Laying the Foundations
One teacher's journey
It's that time of year, the end of the school year, Christmas approaching, and on top of it all the students are getting swimming lessons. I get the joy of sitting on a hot pool deck watching the kids learn new skills. On the first day I turned to the graduate teacher next to me and said, "Watch how the swim teachers are breaking down each skill. They are phenomenal at it!" I started to observe closely too. .. Then I realised that they were following Rosenshine's Principles of Instruction. Photo by Brian Matangelo on Unsplash Rosenshine's Principles of InstructionThe Principles of Instruction were compiled by Barak Rosenshine. They are a series of research-based principles that draw on the realms of cognitive science, cognitive supports, and the practice of expert teachers. The resulting list of 10 principles helps teachers ensure that their students are able to learn material efficiently and effectively. Rosenshine's article on the Principles of Instruction can be found here. 1. Begin a lesson with a daily review.Swim teachers start every session by reviewing of what the kids already learnt. Last Friday they taught the students to call 000 in an emergency. The following Monday the very first question was, "What number do you call in an emergency?" In the first session the children were taught how to enter the pool safely, and you can rest assured that they have reviewed this in every single session since. Reviewing the prior learning is an essential step in checking whether or not our students have actually learnt it. If a student hasn't learnt it, then the teacher needs to teach it. This is why I start every session, whether it's Maths, Reading, Art or Science with a recap of what we've learnt in the previous lesson. 2. Present new material in small steps.Swim teachers are awesome at breaking new material into small steps. Need a survival stroke? That's "Chicken, Aeroplane, Soldier". Want to learn freestyle? "Kicky legs, blow bubbles, rainbow arms." Trying to dive under water? "Crocodile arms, hide your ears". When we teach skills we need to break them down into smaller steps. When a skill is broken down into smaller steps, it helps teachers to provide feedback on each element of the skill. Swim teachers are excellent at breaking a complex movements into isolated actions. This reminds me of how a solving a worded problem in Maths can be overwhelming. However, if we break the problem into small steps then all students can succeed. 3. Ask a large number of questions and check the responses of all students.My goodness, swim teachers ask a lot of questions! Within the first five minutes of the lesson I counted at least 50 questions. It was a fantastic back and forth where the instructor would say a brief fact and then ask a question to check that students had understood. How often are you asking students to respond? A brilliant reflection is to get someone to observe you and count how many questions you ask in a set time frame. The swim teacher asked a question every 10 seconds. This helps engage students. If you can't have someone observe, then record yourself and keep a tally. 4. Provide models.Swim teachers model exactly what they want their students to do. I am not quite sure how they manage to show what they need their kids to do underwater, but they've somehow worked out a way to do it! I think it has something to do with breaking the skills into small steps. This means that the instructor can use their arms to model what they want students to do with their arms. Then the instructor can use their arms to model what they need to achieve with their legs. We need to be able to show students not only what we want them to achieve, but also demonstrate how they can achieve it. When educators model to our students we are able to emphasise the process of learning, rather than just the outcome. 5. Guide student practice.Swim teachers guide their students very closely. They talk the kids through every step. There is a real closeness between a swim teacher and their students, as the instructor gently raises a chin to help a child float, or lifts their belly up. How closely are we guiding our students? Are we steering them through each step, or are we just telling them to get to the other side of the pool? Guiding our students intimately means that we can provide feedback so that they don't sink and are suitably challenged. 6. Check for student understanding.Swim teachers check to ensure that every kid has got it before moving on. If the students need more practice, then they get more practice. This makes sense because if they are not kicking well, then they won't kick well when you add arms into the mix! Likewise, it's essential that classroom teachers check their students understanding regularly. We should constantly be trying to find out which students have learnt new material and which ones haven't got it yet. 7. Obtain a high success rate.Do you know what they call it if a swim teacher doesn't get a high success rate? Drowning! Being subjected to a low success rate when you are learning to swim is traumatising. Swim teachers work hard to ensure that every child is learning and this leads to them having fun in the water. There is a lot said about the importance of enjoying learning. Learning is enjoyable if you have a high success rate. We need to make sure that every child is successful. This is another one to record. Film yourself teaching and make note of how many responses are correct. If students are getting it right at least 80% then you've got a high success rate. (Of course we don't expect students to get it right 100% of the time, either). 8. Provide scaffolds for difficult tasks.Swim teachers use plenty of scaffolds. Some of the obvious physical ones include kickboards, life vests, goggles, and pool noodles. The depth of the pool is another really clear scaffold: you don't get to go into deep water until you can actually swim! What scaffolds do you provide to ensure that the waters of your classroom is not too deep? Recently, I set my students a task in maths and very quickly I realised that I'd thrown them in the deep end. They were struggling, and not in a productive way. Fortunately, I realised that they were starting to drown and was able to stop the class and provide the scaffolds they needed. After breaking the problem up into smaller steps, the students were able to swim through it. 9. Require and monitor independent practice.Swim teachers seem to know just when to let their kids to do it themselves. The exhaustion from kids doing multiple laps of backstroke, freestyle and breaststroke speaks volumes for how much swim teachers want these skills to be automatic. We need to make sure our students also get the time that they need to practise skills until they have mastered them. And we need to monitor this independent practice, so that our students are learning what we intended them to learn. 10. Engage students in weekly and monthly review.A fortnight of swimming lessons wasn't really long enough for me to see how the swim teachers implement weekly of monthly reviews. For that I'd need to observe the squad sessions and I don't really like the idea of waking up at 5am just to write a blogpost... So I'll leave it to Troy (@TroyWood01) Think about this in terms of the foundational skills in maths, literacy, science, etc. Are you teaching these skills in manageable parts or a cumulative sequence? If you are then you will see the need to review them regularly. If what we teach is important, then we need to ensure our students learn and remember it. Not just at the end of today's lesson, but at the end of the week, month and year. Find out more about Rosenshine's Principles of InstructionHopefully I've given you an insight into how Rosenshine's Principles of Instruction provides a framework the we can use to ensure that we provide quality explicit instruction. All our students deserve to be taught in a way that empowers them to learn new skills. As educators, it is our role to reflect on how our practices best meets our students' needs. Explicit instruction is an effective and efficient way to cultivate student learning.
One excellent resource to learn more about the Principles of Instruction is Rosenshine's Principles in Action by Tom Sherrington. It's the perfect mix of easy-to-read, practical, informative and affordable!
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I'm JamesI am a father of two (8 & 5), married to a future Early Childhood Educator. Archives
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