Identifying Critical Content: Classroom Techniques to Help Students Know What is Important. Deana Senn
not sure what I was supposed to learn or get out of this.” If so, that may have been because the teacher or lecturer did not communicate the importance of critical content such that you were able to determine the key points. Not everything in a lesson is of equal importance. Some of our students inherently understand that, and some don’t. Some of our students get bogged down in the minutiae of our lessons. Signaling to students what is critical in the content is key to implementing an effective lesson.
Failing to Communicate the Type of Action Needed
After you have identified critical content and communicated its importance, do not neglect to give students opportunities to do something with this information. For example, if someone were to convince you of a certain key bit of information that is critical to your health, you are more inclined to figure out a way to remember that information. You might make a note of it or ask for additional information to clarify what is the most critical content. It is necessary to teach this skill to your students. Help them realize that hearing the critical content is only the first step; they need to do something with it for it to be effective.
Monitoring for the Desired Result
Effective implementation means more than just applying the strategy—it also includes checking for evidence of the desired result of the specific strategy during implementation. In other words, effective implementation of a strategy includes monitoring for the desired result of that strategy in real time. Presenting a lively lesson that engages students is not enough. The questions that need to be answered are: Did your students know what content was important, and did they learn or master the information taught? The most elaborately planned lessons have no meaning unless they focus on the critical content outlined in standards and are monitored by the teacher for the desired results of the implemented strategies.
There are multiple ways teachers can monitor whether students know the content that is important and can distinguish between important and less significant information. Below are some examples that can help you tell if your students are able to identify critical content from a specific lesson:
1. Students can identify the critical information addressed in class.
2. Students can explain the difference between critical and noncritical content.
3. Students can describe the level of importance of the critical information addressed in class.
4. Formative data from the lesson show that students attend to the critical content (e.g., questioning, artifacts).
5. Students can explain the progression of critical content in the lesson.
Each technique discussed in this guide also has examples of monitoring specific to that technique.
Scaffolding and Extending Instruction to Meet Students’ Needs
As you monitor for the desired result of each technique, you will probably realize that some students are not able to identify the critical content and others are easily able to demonstrate the desired result of the strategy. With this knowledge, it becomes necessary to adapt for the needs of your students. You must plan ahead of time for those students who may need you to scaffold or extend instruction to meet their needs.
There are four different categories of support you can provide for students who need scaffolding: 1) support that teachers (including instructional aides or other paraprofessionals) or peers provide; 2) support that teachers provide by manipulating the difficulty level of content that is being taught (for example, providing an easier reading level that contains the same content); 3) breaking down the content into smaller chunks to make it more manageable; and 4) giving students organizers or think sheets to clarify and guide their thinking through a task one step at a time (Dickson, Collins, Simmons, & Kame’enui, 1998).
Within each technique that is described in subsequent chapters, there are illustrative examples of ways to scaffold and extend instruction to meet the needs of your students. Scaffolding provides support that targets cognitive complexity and student autonomy to reach rigor. Extending moves students who have already demonstrated the desired result to a higher level of understanding. These examples are provided as suggestions and should be adapted to target the specific needs of your students. Use the scaffolding examples to spark ideas as you plan to meet the needs of your English language learners, students who receive special education or lack support, or simply the student who was absent the day before. The extension activities can help you plan for students in your gifted and talented program or those with a keen interest in the subject matter you are teaching who have already learned the fundamentals.
Teacher Self-Reflection
As you work on your expertise in teaching students to identify critical content, reflecting on what works and doesn’t work can help you become more successful in the implementation of this strategy. Use the following set of reflection questions to guide you. The questions begin with reflecting about how to begin the implementation process and move to progressively more complex ways of helping students identify critical content.
1. How can you begin to incorporate some aspect of this strategy in your instruction?
2. How can you signal to students which content is critical versus noncritical?
3. How could you monitor the extent to which students attend to critical content?
4. What are some ways you can adapt and create new techniques for identifying critical information that addresses unique student needs and situations?
5. What are you learning about your students as you adapt and create new techniques?
Instructional Techniques to Help Students Identify Critical Content
There are many ways to help your students effectively interact with new knowledge and ultimately master the learning targets or standards of the grade level or content area. The ways you choose to put your students on high alert regarding critical content that is about to unfold during a specific lesson or unit will depend on your grade, content, and the makeup of your class. These various ways or options are called instructional techniques. In the following pages, you will find descriptions of how to implement the following techniques:
1. Verbally cue critical content.
2. Use explicit instruction to convey critical content.
3. Use dramatic instruction to convey critical content.
4. Provide advance organizers to cue critical content.
5. Visually cue critical content.
6. Use storytelling to cue critical content.
7. Use what students already know to cue critical content.
All of the techniques are similarly organized and include the following components:
• a brief introduction to the technique
• ways to effectively implement the technique
• common mistakes to avoid as you implement the technique
• examples and nonexamples from elementary and secondary classrooms using selected learning targets or standards from various documents
• ways to monitor for the desired result
• ways to scaffold and extend instruction to meet the needs of students
Instructional Technique 1
VERBALLY CUE CRITICAL CONTENT
The easiest, and often fastest, way to communicate to your students that certain information is important is to tell them. That is the essence of verbal cueing. This sounds simple enough until you realize, after teaching a concept or skill, that your students’ questions indicate they do not understand what is important about the lesson even though you taught it. There is an effective way to convey critical information to students. This instructional technique, verbal cueing, will help you effectively implement the strategy of identifying critical content.
How to Effectively Implement Verbal Cueing
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