1. Characteristics of effective instruction
CEQP – Center for Equity Promotion
Characteristics of effective instruction
This presentation focuses on the overall most effective strategies for instruction in general. Teachers in all grade levels should be using instruction that includes these features in order for students to gain the most from classroom instruction.
Remember that you can go at your own pace, or you can view the overview with a group of other teachers to talk about what is presented.
A Project LIFT Training Module
Characteristics of Instruction Module

2. Effective Teacher Delivery
Quality of teaching
Effective teacher-student interactions
Methods for delivering the content
In combination with high quality curriculum materials
A lot of the research on educational practices and their effectiveness with students involves actually observing teachers and what they do in their classrooms to improve learning. Across successful classrooms, certain teacher instructional characteristics are consistently present, and therefore considered to be effective. Teachers can learn to build these features into their daily instruction to help all students be more successful. Without strong instructional delivery, even the use of the best programs is unlikely to result in students receiving the instruction they need to reach important reading goals.
**Effective teacher delivery then, is more about the quality of teaching and the type of interactions teachers have with their students. These methods for delivering the content to students must, of course, be in combination with high quality curriculum materials.

3. Effective Features of Instruction
Model/Demonstrate new instructional tasks and provide explicit instruction.
Actively engage students during teacher- led instruction and encourage student effort.
Provide multiple opportunities for students to respond and practice new skills.
Provide immediate error correction during instruction and independent work.
Engage students during independent work.
These features of effective instruction are essential for initial reading instruction as students learn how to access content from texts. Teachers need to:
Always model new instructional tasks and skills being taught;
provide explicit instruction - explicit means clear and detailed instruction;
get students actively involved during instruction and encourage their effort;
provide multiple opportunities for students to respond and practice new skills;
provide feedback and correct errors immediately – don’t just let them go; and
keep students engaged during independent work. This is the time to walk around, find out who needs help and provide extra instruction for those who need it.
It is the combination of these features of effective instruction along with a strong curriculum that will increase student achievement.
Now we’ll look more specifically at each of these features.

4. 1. Provide Explicit Instruction
Explicit instruction involves direct explanation. Concepts are clearly explained and skills are clearly modeled, without vagueness or ambiguity (Carnine, 2006). The teacher’s language is concise, specific, and related to the objective. This makes it clear what the students are to do and learn. Nothing is left to guess work.
As the slide states, explicit instruction means directly explaining and modeling a skill you want your students to learn. You tell the students exactly what it is that you want them to learn. Another way of putting it is you don’t want students to guess or perform a skill before you have shown them and directly taught them how to do that skill. For example with a new vocabulary word, don’t ask student to initially guess what the word’s meaning is. Instead, start by telling them the definition of the word and providing examples of its use.

5. Follow the Model-Lead-Test Procedure:
Model the concept or skill
Practice applying the concept or skill together
Have students apply the concept or skill on their own
One way of understanding explicit instruction is to remember the “I Do It” “We Do It” and “You Do It” method of instruction. With this procedure, the teacher first models the concept or skill being taught. Most likely, modeling and demonstrating a skill will take place over several minutes time and not just once. The teacher then asks the student to practice the skill together. When the teacher feels the students are ready, he or she then asks the student to perform the skill independently. This type of instruction can be used with harder skills such as learning a new comprehension strategy or less intensive skills such as learning and practicing a new sight word.
I Do It. We Do It. You Do It.

6. Modeling Instructional Tasks
Demonstrate or model the task:
“I’ll say the sounds in (pause) mat - /m/-/a/-/t/”
Guided practice:
“Say the sounds in (pause) mat with me -
/m/-/a/-/t/”
Independent practice:
3. “Your turn. Say the sounds in (pause) mat.”
(only students respond - /m/-/a/-/t/)
Here is a very simple example of the I Do It, We Do It and You Do It procedure.
“Listen. I’ll say the sounds in sat (pause) - m/-/a/-/t/”
“Say the sounds in (pause) sat with me – Ready
/m/-/a/-/t/”
“Your turn. Say the sounds in (pause) mat.”
The accuracy of student responses will help the teacher determine how to scaffold the support, fading out the modeling and guided practice, and when students are able to do the task on their own.

