Standards are often confused with Learning Objectives. Standards are the content and skills students need to know by the end of a school year. Learning Objectives are the content and skills students need to know by the end of a lesson.

Perhaps most importantly, a Learning Objective defines the purpose of the lesson, giving it direction from the very start. While it may appear to be a small part of the lesson, a well-written Learning Objective lays the foundation for a great lesson.

The Standards themselves typically can not be used as learning objectives because they often contain multiple objectives, concept definitions, examples, and context. Standards need to be broken down into teachable learning objectives.

Within a Learning Objective, we have a Skill, Concept, and (often) Context. The Skill of a Learning Objective is the measurable verb, or what the students will be doing. The Concept is the topic or big idea of the lesson, usually a noun. The Context is the restricting condition of the lesson and may not be present – or may be removed for brevity in lower grades. Focusing on these three components can be useful in decreasing the word count (and cognitive load) of the Learning Objective for students.

Standards provide at least one Learning Objective and may provide multiple Learning Objectives. Each Learning Objective is the purpose of the lesson. Learning Objectives will include Skill, Concept, and the Context.

To take the guesswork out of what to teach, DataWORKS crafted Learning Objectives that tell teachers what students should be able to do by the end of the lesson.

In John Hattie’s 2012 book, Visible Learning for Teachers, he makes the statement that Expert Teachers are different from Experienced Teachers – and he backs it up with some research. Let’s take a look at the differences and then point out ways to develop more expertise.

Hattie and colleagues put these two categories of teachers within the framework of inspired and passionate teaching. In fact, in building this culture of instructional excellence, Hattie says that all adults in the school should recognize: 1) that teachers are different in their impact; 2) that all are working toward having a positive effect on all students; and 3) all are vigilant about expert ways to develop student achievement. He makes the further point that if a school has passionate and inspired teachers then that should be their major promotional value. Thus, he shows that developing more Expert Teachers, not just Experienced Teachers, is fundamental to this school-wide goal.

1. “Expert teachers can identify the most important ways in which to represent the subject they teach.”

Hattie found that Expert and Experienced Teachers presented the same amount of content, but the Expert Teachers have a more integrated approach in organizing and using the content knowledge. This deeper understanding allows them to apply more strategies, predict student errors, and adapt to student responses in a more effective way.

2. “Expert teachers are proficient at creating an optimal classroom climate for learning.”

The key value in this type of classroom is trust, according to Hattie. This means that it’s okay for students to make errors because that’s the essence of learning. Students have to try out new concepts and adapt their thinking. They can’t be fearful of being belittled by their peers. Essentially, this kind of classroom emphasizes that learning is cool and everyone is involved in the process.

3. “Expert teachers monitor learning and provide feedback.”

These teachers are more able to “think on their feet.” By consistently monitoring the effect they are having on the students, they can be more flexible and improvisational with their lessons.

4. “Expert teachers believe that all students can reach the success criteria.”

Too often, teachers blame the home environment or other conditions for the students’ inability to learn. But the expert teacher, according to Hattie, believes all students can succeed. These teachers are involved with and respectful of their students. They feel responsible that their students learn, and this passion is apparent to their students.

5. “Expert teachers influence surface and deep student outcomes.”

Hattie says, “The fundamental quality of an expert teacher is the ability to have a positive influence on student outcomes.” Expert teachers expect their students to learn in many ways, to have respect for others, and to develop into active citizens. To do this, these teachers set challenging goals and engage students in reaching for these goals.

Hattie found that Expert Teachers offered the students more challenge and had a deeper grasp of the content. The surface-level achievement outcomes were about the same between Expert and Experienced Teachers, but the major difference was in the deeper understanding. He found that 74% of work samples in classrooms of expert teachers showed a deeper understanding, whereas only 29% did in Experienced Teacher classrooms. Students taught by Expert teachers had a better understanding of concepts and were able to think more coherently and abstractly.

Hattie also itemized some things that inspired Expert teachers do NOT do.

• They do not punish with grades
• They do not mix up behavior with academic progress.
• They do not value compliance to assignments.
• They do not have low expectations.
• They do not evaluate their impact by how much content is covered.
• They do not prefer homework success over risk-taking on an assignment.

Hattie’s conclusion is that “the ultimate requirement is for teachers to develop the skill of evaluating the effect that they have on their students.”

