.
Aligned Time on Task
Students learn more when most of the available time is
allocated to curriculum-related activities and the classroom
management system emphasizes maintaining student
engagement in those activities.
Direct Teaching
Direct teaching is most effective when it exhibits key features
and follows systematic steps.
Setting Objectives and Providing Feedback
Clearly established objectives and provision of specific
feedback are effective tools to enhance learning.
Identifying Similarities and Differences
Students deepen their understanding when required to
analyze two or more elements in terms of similarities and
differences including approaches such as comparing,
classifying, creating metaphors, and creating analogies.
Summarizing and Note Taking
Both skills require students to mentally sift through and
synthesize information.
Reinforcing Effort and Providing Recognition
These strategies focus on students’ attitudes and beliefs
and, thus, are likely to affect students’ level of engagement
in cognitive processes.
Nonlinguistic Representations
Generating mental pictures of information enhances recall
and understanding. Examples include graphic organizers,
pictures and pictographs, mental pictures, concrete
representations, and kinesthetic activity.
Coherent Content
To facilitate meaningful learning and retention, content
is explained clearly and developed with emphasis on its
structure and connections.
Questions are planned to engage students in sustained
discussion structured around powerful ideas.
Practice and Application Activities
Students are provided with sufficient opportunities to practice
and apply what they are learning.
Scaffolding Students’ Task Engagement
The teacher provides whatever assistance students need to
enable them to engage in learning activities productively.
Tutoring
Teaching one student or a small number with the same abilities
and instructional needs can be effective.
SCI ENCE
for All Content Areas
Graded Homework
--------------------------
Students deepen their proficiency and understanding when
they complete homework that is graded, commented upon, Improving Student Achievement Using
and discussed by their teachers. Research-Based Instructional Practices
Adaptive Education
Employing a variety of instructional techniques to adapt lessons
to individual students and small groups raises achievement.
Cooperative Learning
Students in small, self-instructing groups can support and
increase each other’s learning.
Supportive Classroom Climate
Students learn best within cohesive and caring learning
communities.
Parental Involvement
Learning is enhanced when schools encourage parents to
stimulate their children’s intellectual development.
SOURCES:
Cawelti, G. Handbook of Research on Improving Student Achievement (3rd ed.). Educational
Research Service.
Daniels, H., Hyde, Arthur, & Zemelman, S. Best Practice. Heinemann.
Marzano, R. What Works in Schools: Translating Research into Action. Association for
Supervision and Curriculum Development.
Marzano, R., Pickering, D. & Pollock, J. Classroom Instruction That Works: Research-Based
Strategies for Increasing Student Achievement. Association for Supervision and Curriculum
Development.
McMurrer, J. & Protheroe, N. Incorporating Research-Based Teaching Strategies.
Educational Research Service.
“Research cannot and does not identify the right or best
way to teach, nor does it suggest certain instructional
Education and Administration Center practices should always or should never be used. But
1110 Chapel Hills Drive • Colorado Springs, Colorado 80920 research can illuminate which instructional practices are
Phone: 719-234-1200 • Website: www.asd20.org
most likely to achieve desired results, with which kinds
Kelley Gaskill, Director for Professional Development
Jonathan Johnson and Clark Maxon, of learners, and under which conditions.”
Administrative Cohort Program –Myriam Met
 SCIENCE
Research-Based Instructional Practices
Analogies
Using analogies in the teaching of
science results in the development
of conceptual understandings by
enabling the learner to compare
something familiar with
something unfamiliar.
Collaborative communica-
tion of scientific ideas
Providing opportunities for
students to discuss, debate, and
defend conclusions, explanations
and ideas enhances their conceptual
understanding.
Collaborative learning
Using collaborative learning for classroom and
laboratory instruction improves student achievement,
attitudes, and on-task behavior.
Concept mapping
The use of student-generated and teacher-generated
concept maps for teaching science concepts results
in improved student achievement and more positive
student attitudes.
Conceptual understanding in problem solving
Understanding concepts qualitatively enables
students to solve quantitative problems in biology,
physics, and chemistry more effectively.
Inquiry-based instructional strategies
Using inquiry-based instruction and open-ended
investigations helps students develop understanding
of scientific concepts.
Making science relevant
Relating science to modern technology and
SCIENCE
Qualities of Best Practices
societal issues results in an increase in the number
of students taking additional science courses and • Incorporates inquiry both as instructional
advanced-level courses, as well as a strategy and as a skill to be learned
change in students’ attitudes toward
• Focuses the curriculum on state standards,
science and their understanding of
benchmarks and vertically aligned “power”
the nature of science
outcomes
Real-life situations • Connects science to other school subjects
Using real-life situations in
• Focuses on understanding, not acquisition
science instruction through
of information
the use of technology or actual
observation increases student • Includes opportunities for science discussion
interest in science, problem- and debate
solving skills, and achievement.
• Provides activities that investigate and
analyze science questions over extended
Simulations
periods of time
Using models, labs and computer simula-
tions to represent real-world situations enables • Applies results of experiments to scientific
students to become more reflective problem-solvers arguments and explanations
and to increase their conceptual understanding.
Unexpected events
Using unexpected events in science instruction
results in cognitive conflict that enhances students’
conceptual understanding as well as their attitudes
toward critical-thinking activities.