Rosenshine's Top 1-5

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Rosenshine’s Principles of Instruction 1-3

Prof Barak Rosenshine, in 2012, wrote a very influential article describing 10 principles of instruction based on cognitive sciences, real experiences of successful teachers and academic research.

Principle 1

Begin a lesson with a short review of previous learning.
Reviewing previously learned material strengthen the connections between pieces of knowledge. That is, it enhances understanding.
Rosenshine suggests a five to eight-minute review of the previously covered material, including peer marking, asking questions, checking for misconceptions, correcting homework, and others.

Principle 2

Present new material in small steps followed by student practice.
This principle is directly derived from the cognitive load theory and the fact that our working memory capacity is limited. Too much new material presented at once will likely overload students’ working memory and reduce their learning.
Concrete examples are a good strategy to introduce a new concept. Explicit and detailed explanations and instructions are also recommended by Rosenshine.

Principle 3

Ask questions and check answers.
To learn something, students need to practise it. Everytime students answer a question or solve a problem, they retrieve that information, which is reconsolidated and becomes a stronger memory trace.
Using a large variety of questions types and making sure students are explaining their answers correctly is crucial to enhance learning.

Rosenshine's Principles of Instruction 4-5

Here are the other principles making up Rosenshine's top 5:

Principle 4

Use models.
The use of models, demonstrations and worked examples reduce the extraneous working memory load and facilitate learning.

Principle 5

Guide practice.
Following from Dr Furst’s model, the use of information is a crucial step towards mastering knowledge. Rosenshine recommends that teachers stimulate students to rephrase, elaborate and summarise new material.
According to him, successful teachers spend a good amount of time asking questions, checking for understanding, correcting errors and guiding students when working out problems.