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A Research-Backed Tool Kit of What Works—and Doesn’t Work—in Education

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A Research-Backed Tool Kit of What Works—and Doesn’t Work—in Education

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Education fads come and go, but how do they stack up against the more modest, everyday pedagogies that make up the bulk of a teacher’s repertoire?

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A Research-Backed Tool Kit of What Works—and Doesn’t Work—in Education

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A large-scale analysis of over 2,500 studies separates the wheat from the chaff, highlighting what works, and what’s suspect, in the field of education.

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Series of short videos that break down effective classroom practices for every grade level in literally one minute—all in one place

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Edutopia is a free source of information, inspiration, and practical strategies for learning and teaching in preK-12 education. We are published by the George Lucas Educational Foundation, a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization.

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Use our student-centered teaching strategies to strengthen your students’ literacy skills, nurture critical thinking, and build a respectful and collaborative classroom community.

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Find compelling classroom resources, learn new teaching methods, meet standards, and make a difference in the lives of your students.

We are grateful to The Hammer Family Foundation for supporting the development of our on-demand learning and teaching resources.

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Find compelling classroom resources, learn new teaching methods, meet standards, and make a difference in the lives of your students. We are grateful to The Hammer Family Foundation for supporting the development of our on-demand learning and teaching resources.

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252 Influences And Effect Sizes Related To Student Achievement

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252 Influences And Effect Sizes Related To Student Achievement

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John Hattie developed a way of synthesizing various influences in different meta-analyses according to their effect size (Cohen's d). In his ground-breaking study "Visible Learning" he ranked 138 influences that are related to learning outcomes from very positive effects to very negative effects. Hattie found that the average effect size of all the interventions he studied was 0.40. Therefore he decided to judge the success of influences relative to this 'hinge point', in order to find an answer to the question "What works best in education?"
Originally, Hattie studied six areas that contribute to learning: the student, the home, the school, the curricula, the teacher, and teaching and learning approaches. (The updated list also includes the classroom.) But Hattie did not only provide a list of the relative effects of different influences on student achievement. He also tells the story underlying the data. He found that the key to making a difference was making teaching and learning visible. He further explained this story in his book " Visible learning for teachers ".

John Hattie updated his list of 138 effects to 150 effects in Visible Learning for Teachers (2011), and more recently to a list of 195 effects in The Applicability of Visible Learning to Higher Education (2015). His research is now based on nearly 1200 meta-analyses - up from the 800 when Visible Learning came out in 2009. According to Hattie the story underlying the data has hardly changed over time even though some effect sizes were updated and we have some new entries at the top, at the middle, and at the end of the list.

Below you can find an updated version of our first, second and third visualization of effect sizes related to student achievement.
Order VL for Teachers!

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Hattie effect size list - 256 Influences Related To Achievement

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Hattie's updated effect size list of 256 influences across all areas related to student achievement.

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32 Research-Based Instructional Strategies

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32 Research-Based Instructional Strategies

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by TeachThought Staff

You want to teach with what's been proven to work. That makes sense.

In the 'data era' of education that's mean research-based instructional strategies to drive data-based teaching, and while there's a lot to consider here we'd love to explore more deeply, for now we're just going to take a look at the instructional strategies themselves.

A post is not the best way to share this kind of information, honestly. A video for each one might be better, so maybe a YouTube channel? Or a book, as Hattie and Marzano and others have done. Professional development may also work-take 12 strategies or so and work with teachers to integrate them into different kinds of lessons may be useful. (See Hattie's Index Of Effect Sizes.)

But upside to sharing this information as a post is that it can act a starting point to research the above, which is why we've tried to include links, related content, and suggested reading for many of the strategies, and are trying to add citations for all of them that reference the original study that demonstrated that strategy's effectiveness. (This is an ongoing process.)

How should you use a list like this? In 6 Questions Hattie Didn't Ask, Terry Heick wondered the same.

"In lieu of any problems, this much data has to be useful. Right? Maybe. But it might be that so much effort is required to localize and recalibrate it a specific context, that's it's just not-especially when it keeps schools and districts from becoming 'researchers' on their own terms, leaning instead on Hattie's list. Imagine 'PDs' where this book has been tossed down in the middle of every table in the library and teachers are told to 'come up with lessons' that use those strategies that appear in the 'top 10.' Then, on walk-throughs for the next month, teachers are constantly asked about 'reciprocal teaching' (.74 ES after all). If you consider the analogy of a restaurant, Hattie's book is like a big book of cooking practices that have been shown to be effective within certain contexts: Use of Microwave (.11 ES) Chefs Academic Training (.23 ES), Use of Fresh Ingredients (.98). The problem is, without the macro-picture of instructional design, they are simply contextual-less, singular items."

