The Rosenshine Principles

In 2018 United Learning adopted Rosenshine’s Principles of Instruction as the basis for our approach to teaching and learning across our schools. It’s the first time that we’ve taken a collective position on teaching and learning, rather than leaving this critical issue to each school. Our key focus remains the embedding of the principles.

We did this for the following reasons:

• Common understanding of the characteristics of effective teaching.
• Shared language for CPD.
• Consistency and coherence between United Teaching, subject support, primary/independent/academies, expert teacher programme.
• A framework that can be explored and adapted at subject level and school level.

It is also motivating for many teachers, as Sherrington (2019) articulates ‘…the [Rosenshine] paper, taken as a whole, sounds to many teachers like common sense. It’s an entirely recognisable set of ideas’. There are no gimmicks, no fads, nothing that seems implausible, nothing outlandish’ and ‘After having many years of having teaching defined by external powers, this feels like a grassroots document, allowing it to gain acceptance that cuts through teachers’ well-honed defence systems.’ Jon Coles has stated that we want all colleagues to feel confident to teach and not to have to follow the latest trend.

 

2.1: The Rosenshine Principles (as outlined in 2012 American Educator Paper)

It helps if all teachers read the whole 9-page PDF from the 2012 American Educator paper where the principles are most clearly set out (HERE).

The ten principles are outlined as:

1. Begin a lesson with a short review of previous learning: Daily review can strengthen previous learning and can lead to fluent recall.
2. Present new material using small steps: Only present small amounts of new material at any time, and then assist students as they practise this material.
3. Ask questions: Questions help students practise new information and connect new material to their prior learning.
4. Provide models: Providing students with models and worked examples can help students learn to solve problems faster.
5. Guide student practice: Successful teachers spent more time guiding the students’ practice of new material.
6. Check for student understanding: Checking for student understanding at each point can help students learn the material with fewer errors.
7. Obtain a high success rate: It is important for students to achieve a high success rate during classroom instruction.
8. Provide scaffolds for difficult tasks: The teacher provides students with temporary supports and scaffolds to assist them when they learn difficult tasks.
9. Require and monitor independent practice: Students need extensive, successful, independent practice in order in order for skills and knowledge to become automatic.
10. Engage students in weekly and monthly review: Students need to be involved in extensive practice in order to develop well-connected and automatic knowledge.

The principles do not seek to provide a checklist to be followed in order in every lesson. To be clear – we don’t check for understanding between point 5 (guide student practice) and point 7 (obtain a high success rate), we check for understanding throughout the whole process.

 

They can be summarised as:

• Prior Review
• Instructional Core (I>WE>YOU)
• Presentation and modelling of new material in small steps (I)
• Guided practice with prompts and scaffolds (WE)
• Independent practice with monitoring and feedback from teacher (YOU)

• At each of these points – every single one of them – we check the understanding of all pupils by asking lots of questions and providing correction and feedback.

We settled on the ‘I/We/You’ model as the clearest articulation of the ‘general pattern’ of teaching. We have emphasised the importance of engaging with the principles holistically rather than taking them one by one, or expecting to see all 10 in any given lesson.

We’ve also ensured that all of our curriculum materials support the principles and ‘I/We/You’, and the principles are a core text for the Expert Teacher Programme and United Teaching. We’ve integrated the principles into all the work we do so that teachers/heads/HoDs experience the principles from all angles. A key message to schools is that we’re committed to the principles for many years ahead.

 

2.2: Curriculum Implementation

Our approach to teaching and learning supports our curriculum by ensuring that lessons build on prior learning and provide sufficient opportunity for guided and independent practice. At the heart of Rosenshine’s principles is a simple instructional core of ‘I, We, You’.

At each point in this instructional core, teachers check understanding of all pupils by asking lots of questions and providing feedback. The Rosenshine principles support the implementation of the curriculum by ensuring that pupils regularly recall prior learning. You will see this at the start of our lessons. When prior learning is committed to long- term memory it becomes fluent or ‘automatic’, freeing space in our working memory which can then be used for comprehension, application, and problem solving.

This is also referred to in paragraphs 183 and 184 from the OFSTED Section 5 handbook, avialble HERE.

2.3: ‘Direct Instruction’ and Engelmann

‘Direct Instruction’ in United Learning

During the 2019-20 academic year, a number of UL academies have introduced Engelmann’s ‘Direct Instruction’ programmes in KS3, as part of an integrated strategy to help targeted Year 7 and 8 students reach age-related expectations in literacy and numeracy.

A Direct Instruction Training Hub for United Learning has been established. Please visit their dedicated website https://www.direct-instruction.co.uk/ for more information about Direct Instruction programmes and training/support offered.

 

What is ‘Direct Instruction?’

Detailed information on Direct Instruction is provided on the Direct Instruction Training Hub.

Further reading can be accessed:

• Naveen Rizvi, a UL Maths Curriculum Advisor, has written a number of blogs on DI HERE.
• Kris Boulton has compiled a list of further reading about Engelmann’s DI HERE.
• Tom Needham has written blogs about applying Engelmann’s ideas to the everyday classroom, available HERE.

A Brief Overview of ‘Direct Instruction’

There is ‘Direct Instruction’ (DI) and direct instruction (di). Rosenshine introduced di. Engelmann introduced ‘Direct Instruction’. Rosenshine used the term direct instruction(di) for a collection of variables that are significantly related to optimal learning. In a nutshell, DI is basically di but at the extreme end of the di spectrum!

DI is a model for instruction that emphasises well-developed, very carefully planned/scripted lessons, focussing on small learning steps with clearly defined and prescribed learning tasks. This model was developed by Engelmann in 1982. His theory is that clear instruction should eliminate misconceptions and will/could lead to more effective and efficient learning. In DI, no matter how complex the content to be learnt, there is a clear and direct relationship between every teacher action and student outcome.

Engelmann’s DI programme was the subject of one of the biggest and most famous education experiments in history, ‘Project Follow-Through’. The experiments studied over 200,000 children from kindergarten to grade 3 in the USA from 1968-77. The project compared the impact of different models of instruction and concluded that this programme produced the best outcomes for maths and reading, and that it has a positive impact on self-confidence too.