Dataworks’ Explicit Direct Instruction (EDI) approach to teaching offers teachers at least four ways to boost their expertise along the lines Hattie mentions.

1. Metacognitive Teaching.

Because EDI designs lessons around the seven components of effective teaching, teachers are able to know “why” they are teaching each part of the lesson. They know to start with an Objective, connect to prior knowledge with APK, bring out the Concept with bulletproof definitions and examples, use the Rule of Two for Skill Development and Guided Practice, explain the relevance of the lesson, and provide a closure before attempting independent practice or homework. This provides the deeper understanding that will influence the student to dig deeper.

2. Engagement.

EDI relies on eight engagement norms to create an interactive classroom experience. This sets consistent expectations for students to use the content and the academic language many times a day. It also gives teachers insight into students’ needs.

3. Checking for Understanding.

EDI uses the TAPPLE method of checking for understanding. This gives the teacher immediate feedback on whether students are learning or not. It helps the teacher monitor the learning in real-time and adjust the lesson as needed to better meet the needs of the students. Usually, higher-order questions are used for CFUs, and this enables the student to engage at a deeper, more abstract level.

4. Effective Feedback.

EDI offers 7 ways to give students feedback for incorrect answers. This ranges from cueing and prompting to de-escalation to explaining your thinking to pair-sharing. This in-class interaction with the content is critical for monitoring the effectiveness of teaching and expecting all students to progress. Another technique is calling on random students. This ensures that every student is considering the answer to the question; students are expected to engage with the academic content.

Designated and Integrated ELD – the Left and Right Hand of ELD Instruction

Since a high percentage of students in American schools these days are English learners, there has been an ongoing debate about how to meet their educational needs. One state, California, adopted its ELA/ELD Framework for instruction in 2014. It recommends a comprehensive approach to ELD instruction that involves two angles – Integrated ELD and Designated ELD.  These are the left and right hand of ELD instruction because you can’t have one without the other. Every school needs both because every EL student needs both.

The instructional differences between the two can be summarized in three areas: 1) Time, 2) Focus, and 3) Standards.

As you can see in the table, Integrated ELD is focused on content with language support, while Designated ELD is focused on language skills using content for examples. Also, the Designated ELD may have specially qualified teachers and may group the students by their language proficiency as Emerging, Expanding, or Bridging.

The Framework provides vignettes that make the difference between the two more clear. Here are a few examples by grade level:

ELD Instruction is no longer a matter of accommodating English learners in the content area class, and it’s no longer pulling them out into a special language class. The fastest way to bring English learners into full proficiency is to do both. We need to support them with the left hand and the right hand. That’s how we give them a helping hand!

For more information, view the California ELA/ELD Framework at http://www.cde.ca.gov/ci/rl/cf/
For more information on how Dataworks can help teachers make the most of both Integrated and Designated ELD instruction, check out the book Explicit Direct Instruction for English Learners, which offers 50 strategies that teachers can adopt in their teaching to make their delivery comprehensible.

In this article, we highlight 6 important things to know about ELD instruction. They include definitions, content covered for integrated ELD, EL instructional strategies, ELD proficiency levels, concepts covered for Designated ELD, and common problems in current ELD teaching. Download our powerful 19 pages special report today. See the report.

The English Learner Roadmap was adopted by the California State Board of Education in July 2017. It is a document that encompasses many needs of the English Learner. The Roadmap consists of 4 main principles, each of which forms a pivotal part of English Learner student life.

Pre-schools and schools are responsive to different EL strengths, needs, and identities, and support the socio-emotional health and development of English learners. Programs value and build upon the cultural and linguistic assets students bring to their education in a safe and affirming school climate. Educators value and build strong family, community, and school partnerships.

English learners engage in intellectually rich, developmentally appropriate learning experiences that foster high levels of English proficiency. These experiences integrate language development, literacy, and content learning as well as provide access for comprehension and participation through native language instruction and scaffolding. English learners have meaningful access to a full standards-based and relevant curriculum and the opportunity to develop proficiency in English and other languages

Each level of the school system (state, county, district, school, preschool) has leaders and educators who are knowledgeable of and responsive to the strengths and needs of English learners and their communities, and utilize valid assessment and other data systems that inform instruction and continuous improvement; resources and tiered support is provided to ensure strong programs and build the capacity of teachers and staff to build on the strengths and meet the needs of English learners.

