Preparing for a dinner, holiday, or even a potluck event has many of us search the internet, cookbooks, or cooking magazines for the perfect recipe that will wow the guests. However, during the search, there may be dozens of recipes for the same item, and each has varying ingredients, cooking methods, and serving sizes. As cooks, we rarely give a second thought when adding a little of this or that, finding a substitute for an ingredient that may be missing, or omitting an allergen, such as nuts. This idea is relatable to educators as well. By shifting this idea to the classroom, educators reflect, evaluate, and adjust the academic "ingredients" accordingly. The academic cookbook allows us to rethink our approach by putting the thyme into the evaluation of instruction, learning needs, and experiences.
Ask yourself, 'Is there a "missing ingredient" in my instruction?'
The Cookbook: Theory, Curriculum, or Both...
Curriculum Theory
When educators plan instruction, they need to evaluate two areas, the audience and the intent of the lesson. Both the audience and the lesson’s intent require the proper evaluation for the desired result to determine which of the four instructional ideologies may best apply. Schiro (2013) tells us that the four instructional theories are represented by ideologies: Scholar Academic, Social Efficient, Learning Centered, and Social Reconstruction. Although a teacher may lean towards one or two instructional ideologies, there are lessons that lend themselves to an alternate approach that may be the missing ingredient the instruction needs. When educators recognize the value each ideology provides, a well-rounded curriculum is designed to benefit the whole child.
A well-rounded approach to exposing students to the best of each theory would be to match the ideology with the lesson’s objective. For example, students working on a science fair lesson would benefit from the Scholar Academic model by performing scholarly tasks of hypothesis, research, trial and error, and the review of peer work (Schiro, 2013). A lesson that lends itself to a procedural design would align with the Social Efficient model, such as an early childhood classroom’s circle time routine (Schiro, 2013). Student initiated lessons based on interests, such as passion projects, reflect the Learning Centered model (Schiro, 2013). When transferring academic content to their relevance in the community, service projects and community outreach lessons align with the Social Reconstruction model (Schiro, 2013).
It is important for educators to fully understand the value of each learning ideology, even if the ideology differs from one’s own educational philosophy (Schiro, 2013). As educators become familiar with each ideology their lessons are designed with intentional objectives to promote academic success, mastery of skill, or social responsibility.
Curriculum
Year after year, teachers spend hours searching the internet, local bookstores, and professional development resources to find the missing ingredient in their instruction. Does this mean the curriculum you are using is subpar and will not lead to mastery skills in alignment with college or career readiness? No, the curriculum is a cookbook, a guide of best practices that can adapt to your class from year to year or from student to student. The recipe for students should begin with understanding the skills that are required to engaged in a standards-based curriculum. Once the skills are evaluated, the academic recipe can be adjusted with your learners in mind.
The Recipe: Cognitive Load, Instructional Practices, & Differentiation...
The Recipe for Experiences | Cognitive Load Theory (CLT)
Whether students are partaking in academic experiences or daily tasks, working memory is activated as the brain navigates how to organize, store, or discard the information that is being presented. Liesl McConchie (2022) reminds educators that the brain defaults to what is easy first. When employing John Sweller's Cognitive Load Theory, we can adjust our instruction (or the recipe) to lessen the demands on the brain which allows information to be processed and organized within our schema while advancing application, skill, and content (Soloman, n.d.).
The Recipe for Instructional Practice
There are many ingredients that form a recipe, however quality ingredients can have impact on the result. This is also true with instructional practice. Quality instructional design found when using the framework from Understanding by Design, by Grant Wiggins and Jay McTighe (1998), requires the standards, assessments, and essential questions to drive instruction. The lessons that the students engage in require careful planning to ensure the lessons support the standard (Wiggins, 2013). As the lessons progress, the anticipatory activities are purposely planned based on the prior day's instruction. This allows students to recall prior lessons, terms, theories, or formulas which lessen the students' cognitive load while preparing the brain to interact with new content (McConchie, 2022).
