Staff development for teaching basic skills

Barak Rosenshine University of Illinois Linda Meyers University of Oregon Eugene, Oregon Staff development for teaching basic skills, particularly for less academically inclined children, has not been particularly effective. Inservice training trends to be spotty, a day here and an inspirational speaker there, with little specific practice, feedback, and follow-up in the classroom. That training which is specific has tended to deal with unrelated skills; clarity, enthusiasm, asking higher order questions, individualizing, management, which have not been blended into a whole. Emerging from recent research on instruction, however, is an instructional model which has tentatively been labeled direct instruction. This model contains general principles which can form the basis for inservice teacher training in teaching basic skills. This paper attempts to describe this general model and some of the teacher training procedures which have already taken place using this model. The model is derived from recent correlational studies on reading and mathematics instruction in the elementary grades (for reviews, see Rosenshine, 1976; Medley, 1977). The results of correlational and experimental studies published after these reviews were completed were consistent with the results cited by these reviewers. Note the cautions, however. The research on which this model is based is limited to teaching of reading and math in elementary grades. It is inappropriate to generalize beyond this. But it is also inappropriate to label these skills as rote. If reading comprehension and math problem solving were merely a matter of rote training, then our efforts would have long since raised achievement levels for less academically inclined students. In broad outlines, the model is fairly simple. For students to make reasonable progress in reading and math one needs: a) instructional settings which maximize student engagement b) a procedure for teaching new material in small steps c) a method for correcting student errors d) procedures for active student practice e) procedures for recycling students through the new material until they achieve mastery f) monitoring daily work of each student g) obtaining student attention and active student practice h) methods for monitoring weekly and monthly progress i) sufficient time

CLARITY · Comprehension · Cooperative learning · Enthusiasm · Mathematics education · Pedagogy · Reading (process · Reading comprehension · Rote learning · Teaching method · Computer Science · Education and Technology Integration · Education Systems and Policy · Psychology · Reading and Literacy Development

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