In short, these instructional strategies have been demonstrated to, in at least one study, be 'effective.' As implied above, it's not that simple-and it doesn't mean it will work well in your next lesson. But as a place to begin taking a closer look at what seems to work-and more importantly how and why it works-feel free to begin your exploring with the list below.

32 Research-Based Instructional Strategies For Teachers

1. Setting Objectives

2. Reinforcing Effort/Providing Recognition

3. Cooperative Learning

4. Cues, Questions & Advance Organizers

5. Nonlinguistic Representations (see Teaching With Analogies)

6. Summarizing & Note Taking

7. Identifying Similarities and Differences

8. Generating & Testing Hypotheses

9. Instructional Planning Using the Nine Categories of Strategies

10. Rewards based on a specific performance standard (Wiersma 1992)

11. Homework for later grades (Ross 1998) with minimal parental involvement (Balli 1998) with a clear purpose (Foyle 1985)

12. Direct Instruction

13. Scaffolding Instruction

14. Provide opportunities for student practice

15. Individualized Instruction

16. Inquiry-Based Teaching (see 20 Questions To Guide Inquiry-Based Learning)

17. Concept Mapping

18. Reciprocal Teaching

19. Promoting student metacognition (see 5o Questions That Promote Metacognition In Students)

20. Developing high expectations for each student

21. Providing clear and effective learning feedback (see 13 Concrete Examples Of Effective Learning Feedback)

22. Teacher clarity (learning goals, expectations, content delivery, assessment results, etc.)

23. Setting goals or objectives (Lipset & Wilson 1993)

24. Consistent, 'low-threat' assessment (Bangert-Drowns, Kulik, & Kulik 1991; Fuchs & Fuchs 1986)

25. Higher-level questioning (Redfield & Rousseau 1981) (see Questions Stems For Higher Level Discussion)

26. Learning feedback that is detailed and specific (Hattie & Temperly 2007)

27. The Directed Reading-Thinking Activity (Stauffer 1969)

28. Question-Answer Relationship (QAR) (Raphael 1982)

29. KWL Chart (Ogle 1986)

30. Comparison Matrix (Marzano 2001)

31. Anticipation Guides (Buehl 2001)

32. Response Notebooks (Readence, Moore, Rickelman, 2002)

Sources: Marzano Research; Visible Learning; http://www.sde.ct.gov/sde/lib/sde/pdf/curriculum/section7.pdf ; 32 Research-Based Instructional Strategies

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32 Research-Based Instructional Strategies -

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by TeachThought Staff You want to teach with what's been proven to work. That makes sense. In the 'data era' of education that's mean research-based instructional strategies to drive data-based teaching, and while there's a lot to consider here we'd love to explore more deeply, for now we're just going to take a look at the instructional strategies themselves.

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The 5W Cube is a portable strategy to target open-ended questions (beginning with who, what, when, where, why, and how) as a means of exploring content and conversational speech. The 5W Cube helps students formulate questions and foster meaningful connections with content. The 5W Cube is a general strategy...

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How Do You Know When A Teaching Strategy Is Most Effective?

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How Do You Know When A Teaching Strategy Is Most Effective?

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"In fact, if we can increase their sense of love of learning, the thrill, we can increase their sense of self," Hattie said. In other words, skill, will and thrill, the three inputs students all have, sometimes work in harmony, but even when that doesn't happen each aspect of a student is worth developing individually, too.

THE LEARNING MODEL

Hattie and Donoghue have tried to take everything they have learned through meta analyses to understand why some strategies that educators swear by, like project-based learning, have low effect sizes in the literature. In their paper and discussions of this proposed model it can seem like a linear progression of learning, but Hattie takes pains to point out that this model is only a conjecture and that the processes he's describing could be happening in cycles within one learning experience. The Science of Learning paper aims to propose the model, but also points out many ways that some of its claims could be further studied.

For Hattie, most learning rests on student understanding of the success criteria for a learning task. Hattie calls this a "prelearning phase" because if students don't understand what it will take to be successful, they often act blindly and without motivation. He says that students who are taught the success criteria are more strategic in their choice of learning strategies, and thus more likely to encounter the thrill of success that will lead to reinvestment in learning.

