The Case for Explicit, Teacher-Led, Cognitive Strategy Instruction By Barak Rosenshine

1. The Case for Explicit, Teacher-Led, Cognitive Strategy Instruction By Barak Rosenshine Presented at Annual Meeting of American Educational Research In Chicago in March, 1997

2. Submitted by Sandy Ferguson Feb. 2, 2010 EDN 515 – Curriculum for Leaders Dr. Marty Kozloff

3. Teacher Effects Research Vs. Cognitive Strategy Research

4. Teacher Effect Research Process: • Identify an expert teacher • Compare instructional procedures to novice teacher • What worked with expert teacher?

5. Downfall of Teacher Effects Research • Only identifies general procedures • Useful only if broken down into steps • Doesn’t apply to all learning

6. Cognitive Strategy Research Process: • Study and identify strategies experts use to solve problems/answer questions – then teach these strategies • Invention of concrete prompts (guides, heuristics) • Help students develop a strategy

7. Teaching Cognitive Strategies

8. Instructional Procedures Using Cognitive Strategies

9. Summarization of Results of Cognitive Studies in Reading • Cognitive Strategies taught in Reading • Summarization only (23 studies) • Question-generation only (17 studies) • Two or more strategies taught (16 studies) • Results examined on multiple choice tests (standardized), short answer and summarization tests (experimenter-developed comprehension tests) • Overall Results: Standardized tests: 50th percentile →80th percentile Comprehension tests: 50th percentile → 63rd percentile [Median Effect Size = average student in 50thpercentile in experimental group would have scored 80th percentile in control group]

10. Basal Readers & Cognitive Strategy • Over the last 15 years more cognitive strategies used in basal readers • Examined 3 basal readers • Open Court • Houghton-Mifflin • MacMillan/McGraw Hill

11. Changes Observed in Basal Readers • Open Court – modified to emphasize strategies in actual reading… • “sum up to check understanding as you read” • “ask questions to check your understanding as you read” • “determine what is unclear” • Sheets provided with prompts for “ask yourself” questions for setting goals, responding to text, checking understanding, clarification of important words and passages, and prompts applied to story

12. Changes Observed in Basal Readers • Houghton-Mifflin • Word webs for vocabulary • Concept charts for expository materials • Instructional support section – provision for teacher modeling, thinking aloud by teacher, checking for understanding, and independent practices • After cognitive strategies taught, applied to next story

13. Changes Observed in Basal Readers • MacMillan/McGraw Hill • Comprehension monitoring (fix-up) strategies (asking questions and rereading, applying concept of story elements to a narrative) • Consistently focused on applying strategies to basal stories

14. Future Instructional Research • More study of strategies experts use • Identifying concrete prompts that should be used • Most important scaffolds and instructional procedures to use for teaching cognitive strategies • How do strategies achieve their effects?

15. Criticisms of Cognitive Strategy Research Discovery Learning • Emphasizes learning by discovery and de-emphasizes instruction in cognitive strategies – “strategies better caught than taught” • Recycled 1918, 1950’s, 1970’s • Rosenshines’sresponse – “Show me the data!”