The Primacy/Recency Effect In a previous article, we discussed the method in which the brain processes new information, as well as how this can be leveraged to improve student achievement in the classroom. Today’s article will expand on this by examining how to maximize students’ retention of information by being aware of the ideal timing…
Mr. Smith, the principal, walks into teacher Ann Lassen’s fifth- grade classroom to observe the class. He sees Mrs. Lassen presenting information to the class. Sometimes she uses PowerPoint, sometimes a document camera, and sometimes she just talks. He sees the students actively engaged in discussing the lesson and practicing what they are learning. Afterwards,…
Making a Difference In my experience, there are three types of teachers walking on to campus for their first day of school this month and each has a distinctly different focus: Creating a Good Learning Environment Teacher A spent the last four weeks of summer vacation organizing and decorating her classroom. She sat in front…
Welcome to our weekly Ask DataWORKS blog where we focus on questions from our readers. We are regularly asked about Explicit Direct Instruction and the research behind it. So today, we are going to focus on Explicit Direct Instruction (EDI). There are many preconceptions out there about what EDI is and isn’t and we’d like…
Redefining Student Success When Rachel Tomlinson, headteacher of a primary school in Lancashire, England, sent out a letter  with her Year 6 students’ test results, she never expected all the attention it would generate. In it, she tells her students that they are far more than just a score on an exam.  Her powerful words…
As mentioned in Part 1, the National Education Technology Plan was announced in November 2010 by the U.S. Department of Education. It is a broad vision for where schools and districts can go in adopting technology for learning. In this post, we want to look more closely at three points referred to in the plan’s…
To teach Concept Development, present a written concept definition and then explain and elaborate on what the concept means using examples that illustrate the definition (critical attribute). The “Big Idea” here is to teach concept definitions by pointing back and forth between attributes (definitions, examples, and non-examples). We call this Work the Page. Work the…
Click the image to see an example of a Concept being taught. What is Concept Development? The Concept is the big idea or generalization contained in the Learning Objective. In Concept Development, you explicitly teach the students the concept, what it is, the generalization, the big idea. The Concept includes a written, bulletproof definition, along…
Narrower and Deeper Look at the two 5th grade assessment questions above. The first question is from a 2012 California Standards Test. The second question is from a 2014 Smarter Balanced Common Core assessment. In the first question, students only need to remember the formula for volume and complete the calculation. In the second question,…
Each state that has adopted Common Core State Standards will select an assessment consortium to assess how children are progressing in school. The two options most widely chosen at this point are: Smarter Balanced and PARCC. Each assessment consortium has provided practice test questions and today we will review one of these questions and discuss its potential impact on classroom instruction. Below…