7. Modeling Instructional Tasks
Teacher use of consistent language is important
Research has demonstrated that students learn more efficiently and more effectively when teachers use the same wording from example to example during initial teaching of concepts, rules and strategies.
When modeling tasks, often, from lesson to lesson, certain tasks are highly similar – such as the one just demonstrated. Examples are changed while the wording remains unchanged. This consistency makes it easy for students to understand what is expected of them.

8. Model-Lead-Test Procedure
Explicit Strategy Instruction
Define the strategy
Use think-alouds to explain the steps
Guided practice
Visual prompts and graphic organizers
Independent practice
Students can learn higher level comprehension strategies such as prediction, retelling a story and summarizing using the same model-lead-test procedure - in other words the I Do It, We Do It, and You Do It procedure.
The teacher first defines the new strategy and tells how it will help the students;
The strategy is modeled, using think-alouds to walk students through the steps. Think Alouds are discussed in more depth in the comprehension module. As a reminder, think alouds have been described as "eavesdropping on someone's thinking." With this strategy, the teacher talks aloud while performing a strategy. Their verbalizations include what the teacher is thinking and describing things they're doing as they perform the skill. The purpose of the think-aloud strategy is to model for students how skilled readers use the strategy.
Guided practice is provided through additional examples, using clear, consistent language. The teacher will need to determine how much modeling and guided practice is necessary before the students can successfully apply the strategy on their own.
When appropriate, visual prompts and/or graphic organizers may be used to clarify the process, link ideas or show relationships between key concepts. For example, the teacher can have the steps written on the board for students to follow.
Students then have the opportunity to practice the strategy on their own.
The next step is to tell what happened next.

9. Activity 1 Tools: I Do It – You Do It – We Do It
Download Activity #1 – I Do It, We Do It, You Do It worksheet.
Watch video
Answer Questions
When completed, move on to the next slide
Activity should take approximately 30 minutes.
Let’s now take some time to look at explicit instruction in action with Activity #1 within this presentation. Download the document entitled Activty 1 – I Do It, We Do It, You Do It and follow the directions on the sheet. You will be watching Dr. Anita Archer - an inspiring and nationally known educator, author and consultant. In this 8-1/2 minute video, she is teaching a group of 1st graders how to retell a factual passage about the stages of a butterfly. As you observe the lesson, make notes as to how she incorporates these steps of explicit instruction. Then, first individually, and then as a group, answer the questions listed on Activity #1.
When completed, move on to the next slide.
I Do It. We Do It. You Do It.

10. 2. Engage Students During the Lesson
Pace lesson to maintain attention. Rapid pacing it often the best solution to many behavior problems.
Transitions quickly between tasks
Keeps close proximity to students
Intervenes with off-task students to maintain their focus
Teach with enthusiasm
Reinforce and reward student effort
In order to deliver instruction effectively, teachers must present the information in ways that will engage students. Here are some ways to make that happen:
First, and this is extremely important, moving through a lesson at a quick and upbeat pace will increase student on-task behavior and reduce off-task behavior. In order for this to happen, teacher must be totally prepared for the lesson by planning ahead of time. This will require the time needed after school to plan lessons in detail. That way, a teacher can move from task to task without having to constantly stop to think about what to do next.
Relatedly, teachers should make transitions from activity to activity quickly and not waste time. For example, if moving from teacher-led instruction in front of the room to independently working in desks, students should not be wasting time hunting for pencils, sharpening pencils or talking with others. Teachers should also be prepared to move from activity to activity, making transitions quickly by being prepared. A great deal of instructional time can be wasted daily if students are not taught to make transitions quickly or teachers are not prepared.
Teachers should keep in close proximity to students. That is, the teacher should not keep sitting up front during the lesson. He or she should be moving around the classroom during instruction and making eye contact with students. Often, all it takes for students to self-correct their behavior, improve their focus, actively engage on a task, or enhance their outcome is their teacher to be physically close to them.
Next, if a student is showing off-task behavior, this should be dealt with quickly and then the teacher should move on with the lesson. If the teacher spends too much time correcting the behavior, the pace and flow of the lesson will be lost. By dealing with behavior proactively ahead of time – such as setting expectations for behavior and ensuring these are enforced consistently – less class time will need to be used for behavior difficulties.
Finally, teachers should teach with enthusiasm. This will rub off on the teachers’ students. Students should be verbally rewarded for great effort to meet the lesson’s goals. When teachers give specific positive praise, students are able to better understand exactly what they are doing that is correct and what needs changing.
By consistently following these recommendations, teachers have students that are highly engaged in a teacher’s daily instruction. These are also good teacher behaviors to look for when evaluating teachers’ performance in the classroom.

