Single, N.A. (1991). Summary of research-based principles of effective teaching.  Update: Applications of Research in Music Education, 9 (2), 3-10.

 

SUMMARIZE:

Ø       (Introduction)

·         Research done with primarily elementary and junior high students; can be applied to any

·         Lost of examples, but not exhaustive; should provide enough info to extrapolate further thoughts

·         Teaching cycle – teacher presentation, student response, teacher feedback

Ø       Teacher Presentation

·         Classroom Rules and Signals

-          Three signals: attention, do it, response

-          Attention can be verbal or non-verbal

-          Do it signals a directive or response to a question

-          Response prompts the student(s) as to that/how they should respond

-          Time spent rehearsing these procedures followed by consistent, frequent use creates successful students

-          Starting each year with clearly set rules and procedures makes discipline much easier

-          Tips:

·         Start with general, move to specific

·         Make number of rules as small as possible

·         Remind students of rules all year

·         Be consistent

·         Follow through

·         Notice/compliment good behavior, too

·         Presenting Information and Instruction

-          Effective teachers present well structured content like this:

·         Begin with short review, brief statement of goals

·         Teach in small steps, with practice between each

·         Clear/detailed instructions and explanations

·         Lots of active practice

·         Ask lots of questions/check for understanding

·         Provide guidance/feedback/corrections

-          Don’t try to teach too much information at one time

-          Most directly applicable to general music/music theory classrooms, but can be similarly transferred to ensemble rehearsals, too, with some expected alterations

·         Clarity of Instruction

-          Includes structure and sequence and understandability of instruction

-          Common distracters from clarity:

·         Vagueness of terms (actually, might, usually, some, probably, etc.)

·         False starts, pauses in speech, and/or repetition

·         Discontinuity

·         Frequent use of “uh” or other verbalized pauses (usually joined with other distracters)

-          Audio/video taping can be very useful to find one’s flaws

·         Demonstration

-          Aural/visual demonstration very useful; demonstrate skill and explain principles/importance

-          Good/bad models can be effective, especially with discussion as to better of two and why

-          The more time spent on demonstration the better

-          Can be more/less applicable in some subject areas

·         Questioning

-          Can be difficult, but here are some suggestions

·         One question at a time, clear and applicable

·         Interwoven questions and explanations

·         Questions can seem to be simple, but actually require a specific response

¨       Preformulate – preface question to guide thinking to correct material

¨       Reformulate – making question slowly more specific to help correct wrong answers

·         Asking questions to guide students to correct response achieves the following:

¨       Enables lesson to proceed

¨       Helps students learn how to accomplish academic task

¨       Helping teachers assess students’ learning

·         Styles can be changed fairly easily and quickly, especially with tools like video/audio tape

-          Questioning is more often appropriate in music classroom settings, but can be used in a limited fashion in rehearsal settings

-          Types of Questions:

·         Higher/lower-order or open/closed

¨       Lower/closed questions are factual/knowledge-level

¨       Higher/open questions are synthesis, analysis, or application-level

¨       Question level should be appropriate to material, grade level, students’ preparedness

·         Lower-level questions should dominate, but higher-level are still very important

·         The teacher should demonstrate how to answer both lower- and higher-level questions

-          How many questions should be asked?

·         Lots

·         More efficient and beneficial to ask one question at a time

·         Not too many that receive wrong or no answers – keep them appropriate, or stop asking

·         Wait Time

-          Make sure to give students time to answer – time allows for better answers

-          Suggested to wait approximately 3 seconds before asking a student to answer

-          Of course, higher-level questions will often require a longer wait time

·         Guided Practice

-          Student work, in class, guided by the teacher, should follow these guidelines:

·         Amount of work/ratio of instruction to work will vary based on material and students

·         Purposes of guided practice:

¨       To guide initial practice

¨       To correct errors

¨       To reteach if necessary

¨       To provide practice for students to be able to practice independently

·         Principles of guided practice:

¨       Ask lots of questions

¨       Use prompts, initially, to help students get correct answers, then decrease prompts

¨       Check for understanding

¨       Provide feedback

¨       Correct errors

¨       Reteach as necessary

¨       Provide lots of successful repetitions

·         How to reduce student errors:

¨       Work in small increments

¨       Give explicit demonstration when feasible

¨       Alternate demonstration with questions to see how students are doing

¨       Give warning to particularly difficult areas

¨       Reteach when necessary

·         Checking for Student Understanding

-          Student understanding determines pace of teaching; reteaching may be necessary

-          Teacher must be wiling to examine his or her teaching if students are having difficulty

-          Some guidelines:

·         Prepare many oral questions

·         Call on all students – those who volunteer and those who don’t

·         Check to make sure – just because there are no questions doesn’t necessarily mean that all students understand

·         Have students summarize in the their own words the material

·         Following Instructions

-          Recognizing when students follow a direction increases their likeliness to do it again

-          Ability to understand and do more complex tasks increases with age, levels off at grade 4/5

Ø       Student Response

·         Providing opportunities to interact and respond improves achievement and further engagement

-          Suggested 80% success rate when learning, 95% when reviewing

-          Students should be sure who is to answer question(s) – whole class, individuals, etc.

-          High frequency in short time is with group responses (especially on very important material)

-          Four basic types of student responses:

·         Correct, quick, firm – short reply, then move on

·         Correct, but hesitant – “correct,” then brief re-explanation to reinforce correct answer

·         Incorrect, but careless – just correct student and move on

·         Incorrect de to lack of knowledge – provide with correct answer, or reteach material

Ø       Teacher Feedback

·         Approval/Disapproval

-          General guidelines:

·         Student behaviors met with approval will be repeated

·         Student behaviors met with disapproval will not be repeated

·         Ignoring will eliminate behavior if attention is reinforcer; if something else, then attention needs to be paid to the behavior

·         Should disapprove of inappropriate behavior, not approve – that encourages it

·         Disapprove of inappropriate behavior only when it won’t cause a worse byproduct

·         Attempt to have an 80% approval rate for their students’ behavior

·         Praise should be as soon after behavior as possible

·         Specific praise is much more effective than general “that’s better”-type responses

-          Forms of approval must be appropriate, based upon students’ age and maturity levels

·         Teacher Reaction to Student Response

-          Reactions that include enthusiasm for content and support the student are best

-          Teacher Reaction to Incorrect Student Response

·         Indicate incorrectness, but don’t attack student

·         Then, do one of these:

¨       Rephrase question or simplify question

¨       Give hints/prompts

¨       Reteach

¨       Provide correct answer and explanation

-          Teacher Reaction to No Response

·         Train students to give explicit response, even if “I don’t know”

·         If not, then ask “Do you know?”

·         Then follow above guidelines

 

DISCUSS:

Wow.  I learned a lot from this.  I really mean that.  I thought that it was going to be just some boring list of research results, and it would be fairly pointless.  On the other hand, this is a terrific, concise, handbook of sorts to teaching methods.  It truly answered some of my concerns about dealing with kids.  Through my experiences thus far in teaching or running rehearsals, I’ve experienced a lot of the things regarding the students that are dealt with in the report.  So it was very interesting and enlightening to read about suggested ways to approach or deal with certain situations, or even just how to instruct in general.  For example, I have a natural tendency to over-explain things or to talk on and on when telling a story.  I know that to be a problem already, but I had never thought about it in relation to teaching; this report showed me that I will need to tailor my responses, the length of my responses (and even actual teachings, at times), to the situation.  Sometimes that will call for not saying all that much, and that’s okay.  But I will have to get used to that.  I really intend to reference this report at times in the future (I have saved it to my hard drive).