Instructional Best Practices

John Hattie: The 6 super factors were:

Teacher estimates of achievement (d = 1.62). Sadly, this reflects the accuracy of teachers’ knowledge of students in their classes, not “teacher expectations”, so this is not a factor teachers can use to boost student achievement.
Collective teacher efficacy (d = 1.57). This is a factor that can be manipulated at a whole school level. It involves helping all teachers on the staff to understand that the way they go about their work has a significant impact on student results – for better or worse. Simultaneously, it involves stopping them from using other factors (e.g. home life, socio-economic status, motivation) as an excuse for poor progress. Yes, these factors hinder learning, but a great teacher will always try to make a difference despite this, and they often succeed.
Self-reported grades (d = 1.33). Again, this is a factor that teachers can’t use to boost student achievement. It simply reflects the fact that students are pretty good at knowing what grade they will get on their report card before they read it.
Piagetian levels (d = 1.28). This is the third super factor that teachers can do nothing about. It simply means that students who were assessed as being at a higher Piagetian level than other students do better at school. The research does not suggest that trying to boost students’ Piagetian levels has any effect.
Conceptual change programs (d = 1.16). This is a promising one. The research refers to the type of textbook used by secondary science students. Some textbooks simply introduce new concepts. Yet, students have already formed their own understanding of the world around them, often including many misconceptions. These misconceptions can hinder deeper levels of learning. Conceptual change textbooks introduce concepts and at the same time discuss relevant and common misconceptions. While the current research is limited to science textbooks in secondary school, it is reasonable to predict that when teachers apply this same idea to introduce any new concept in their classroom, it could have a similar impact.
Response to Intervention (d = 1.07). This is a structured program designed to help at-risk students make enough progress and ideally achieve comparable results to their peers. There is plenty of commercial literature and material to help schools use RTI, but basically, it involves screening students to see who is at risk, deciding whether supporting intervention will be given in class or out of class, using research-based teaching strategies within the chosen intervention setting, closely monitoring the progress, and adjusting the strategies being used when enough progress is not being made. While the program is designed for at-risk students, the principles behind it are the same advocated by John Hattie as being applicable for all students. Note – Response to Intervention (RTI) is increasingly being referred to as Multi-Tier System of Supports (MTSS). The two terms mean the same thing.