English learners experience a coherent, articulated and aligned set of practices and pathways across grade levels and educational segments beginning with a strong foundation in early childhood and continuing through to reclassification, graduation, and higher education. These pathways foster the skills, language(s), literacy, and knowledge students need for college- and career-readiness and participation in a global, diverse multilingual 21st century world.

Of the four principles of the Roadmap, the one that every teacher can do immediately is Principle 2 – the part that focuses on Instruction. Principle 2 of the California EL Roadmap focuses on Intellectual Quality of Instruction and Meaningful Access.

English Learner Students have to do double duty. They have to learn the content as they learn language. English Learner Teachers have to do double duty as well. They have to prepare for both Integrated and Designated lessons.

Today’s teacher will often have a mainstream class, and often have to prep for the Designated time as well. Where is the time to include the many aspects of vocabulary in their instruction? How do teachers get their students to develop word-conscious behaviors, get actively involved with words, have multiple exposures to words, develop the ability to recognize and use words in context, and work with student-friendly definitions?

Our students can read effectively when they can understand at least 95% of the words they read. Teaching Academic, Content, and Support vocabulary through effective engagement strategies will maximize exposure and retention of the vocabulary.

Well, how do we do teach content and language with engagement? The California Roadmap does not actually help us with strategies. Rather, we do this by integrating vocab instruction with daily lessons. With a little bit of prep on this and proper delivery, we can easily help the students learn content along with the language.

This works amazingly well if we use well-written lessons delivered by effective first-time teaching. The pedagogy we recommend is Explicit Direct Instruction.

EDI is a Tier 1 instructional methodology that relies on specific teacher/student behaviors that ensure student learning, such as: consistent opportunities for student engagement through a single lesson; questioning techniques that scale up student engagement to higher-order thinking; repetitive use of academic and subject-specific vocabulary by both teachers and students; specific strategies for modeling and checking of understanding; and multiple opportunities to adjust instruction and provide corrective feedback.

Explicit Direct Instruction (EDI), an interactive teaching strategy developed by Ybarra and Hollingsworth, involves the use of specific lesson delivery and lesson design components. The goal is for teachers to develop automaticity with the teaching strategies so they can focus more on how students learn and guide them more efficiently. When done well, students learn more and learn faster with EDI.

One of the unseen qualities of EDI is that it turns teachers into supreme decision-makers, allowing for built-in differentiation for every lesson. When the content has a solid framework with EDI Lesson Design, then the teachers can really focus on the delivery – on how students are interacting with the content. This focus on the students compels the teacher to face an array of choice points in every lesson where decisions must be made to enhance the learning process.

1. Reduce the sub-skill difficulty.

When teachers determine that their students are missing some skills needed for the lesson on grade level, then they can structure the lesson to reduce the difficulty. For ELA, teachers can use easier-to-read passages that still maintain complex ideas. For example, for a lesson on central message or theme for 3rd grade, teachers could choose a passage with a Lexile of 450 instead of 725, but still focused on identifying central message or theme. For math, teachers could simplify the arithmetic. For example, a problem could be 10% of $20 rather than 12.5% of $23.

2. Bypass the sub-skill difficulty.

In designing the lesson, teachers could provide ways for students to do the lesson without facing the missing sub-skill. For an ELA lesson, they could provide a word bank or multiple choices for answers. For math, they could provide calculators or math facts tables.

3. Reinforce the sub-skill during the lesson.

Another approach is to practice or reinforce the sub-skill during the lesson. Teachers can choose to review pronouns before sentences, for example, or times tables before 3-digit multiplication. They can teach the content of a passage before reading it. It can also help to teach the vocabulary of a lesson within the context of the lesson.

4. Use more Cognitive Strategies.

To help students, teachers can add more rehearsal time in reading or pair-sharing. They can also give students opportunities to elaborate on their answers in a Checking for Understanding (CFU). Or, they can use graphic organizers to help students organize their thinking.

5. Use more Teaching Strategies.

Teachers should consciously think about how they are explaining a concept. They should explain their thinking at how they would arrive at the answer. They could also model the language, the thinking process, and the detailed steps they would use. Or, they could use physical props to demonstrate a concept.

