Rosenshine's Principles in Action

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Given that all three, very different areas of research supported and complimented Rosenshine’s principles, we can be more inclined to accept their validity.

High success rate – in questioning and practice – is important. Rosenshine suggests the optimum is 80%. ie – high! Not 95-100% (too easy). He even suggests 70% is too low… ( although, in my only quibble with the paper, I would be cautious about getting to worried about the precision here.) It has teacher-centred authenticity- it feels like Rosenshine knows what really goes on. The research is often based on linking classroom observations to student outcomes, and the examples given show a strong understanding of the real things teachers do. This criticism began almost as soon as the American Educator article was published. For example, education researcher Ian Beatty wrote in a blog in 2012 that the 10 principles “seem to make a frontal assault on a broad swath of ‘reformed’ teaching approaches”. In this paper, Rosenshine had, for the sake of clarity (I believe), simplified the list of principles, from a rather ominous 17 down to a more manageable and less intimidating 10.

Rosenshine, B (2010) “Principles of Instruction”, International Academy of Education, bit.ly/Ed_practices

This strategy aims to give those students who don’t know the answer or get an answer incorrect opportunities to learn from others in the class and to practise. It also avoids fostering the defensive habit of ‘I don’t know’. I urge you to read Rosenshine’s Principles of instruction paper and then look at one the topics you teach and see how you could map it using the 10 principles.Link abstract knowledge to experiential ‘tacit’ knowledge - e.g. hands on activities after the basic material has been introduced. Observations / visits / field work / demonstrations. These need adding in to curriculum sequencing. This blog by Mark Enser is a superb example of putting Rosenshine’s principles into practice – in this case, his subject is Geography. https://heathfieldteachshare.wordpress.com/2018/04/23/putting-theory-into-practice/ Discuss how they apply in the context of each subject area – they need to make sense in the context of the material the instruction relates to. However, there is also a responsibility on teaching and learning leads to be more cautious about what they dictate and how they interrogate their sources. Using Rosenshine’s 10 principles as an example, Louise Lewis, senior research lead and deputy curriculum lead for science at Beverley High School, told me how the translation of research should work.

So, in a wide ranging conversation, Tom and I discussed the following things, and plenty more besides:Strong words. And they’ve been echoed by many on social media since, who see Rosenshine as a Trojan Horse that is bringing a much more direct and traditional approach to teaching into schools. He has written about it at length on his blog ( teacherhead.com) and his recent short book; “ Rosenshine’s Principles in Action” takes Rosenshine’s already excellent paper and makes it even more accessible for today’s teachers. Essentially, the right way to use the 10 principles, or any other research, Lewis told me, is to consider them as one strand to inform the judgements of teachers, forming part of a wider view of teaching.

On the former, Sherrington thinks that trying to excavate all the evidence is asking a lot of teachers. They are time poor and they need to be able to trust that an academic is interpreting the research in a critical way on their behalf, he believes. I knew nothing. But now I know a lot. I know the story of how Rosenshine’s 10 principles of instruction came to be. I know that, though the principles have permeated education, from teacher training courses to head’s offices, and though they have come to be seen as a framework for the entirety of “good teaching”, their context - and their evidence base - is poorly understood.Because of these examples, academics are now working more closely with teachers to ensure that translation happens more cautiously and that misinterpretation is minimised. If Rosenshine was putting his principles together today, they would perhaps look quite different. Like all good Science, his theory has been subject to modification as new understandings were reached. Rosenshine’s 17 Principles of Effective Instruction Agree a focus on small number of the principles – perhaps one of the four strands I explore – with individuals committing to develop and practise them in a specific series of lessons. Since I have been using Rosenshine’s principles, I have found that less of my teaching time is wasted, my lessons have become more efficient and students have been making more progress. Objective: for students to feel safe offering answers of which they are unsure and not form a ‘habit of … “I don’t know” … as a get-out’.