"Too often students may know the learning intention, but do not [know] how the teacher is going to judge their performance, or how the teacher knows when or whether students have been successful," Hattie and Donoghue write in their article. When students understand how they will be evaluated they can also self-evaluate more effectively, a metacognitive skill that can help students become more independent learners.

How students gain initial content knowledge that they can then manipulate has long been a discussion among educators. Some argue students need to learn basic information before they can begin to use it. Others say students will learn information when it is critical to a problem or project they are trying to understand.

The Hattie/Donoghue learning model dives into that discussion, describing learning strategies that work best at the surface level, and those that help consolidate surface learning, as well as those that develop deep learning and work to consolidate deep learning. Lastly, Hattie and Donoghue deal with the idea of transfer, which broadly means being able to identify similarities and differences between problems and effectively apply previous learning to new situations.

The authors describe surface learning as "studying without much reflecting on either purpose or strategy, learning many ideas without necessarily relating them and memorizing facts and procedures routinely." They say deep learning is characterized by "seeking meaning, relating and extending ideas, looking for patterns and underlying principles, checking evidence and relating it to conclusions, examining arguments cautiously and critically, and becoming actively interested in course content." They don't privilege one kind of learning over the other, but rather say surface and deep learning work together.

When students are acquiring their first knowledge about a topic, there are some learning strategies that seem to work regardless of the content area. Organizing, outlining and summarizing information can help students master surface level content. But Hattie says to consolidate that initial learning, "effort and deliberate practice is critical." At this stage overlearning strategies like practice tests, giving and receiving feedback, and spacing practice out over time are especially helpful. To make consolidation worthwhile the authors stress that practice cannot just be "drill and practice," but instead must change based on feedback. The point of consolidation is to move the surface knowledge to long-term memory, where it is readily available for future use.

"If you're doing this phase just to pass the test, the surface phase, then it's not very effective," Hattie said. "The whole point of overlearning is to go to the deep learning."

When it comes to acquiring deeper learning, "a major purpose is for the student to deliberately activate prior knowledge and then make relations and extensions beyond what they have learned at the surface phase." Elaboration, strategy monitoring and metacognitive strategies all have strong effect sizes at this stage and enhance learning. Consolidation of deep learning is when working with others becomes the most powerful, according to this model. Listening to others in discussion and finding ways to connect and extend knowledge are practices that help students realize what they don't know. Self-questioning and verbalizing, as well as seeking help, are also effective strategies to consolidate deeper learning.

But ultimately most teachers and parents want students to learn information and skills so that they can use them in school and life beyond the specific instance when they were taught. The process of transferring knowledge has not been as well studied as other areas, but Hattie said that learning to detect similarities and differences is a key part of making it happen.

"After a task, the skill seems to be stopping the student rushing into solving a new problem [by] first asking them to elaborate on the similarities and differences of the two problems (the old and new)," Hattie wrote in an email. "Being more aware of the task constraints/ differences is the key to being successful in transfer." Much of Hattie's thinking on transfer is influenced by research done by Ference Marton, whose work is largely qualitative.

Interestingly, the only strategy that seemed to work in all four quadrants (acquiring surface, consolidating surface, acquiring deep, consolidating deep) was the jigsaw activity, which had a large effect size. In a jigsaw activity students are reading new information, discussing it with others who have read the same thing to extend their understanding, and then moving to new groups where they teach peers about what they read and learn new information from group members.
LEARNING IN CONTEXT
Hattie also emphasizes that all of the learning strategies, other than a few surface strategies like outlining, should be taught in the context of content, especially because some may look different depending on the subject area. He's also aware that the key to this model of learning is to know when to apply each strategy and how to help students develop that understanding as well. While in general Hattie believes that students need to know some information before they can do anything with it, indicating a progression from surface knowledge to deeper understanding and finally to transfer, he admits that "these are fuzzy distinctions" and there is often "much overlap in various phases."

For example, when a student is doing a project on a topic of interest, and thus extending knowledge deeper, he may encounter an aspect that he knew nothing about, at which time he may need to gain a surface understanding of that smaller topic in order to continue the project. In other words, the phases Hattie has laid out often overlap and cycle back on one another and should not be taken as a linear process.

