Week 6 Readings – Principles of Instruction and Understanding by Design Framework by Chanel Crittenden


“Teachers are coaches of knowledge… They always aim and check for successful meaning making and transfer by the leaner” (Mctinge and Wiggins, 1). Rosenshine’s Principles of Instruction and Mctinge and Wiggin’s Understanding by Design Framework asserted somewhat similar concepts this week on the teacher’s/curriculum planner’s role in designing and executing a successful lesson plan. Rosenshine’s reading focuses on ten steps, or principles, for successful instruction that derives from three sources: research and cognitive science, research on master teachers, and research on cognitive supports. Each principle is examined through theory and assessment of master teachers, or “teachers whose classrooms made the highest gains on achievement tests” (Rosenshine, 12). Each principle briefly listed as:

1.      Starting lesson with a short review to help student recall learning,
2.      Present new material is small steps,
3.      Ask questions and observe class responses,
4.      Providing model/work examples to the learners,
5.      Guiding student’s independent practice,
6.      Set up checkpoints for student understanding,
7.      Obtain high success rate,
8.      Providing instructional support or scaffolds,
9.      Monitoring independent practice and,
10.   Engaging students in weekly review.

Each principle has a specific objective of ensuring how and when students retain information taught by the instructor, and how strong or weak implementation of these principles can affect the lesson gains of the class. Likewise, UbD framework is a structure or framework on how curriculum should be designed to ensure many of the same learning objectives that the Principles of Instructions hopes to achieve. However, UbD framework seems to be focused on the design and development of curriculum and “backward design,” whereas the principles of instruction focused on the instructor’s actions in the classroom. The UbD framework is also based in seven concepts with stages is forming backward design. These concepts range from teacher’s purposeful thinking of curriculum planning, development of student understanding and transfer of knowledge, autonomous transfer of information by the learner, long term goals when planning curriculum, reviewing units of the curriculum, and continual improvements within curriculum and approach.  

I feel that the concepts brought up in these two readings can serve teachers and curriculum planners as a guide to design course objectives and lesson plans. In theory, these models can help serve new teachers in structuring their lessons. But I also feel that a big part of these model and principles are theory with little reference on how the concepts will be brought in class. I liked how in Principles of Instruction, the author assessed the results of the principles in classrooms taught by master teachers, with some of those classrooms including schools in Australia. However, I feel that the shortcomings of these articles come into play when assessing how these concepts will work in different classrooms – classroom in urban schools, classroom in rural schools, culturally diverse or homogenous classroom, honor study or remedial classes. Perhaps it would be worth it to investigate how effective these concepts are in a setting similar to Chicago’s classrooms.  

Overall, I liked that these two readings were grouped together. I feel that the concepts examined in these two readings set the ground work for curriculum design and teaching principles. It can also be said that these concepts leave room for the teacher or curriculum planner themselves to assess the knowledge of the learner according to the environment they teach.

Comments

  1. Yesenia BuenoFebruary 21, 2019 at 8:52 AM

    Thank you for the excellent summary. I too enjoyed the pairing of these two readings and agree that they set some good groundwork for curriculum design and teaching principles. I am actually new to the Education field and am in the process of changing careers. Currently, I am participating in an independent study where I tutor English at a literacy center in my community. Although there was helpful training prior to tutoring, I am learning a lot in the actual process. I’m excited to put some of the things I learned from this coupled reading into practice (specifically stressing review, being conservative with material, and providing a lot of visual examples). The person I am tutoring is an adult with a full time job and is only able to meet for 90 minutes a week and I have noticed that at times she has trouble with material retention. I hope some of the tips I learned this week will be helpful in developing her English learning.

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  2. April McFaddenFebruary 23, 2019 at 6:40 PM

    I appreciated your summary. This is what I picked up from the readings as well. My profession is not in the education industry, but I am familiar from my experience as a student and from many school visits working at my previous job at an education nonprofit. I've seen/experienced this methods work in the classroom. I want to respond to this statement, "However, I feel that the shortcomings of these articles come into play when assessing how these concepts will work in different classrooms – classroom in urban schools, classroom in rural schools, culturally diverse or homogenous classroom, honor study or remedial classes. Perhaps it would be worth it to investigate how effective these concepts are in a setting similar to Chicago’s classrooms."

    I believe we must be careful with faulting research simply because it did not explicitly mention how these would work with students of color, students in urban/rural areas, or diverse learners. That kind of analysis can imply that difference causes their brains' to work differently/not at the "normal." Which toes the line of phrenology. I think with the curriculum design principles, the methods that focus on repetition and scaffolding and periodic checkpoints are universal. but the distinction in curriculum design that accounts for classroom difference will be in material (e.g. material selection, curriculum relevancy, engaging material) and teacher enthusiasm.

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  3. AnonymousFebruary 24, 2019 at 6:46 PM

    Thank you for sharing! I love that you mentioned the placement of this article and where they conducted this research! I agree that it would be interesting to see if these principles work within an urban school context. Although these principles are the foundation for almost every educator, it would be interesting to see if any of these principles would be altered to a CPS teacher. I also agree that UbD framework is great for all teachers, but new teachers in general. I can remember when I first started out, the UbD framework helped me align my curriculum and keep me focused and on track throughout the school year. If I forgot my end goal ( yes sometimes when our students side track us we forgot what the point of the lesson was!) I would just look at the UbD I printed for that unit. UbD is also helpful with curriculum design in the sense that keeps grade levels and schools on track with one another. My co-teachers and I share reading and math UbD unit plans. Which help us make sure that all fourth graders will learn the same material at the same time. How we present that information may be a little different depending on teacher style, but the information is still relayed.

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  4. AnonymousMarch 7, 2019 at 8:10 PM

    Thanks for sharing .
    I want to say that I like the way you summarize the articles. The step one is my favorite. “Starting lesson with a short review to help students recall learning”
    I feel that this step is really important. Like I have learned before, we all have short memory at most times. From my own experiences, I always forget most of knowledge that I learn in classroom before next one. But teachers help students recall the memories is helpful. From my own experiences,it’s helpful for me. I think I will this most of the principles in the future as an educator.

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