Employing Richard Mayers's Coherence Principle leads to quality pedagogical practices throughout the anticipatory, introduction, and review portions of the lesson. This practice reinforces understanding by allowing working memory to transfer content to long-term memory, and the successful application of content (Mayer, 2009). These practices must also include the analysis and reflection of instruction, informal observations of student work, as well as work samples to create opportunities to differentiate the instructional opportunities for content exploration and mastery.
The Recipe for Differentiation:
In a classroom of diverse learners, it is important to know how to apply each of the learning theories to best meet the needs of all learners in a classroom. At any given time, students can work on various tasks to support learners who need systematic - routine instruction, those who enjoy discussions and application problems, and those who thrive off of choice. While the students are learning the same content, diversifying opportunities for students to engage in the content meets the needs of learners. Some examples of diversified instruction are differentiated anticipatory activities, spelling strategies, choice boards, and interactive games.
Anticipatory Activities | Activating Memory
Differentiation of anticipatory activities does not mean that you need to plan multiple activities to begin a lesson, but it does change how you phrase or present the information to encourage students to engage with the content (McConchie, 2021).
Write, draw, or create 3 things that remind you of our lesson from yesterday.
Choose the entrance ticket of your choice to show what you remember.
Create a problem (word problem, equation, cloze sentence, or diagram) for a peer with the answer on the back. Solve a classmate's problem.
Find your term or definition partner. Create an image, poem, story, or quote that explains your term. (McConchie, 2021).
Spelling
Classes are comprised of students who benefit from needing modified instruction to those who are proficient spellers. Differentiation allows for each student to engage in spelling opportunities that meets the needs of the speller, such as orthographic mapping and lists that focus on rime patters. When students are proficient spellers, students apply proof reading skills to find misspelled words or create short passages with their choice of spelling words.
Choice Boards
Another area that can assist in differentiating instruction is the “I’m Done!” board. This board is full of post it notes with open ended questions on current subject matter.
Math problems, and the application of mathematical concepts and terms.
Grammatical challenges, word order usage, dictionary skills, and handwriting challenges.
Digital choice board with illustration activities, research challenges, science experiments, numeracy, as well as reading and writing extensions. TeachersPayTeachers has a variety of choice boards that can be adapted for your students' learning needs.
Digital Tools
The final example that can be used across subject areas is Jeopardy Labs. Students enjoy applying what they have learned to the question format of the game. Questions of varying levels of application promote both a challenge and critical thinking.
The Final Product?
Is the recipe ever complete? Is there ever a final product? As your lessons come to an end, take thyme to reflect, evaluate, and adjust to ensure the next lesson has the right ingredients to meet tomorrow's learners.
References
Avenues of the World. (2013). Grant Wiggins. Understanding by design (Part 1 and 2) [Video File]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4isSHf3SBuQ
Mayer, R. (2009). Coherence Principle. Multimedia Learning (pp. 89-107). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. doi:10.1017/CBO9780511811678.007
McConchie, L. (2021). All students can learn math.
http://lieslmcconchie.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/All_Students_Can_Learn_Math-Liesl_McConchie.pdf
McConchie, L. (2022). Part 1: A math class built with the brain in mind. http://lieslmcconchie.com/
McGraw-Hill PreK-12. (2019, January 9). Teaching strategies: Cognitive load theory [Video File]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UpA6RdE0aYo
Schiro, M. S. (2013). Curriculum theory: conflicting visions and enduring concerns. SAGE.
Soloman, H. (n.d.) Cognitive load theory (John Sweller). https://www.insturctionaldesign.org/theories/cognitive-load/
Wiggins, G., & McTighe, J. (1998). Backward Design. Understanding by Design (pp. 13-34). ASCD.
Wisc-Online. (2018, October 18). Coherence principle [Video File]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PTyr9P15JhI
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