Far from being a recipe for the "most effective" teaching strategies, this model of learning relies on teachers' professionalism. When teachers can identify where in the learning cycle a student is and suggest some strategies that might work well at that point, she can have a bigger impact. Hattie also advocates talking to students about the stages of learning so kids can begin to use the language and recognize the strategies that work for where they are. Too often students continue to use ineffective strategies because they don't know others or aren't aware that the ones they are using aren't the most effective.

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How Do You Know When A Teaching Strategy Is Most Effective? John Hattie Has An Idea | KQED

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"In fact, if we can increase their sense of love of learning, the thrill, we can increase their sense of self," Hattie said. In other words, skill, will and thrill, the three inputs students all have, sometimes work in harmony, but even when that doesn't happen each aspect of a student is worth developing individually, too.

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A Simplified Approach To Reciprocal Teaching

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A Simplified Approach To Reciprocal Teaching

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If you have tried to implement reciprocal teaching in the past and vowed to never try it again, this is for you! I streamlined the entire process from beginning to end, and I have even included a template for students to complete while working in groups, making everything that much easier. The reciprocal teaching method is listed below from start to finish. I begin with a brief description of the strategy. Then I jump right into explaining an efficient process for implementing reciprocal teaching in your classroom.

What is Reciprocal Teaching?

Reciprocal teaching is a collaborative strategy for improving reading comprehension. It encourages students to think critically about a text using four different reading comprehension strategies. Ideally, students will learn valuable tools that they can then begin to apply when reading independently. Reciprocal teaching also gives students a chance to work cooperatively, providing them with an opportunity to strengthen their communication skills.

Identify the text or section of text you want students to analyze, and read it together as a class. When you are finished reading, let students know that they will be put into groups of four, and each group member will be responsible for a specific task. This is a great time to pass out the reciprocal teaching guided worksheet- you can download it for free below. Next, explain each reciprocal teaching role by walking students through the guided worksheet. Part one of the worksheet will be completed independently, and part two will be completed collaboratively. The questioner is responsible for formulating two questions based on the text. The clarifier must find two unknown words or ideas in the text. The summarizer draws a picture that represents the main idea of the text. Finally, the predictor is responsible for predicting what might happen if the text were to continue.

Break students into groups of four, and assign roles to each group member. Each group member should have a copy of the text and the reciprocal teaching guided worksheet. At this point, the students should have their name, date, and role filled in on the top of the guided worksheet. Remind students to only complete part one of the worksheet, and that it is to be completed independently (no talking). Setting a timer for ten to fifteen minutes works well for this portion of the activity.

It is now time to move on to the collaborative portion of the lesson, which should take about thirty minutes depending on the abilities of your students. Resetting the timer will help to keep students focused and on task. Groups will start with the questioner box. The questioner will read the two questions he/she came up with for part one. The rest of the group will record the questions. Next, the group will work together to answer the questions. Answers to the questions should be written in part two of the questioner box. After completing the questioner box, groups move on to the clarifier portion. The clarifier states the two unknown words or ideas he/she came up with to complete part one. The rest of the group records those words/ideas on their own paper. The group then works together to define or explain the unknown words/ideas, recording the answers in part two of the clarifier box. A dictionary may be provided to groups that have a hard time defining words using context. Third, the summarizer shows the group the picture he/she drew to represent the main idea of the text. The rest of the group will draw a similar picture on their paper. Working together, the group will then complete part two of the summarizer portion by writing a two or three sentence summary on the lines provided. Last, the predictor reveals his or her predication if the text were to continue. The groups members record the prediction on their own papers. Then the group works together to find clues or evidence in the text that support the prediction. Groups are finished when the entire guided worksheet is completed.

Done! Hopefully, this streamlined process for implementing reciprocal teaching is something you will continue to utilize for different texts throughout the year.

Click Below to Download the FREE Reciprocal Teaching Guided Worksheet

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A Simplified Approach To Reciprocal Teaching | Literacy in Focus | A Blog For Teachers

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If you have tried to implement reciprocal teaching in the past and vowed to never try it again, this is for you! I streamlined the entire process from beginning to end, and I have even included a template for students to complete while working in groups, making everything that much easier.

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28 Student-Centered Instructional Strategies – TeachThought

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28 Student-Centered Instructional Strategies – TeachThought

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28 Student-Centered Instructional Strategies – TeachThought

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Executed well, student-centered instructional methods can disarm some of the more intimidating parts of academia.

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15 Tips to Align Your Teaching With Brain Science

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A comprehensive guide to applying the latest insight from neuroscience, psychology, and cognitive science to improve your instruction.