Effect Size greater than 0.4 effects student achievement
How to develop high expectations for each teacher (Note: Hattie contends teachers must stop over-emphasizing ability and start emphasizing progress—steep learning curves are the RIGHT of ALL students regardless of where they start. Be prepared to be surprised!)	0.43	Studies included effects related to the notion of self-fulfilling prophecy—teachers are more likely to have their students reach their expected outcomes regardless of the “veracity” of the outcomes. Studies in this meta-analysis also show students know they are treated differentially in the classroom due to expectations by teachers for certain students to take AP courses, for example, or others to pursue technical fields.
Professional development on student achievement	0.51	Research re: PD seems to focus more on changes in teachers rather than impact on student outcomes. PD likely to change teacher learning but has less effect on teacher behavior. PD in science has highest effects on student outcomes (0.94) then writing (0.88). Seven themes re: what works best in PD were advocated as a result of 72 studies.
Home environment	0.52	Includes measures of the socio-psychological environment and intellectual stimulation in the home. Most highly correlated factors with achievement were maternal involvement, variety and play materials.
Peer influences on achievement	0.53	Studies include a variety of influences: peer tutoring, helping, friendship, and giving feedback. Studies examining what happens when a student moves schools show single greatest predictor of subsequent success is whether student makes friend in first month.
Phonics instruction	0.54	Teaching students the alphabetic code. Designed for beginners in early elementary.
Providing worked examples	0.57	Typically consist of a problem statement and the appropriate steps to a solution. Three steps: introductory phase, acquisition/training phase, test phase (assess learning). Reduces cognitive load for students such that they concentrate on the processes that lead to the correct answer and not just providing an answer.
Cooperative vs individualistic learning	0.59	Most powerful when students have acquired sufficient background knowledge to be involved in discussion and learning w/peers. Most useful when learning concepts, verbal problem-solving, spatial problem-solving, retention and memory. Effects increase with age.
Direct instruction	0.59	Not to be confused with didactic teacher-led talking from the front. Refers to 7 major steps: Teacher specifies learning outcomes/intentions Teacher knows and communicates success criteria Builds commitment and engagement in learning task (the hook) Lesson design: input, model, check for understanding Guided practice Closure Independent practice Speaks to power of stating learning intentions/outcomes and communicating standards for performance and then engaging students in getting there. Effects were found to be similar for regular education and special education—i.e. direct instruction is effective for all.
Concept mapping	0.60	Involves development of graphical representations of the conceptual structure of content to be learned. Importance of concept mapping is in its emphasis on summarizing main ideas in what is to be learned. Assists in synthesizing and identifying major ideas, themes, and interrelationships.
Comprehension programs (Interesting note: Hattie did not find a 4^th grade reading slump, just no growth or increase during upper elementary years. Several possible reasons for plateau: most curricula does not attend to reading progressions, lack of building upon learning to read once students have learned to read, and possibly perceived “unimportant” reading difficulties appear for the first time in Grade 5 when students encounter information materials and multiple text types requiring more inference and comprehension.	0.60	Comprehension programs with dominant focus on processing strategies (e.g. inferential reasoning, rules for summarizing, and chunking texts) produced higher effect than did text programs (e.g. repetition of concepts and explicitness) and task programs.
Teaching learning strategies	0.62	Teaching kids how to learn and developing students’ strategies for learning. Need to provide students with learning strategies in the context of learning, a chance to practice, and assurance that the strategies are effective. Need to understand intention to use, consistency in appropriate use ,and knowing when chosen strategy is effective—learning to learn or self-regulation.
Teaching study skills	0.63	To get to deeper levels of understanding and effectiveness, combine study skills instruction with the content.
Vocabulary programs	0.67	Students who experienced vocabulary instruction experienced major improvements in reading comprehension and overall reading skills. Most effective vocabulary instruction included providing both definitional and contextual information, involved students in deeper processing, and gave students more than 1 or 2 exposures to the word to be learned.
How to accelerate learning (e.g. skipping a year)	0.68	Other forms of acceleration include compacting curriculum, telescoping curriculum, and advanced placement. No negative social effects for accelerated students were supported by the research. Effect size for 2 meta-analyses and 37 studies regarding all forms of acceleration was 0.88.
How to better teach meta-cognitive strategies	0.69	Meta-cognitive strategies refer to those “thinking about thinking” strategies: planning how to approach a learning task, evaluating progress, and monitoring comprehension. Self-questioning is another meta-cognitive strategy.
Teacher-student relationships	0.72	Interestingly, “when students, parents, teachers and principals were asked about what influences student achievement, all BUT the teachers emphasized the relationships between the teachers and the students.” “Building relationships implies agency, efficacy, respect by the teacher for what the student brings to the class (from home, culture, and peers) and recognition of the life of the student.”
Reciprocal teaching	0.74	Teaching cognitive strategies intended to lead to improved learning outcomes. Emphasis on teachers enabling students to learn and use strategies such as summarizing, questioning, clarifying, and predicting. Dialogue between teacher and students around text. Students take turns as teacher and lead dialogue to bring meaning to written word with assistance to learn to monitor their own learning and thinking.
How to provide better feedback	0.75	Among most powerful of influences, especially when it is from the student to the teacher. If the teacher is open to feedback regarding what students know and understand, where they make errors, when they have misconceptions, and when they are disengaged, then they can respond accordingly. Feedback is about providing information about the task performance. Effect sizes from these studies show considerable variability, meaning some forms of feedback are more powerful than others. Least effective: programmed instruction, praise, punishment, and extrinsic rewards. Feedback is more effective when it provides information on correct rather than incorrect responses and when it builds on changes from previous trials.
Providing formative evaluation to teachers	0.90	Refers to teachers attending to what is happening for each student in their classrooms as a result of their instruction—when teachers ask, “How am I doing?” Highest effects when teachers seek evidence on where students are not doing well.
Teacher credibility in the eyes of the students (Note: This link is to an interesting article on credibility and how to build it: http://bit.ly/WRZ5iA)	0.90	“If a teacher is not perceived as credible, the students just turn off. If a student doesn’t get (the value of education) by the age of 8, they are behind for most of the rest of their school life. Students are very perceptive about knowing which teachers can make a difference to their learning. And teachers who command this credibility are most likely to make the difference.”
How to develop high expectations for each student	1.44	Refers to students’ expectations for and beliefs in themselves. Involves students predicting or self-reporting their grades. Implications: teachers need to provide opportunities for students to be involved in predicting their performance. “Making the learning intentions and success criteria transparent, having high, but appropriate, expectations, and providing feedback at the appropriate levels is critical to building confidence in taking on challenging tasks.”