11. 3. provide multiple opportunities for
students to practice instructional tasks.
Provide more than one opportunity to practice each new skill
Provide opportunities for practice after each step in instruction
Provide extra practice based on accuracy of student responses
Just like every other skill we would want a student to perform, learning new skills in reading takes much practice. Teachers are responsible for making sure this practice is built into lesson plans. For example, some studies suggest that most learners need between 5-16 encounters with a vocabulary word in order to retain it (Nation, 1990; Waring, 2002). Other studies show that some students can read a word only once to recognize it again with greater speed; others need 20 or more exposures. The average child needs between four and 14 exposures to automatize the recognition of a new word (Reading Rockets).

12. Increasing Intensity of Instruction
RATE OF LEARNING
Per Year: MORE skills learned
Per Hour: MORE Piis
Per Day: MORE Piis
Per Minute: MORE Piis
One way of looking at the idea of multiple opportunities to practice is shown on the screen. A researcher at Florida State University uses the term “Pii” to represent a practice opportunity. Pii stands for Personal Instructional Interaction. The idea is that the more opportunities to correctly practice a skill during a minute, the more opportunities the student will have during an hour’s worth of instructional time. The more correct practice opportunities a student has within an hour’s time, the more he or she will have during one day of school. The more skills are learned in a day, the more skills are learned during a school year.
The opposite can be said as well. The less opportunities for practice during each instructional minute will ultimately result in less skills learned during a school year.

13. Multiple Opportunities to Practice
Group Responses
Rationale:
Gives many opportunities for many students to respond.
Provides teacher with frequent feedback regarding every student’s progress.
If teacher does not require unison responding, the higher performing students are the ones most likely to respond and response first.
One of the best ways to provide multiple opportunities to practice a skill is to use group responses. Consider the difference between a lesson where the teacher always calls on individuals to respond versus a lesson that consists mainly of group responses. For example, in a class of 25 students, a set of 10 questions could provide for 10 individual responses and leave the other 15 students with considerable unengaged time during the lesson. On the other hand, group responses to 10 questions provide every student the opportunity to respond with feedback from the teacher. All students are able to practice all skills, rather than teacher-selected individual students.
Group responses also allow teachers to monitor a number of student responses so that learning can be confirmed or students who do need more help can be identified.
When thinking about using group oral responses, keep in min that oral group responses require some kind of signal from the teacher so students will answer in unison. Otherwise, lower performing students may not have sufficient think time to formulate their response or will learn to echo the responses of other students.
Teachers then follow group responses with a small number of individual turns in order to confirm mastery for specific students.

14. This diagram illustrates the five parts of an effective group response signal. (Review steps)
You will want to practice signals so that you become comfortable with the technique and your signals are clear and crisp. You will know if your signals are strong if your students respond together. If some students respond too early or too late, you may be giving weak signals. If you are consistent about your expectations, your students will learn to respond as a group, be more engaged in the lesson and have many more opportunities to practice skills.