6. Use more EL Strategies.

Ybarra and Hollingsworth have identified more than 50 strategies teachers can use to help English Learners. These are accommodations in making English easier to speak and ways to use English more during the lesson. These can range from enunciating more clearly to clarifying multiple meanings to using phonics rules.

7. Use more CFU Strategies.

To help students more, teachers can pair up advanced students with those who need more help, especially for pair-shares. Another idea is to always use sentence frames for CFU answers. This gives students words to structure their answers.

8. Change the Length of Time.

Another choice point for teachers is to change the length of time for different parts of a lesson. If students need more help or guidance, then the Concept Development or Skill Development sections can be lengthened by adding more examples, calling on more students, or even re-teaching. If students are quickly grasping a concept or skill, then the time can be shortened. There is no need to cover every example or problem if the students already get it.

9. Adjust Feedback after CFUs.

Teachers have to choose how to give effective feedback. EDI offers seven strategies for doing that after CFUs. These range from providing cues and prompts to de-escalating to a multiple-choice answer to pair-sharing again.

10. Embed Advanced Activities in Lessons.

If some of your students are more advanced or accelerated in general, or for this particular lesson, then teachers can add in some advanced activities during the lesson. For example, you could provide more complex problems or passages. These would challenge the students to dig deep and apply what they have learned so far. Another addition would be to have them create their own examples, problem, or reasons, or even recall aids to explain or elaborate on the skill.

11. Expand Checking for Understanding.

There are two ways that teachers can choose to expand the CFU process for accelerated students. First, you can ask the students to justify or interpret their answers, or even to clarify the question. This gets them to speak more, use the language, and set an example for others. Second, you can ask students to teach their partners in a pair-share by pointing to a problem or textual evidence that will be the answer.

12. Provide Enrichment Activities after teaching.

This is more for Independent Practice, but teachers can assign a range of advanced problems or more challenging reading passages for accelerated students. You can also assign lesson-related enrichment activities, such as short research projects, oral presentations, or a textual analysis or response.

13. Intervention for grade-level content.

For students who need extended help for some skills, teachers can choose three different options. First, you can have students practice with easier numbers or passages. Second, you can re-teach with in-class small groups. Or third, you can expand teaching time or run a parallel classroom.

14. Remediation for below-grade-level sub-skills.

In this case, you can develop the needed skills with clinics for math facts or reading that you can have the student participate in. You can also write a prescription for tutoring, if you have a tutoring operation available in the school or privately.

The bottom line is that teachers have to become so proficient in delivering the lesson that they can focus carefully on student needs and choose to differentiate in useful ways. Often, the determination of need is seen during the Checking for Understanding, and then the teacher chooses what to do. But sometimes, it’s before the lesson starts or after. Teachers need to be decision-makers and choose to make a difference in the lives of their students. After all, that’s what the job is all about!

John Hattie, a professor of education from Australia and New Zealand, published Visible Learning in 2009 (with additional books in 2012 and 2015).  The purpose of his research was to identify what works and what doesn’t in education in statistical terms.  It was a groundbreaking analysis because, for the first time, educational methods could be compared in terms of effectiveness.  The Times Educational Supplement called Hattie’s research “the holy grail of education.”

In reviewing Hattie’s descriptions of educational influences, Dataworks has found that Explicit Direct Instruction (EDI), which was developed by Hollingsworth and Ybarra as a collection of research-based teaching strategies for design and delivery of lessons, actually activates 18 of top 30 effects (out of 195 total). That means the EDI approach to education is a useful system for making learning visible, according to Hattie’s research.

Effect Size

Hattie analyzed 900+ meta-studies of educational programs and procedures, and came up with an “effect size” for each of 195 “influences” on learning (138 in 2009 and 150 in 2012).  The range is from 0 to 1.62, with the larger effect being more valuable. Hattie found that .40 was the “hinge point” of usefulness.

Hattie said, “There is no fixed recipe for ensuring that teaching has the maximum possible effect on student learning, and no set of principles apply to all learning for all students. But there are practices that we know are effective and many practices that we know are not.” He concluded that if teachers are using practices that have a less than .40 effect, then it “may mean that teachers need to modify or dramatically change their theories of action.”