15. Multiple Opportunities to Practice
Partner Responses
Think-Pair-Share
Gives everyone the opportunity to share ideas with a partner before sharing them with the class
Another method of providing more opportunities to practice newly learned skills is through partner responses. “Think-Pair-Share” is a frequently-used partner activity. When posing a more open-ended question, have students think for a moment and then share their answers or ideas with their partner, either verbally or in writing. The teacher may then ask for a few partners (but certainly not all partners) to share their ideas with the whole class, keeping all students accountable. Teachers will want to monitor partners by circulating around the room, listening to ideas and providing support to those that need it.

16. Multiple Opportunities to Practice
Individual Responses
More Effective:
Ask a question
Give think time
Call on a student randomly
OR, have students first share their answer with partner, then call on a student randomly
Less Effective
Ask a question
Students raise hands
Teacher calls on a student with hand raised
When individual responses are desired, continue to present the question in a way that will engage all students. Let’s look at these two different ways of asking for an individual student response.
In this first scenario, the teacher asks a question to the class or group, gives think time, and then randomly calls on one student to respond. The teacher may ask students to share their answer with a partner before calling on one student.
In this next scenario, the teacher asks a question to the class or group, students raise their hands when they have an answer, and the teacher calls on a student with their hand raised.
Think for a moment about which method engages more students and increases the likelihood that all students are practicing the skill by thinking of an answer. Share your ideas with a partner now. (wait 5 seconds). Hopefully, you were able to see that the first scenario is more effective because all students should have been prepared to provide an answer, not just the students who raised their hands.

17. Activity 2 Multiple Opportunities to Respond
Stop the presentation.
Watch the video entitled, “Group Responses.”
Take note of how many opportunities each student had to respond during the short video and how the teacher used the the I Do It, We Do It, You Do It method of instruction. Discuss your notes with others in your group.

18. 4. Provide Corrective Feedback on All Student Responses
Provides affirmations for correct responses
Promptly corrects errors with provision of correct model
Limits corrective feedback language to the task at hand
Ensures mastery of all students before moving on
The fourth feature of effective instruction is teachers providing corrective feedback on all student responses. Providing students with immediate feedback when acquiring new skills is really important for a number of reasons.
First, when students make correct responses, these responses need to be affirmed. Affirmed means to acknowledge that the students’ answer was correct. Affirmation of responses is especially powerful for students who require significantly more repetitions to learn something new. Compare the quality of information students receive in this example. Students have just been taught the definition of the word, “collaborate” as “to work together.” The teacher asks the class “What does it mean to collaborate?” The teacher hears the response, “To work together, ” but notes that some students are hesitant with their response.
By affirming the group response that she heard:** “Yes. Collaborate means to work together,” she can be sure that all students have the correct information - even if they did not have a solid response earlier.
Compare this to:
The non-specific reply,”Good job,” which may leave some students unsure of the correct meaning of collaborate and would be a missed opportunity for another practice of the new vocabulary word.

19. Provide Corrective Feedback
Affirmations
√ Go beyond a simple “yes,” “good job” or “OK.”
Be specific!
“Yes, /iiiiiiii/.”
“Yes, that word is boat.”
“Right, the fox was trying to come up with a plan to trick the hen.”
Affirmation of responses is especially powerful for students who require significantly more repetitions to learn something new. Affirmations are helpful for those students who made a mistake the first time that the teacher didn’t catch. Now, they are hearing the right answer. Also, provides another opportunity for all students to hear the answer.
Affirmations should also be specific. For example, when pointing to the letter a and asking for its sound, the students answer correctly with /i/. To affirm, the teacher simply says, “Yes, /iiiii/.” Similarly, you point to the word boat, and the group responds with boal. Your affirmation would be, “Yes, that word is boat.”
Finally, suppose you asked a student to tell what the fox was doing in a story the students were reading. The student answers correctly, and your affirmation is, “Right. The fox was trying to come up with a plan to trick the hen.” This way all students can hear the correct answer in case it was missed by others.

20. When there is one correct response
Provide Corrective Feedback
When there is one correct response
“That word is where.” (model)
“Everybody, what word?” (test) (all students respond)
“Go back to the top of the list. Let’s see if we can get the whole list correct this time.” (delayed test)
Compared to:
“John, that word is where. What word, John? Everybody needs to start over.”
Teachers must correct response errors in a neutral and supportive tone.
For example, during a group reading of a list of words, the teacher hears an incorrect word. She stops, models the correct response and the task is repeated in a neutral tone with all students, not just the student who made the error.
That word is where.”
Everybody, what word?”
Go back to the top of the list. Let’s see if we can get the whole list correct this time.”
Having students go back to the top of the list serves as a delayed test, to ensure the skill is now learned. Additionally, teachers will want to make note of difficult words and provide additional practice later in the lesson, at another time of day and/or as a review on following days.
Now compare this error correction to one that singles out the student who made the error.
“John, that word is together. What word, John? Everybody needs to start over.”
Instead of providing another practice opportunity for all, the one student is likely embarrassed and may be reluctant to respond in the future. Chances are, if one student had difficulty with the word, others may have as well.

21. Provide Corrective Feedback
Provide corrective feedback on all errors.
If students’ errors are missed or inadequate corrections are made today, those errors will almost certainly be repeated tomorrow.
Teachers need to make sure all errors that students make are corrected. Don’t just pick and choose errors that you are going to correct.
If errors are left uncorrected, the student will assume the answer they gave is correct. They will then continue to repeat these errors which are then committed to memory.

22. Provide Corrective Feedback
Ensures student mastery
Decreases likelihood that the same error will be made again
Is given with appropriate tone and encouragement
Ends with students giving the correct response
In summary, by providing consistent error correction, teachers will ensure student mastery of new skills and strategies and decreases the likelihood the the same error will be continually repeated.
Knowing how to correct student errors is one of the more difficult teaching strategies, and should be done with the appropriate tone with encouragement for the correct response provided.
As you become more skilled in listening to your students’ responses and more aware of their performance, you will also become more skilled in anticipating where errors may occur and giving important and consistent feedback on learning. Keeping these key points in mind will ensure that your students are mastering skills and concepts at each step of your instruction.

23. 5. Ensure Students are Engaged During Independent Work
Establish and teach routines and procedures that encourage independence and on-task behavior
Align content with the lesson
Provide needed practice
Monitor student behavior
Reinforce appropriate behavior
Redirect inappropriate behavior
The fifth and final feature of instruction we will discuss in this module is ensuring students actively engaged and on task during independent work. We often ask students to perform practice activities during and after instruction. We need to make sure this independent time is used wisely and that
Establishing routines for independent work time is essential for students to be productive. Just as in teaching a new academic skill, the routines must be modeled and practiced. Teachers need to show students where materials are kept, where to place completed assignments, how to get help when needed, what to do when their assignment is completed, and what the procedures are for getting drinks of water, using the restrooms, and sharpening pencils. Physically demonstrating what these behaviors look like and don’t look like can be both powerful and entertaining. If these routines are not established and consistently reinforced, independent work time can become unproductive, disruptive and much time is wasted.
A key factor in keeping students engaged during independent work time is to be sure that the activities are aligned with the lesson content. When students are given work to complete on their own, but have not been taught the content to do so, it is logical that disruptions and off-task behavior may arise. Independent practice is a critical step in the learning cycle and provides the teacher with essential information about students’ mastery of skills. It is not a time for busy work or a time to have students try something brand new.

24. Activity 3 Putting It All Together
For a final activity, please download Activity 3 from this training module.
Follow the directions for completition of the activity.
This activity will take approximately 45 minutes to complete.