Effective Instruction Overview

There currently is an abundant knowledge-base to inform us that in schools teachers play the critical
role in student learning and achievement. Research reveals that how teachers instruct and
these interactions with students is the cornerstone around which to build effective schools.
A summary of the available studies accumulated over the past 40 years on a key education driver,
teacher competencies offers practical strategies, practices, and rules to guide teachers in ways to
improve instruction that improves student performance and the quality of the work experience. Four
groupings of these competencies can help organize and simplify for teachers what they need to
master to maximize their performance: classroom management, instructional delivery, formative
assessment, and personal competencies. These four categories also provide the essential core
around which decision makers can construct teacher preparation, teacher hiring, teacher
development, and teacher and school evaluations.

What are teacher competencies? Competencies are the skills and knowledge that enable a
teacher to be successful. To maximize student learning, teachers must have expertise in a wide-
ranging array of competencies in an especially complex environment where hundreds of critical
decisions are required each day (Jackson, 1990). Few jobs demand the integration of professional
judgment and the proficient use of evidence-based competencies as does teaching.

Why is this important? The transformational power of an effective teacher is something many of us

have experienced. Intuitively, the link between teaching and student academic achievement may
seem obvious, but what is the evidence for it?

Research confirms this common perception of a link and reveals that of all factors under the control
of a school, teachers are the most powerful influence on student success (Babu & Mendro, 2003;
Sanders & Rivers, 1996). What separates effective teachers from ineffective ones, and how can this
information be used to support better teaching? We can now begin to build a profile of exemplary
classroom instruction derived from effectiveness research (Wenglinsky, 2002; Hattie, 2009).

Which competencies make the biggest difference? An examination of the research on education
practices that make a difference shows that four classes of competencies yield the greatest results.

1. Instructional delivery
2. Classroom management
3. Formative assessment
4. Personal competencies (soft skills)

Further, the research indicates that these competencies can be used to organize the numerous
specific skills and knowledge available for building effective teacher development.

Instructional delivery: Research tells us what can be expected from a teacher employing

instructional strategies and practices that are proven to lead to increased mastery of lessons. Better
learning happens in a dynamic setting in which teachers offer explicit active instruction than in
situations in which teachers do not actively guide instruction and instead turn control over content
and pace of instruction to students (Hattie, 2009).

Is there a diverse set of practices that teachers can efficiently and effectively use to increase
mastery of content for a variety of curricula? The structured and systematic approach of explicit
instruction emphasizes mastery of the lesson to ensure that students understand what has been
taught, become fluent in new material, and can generalize what they learn to novel situations they
encounter in the future.

The following are hallmarks of an explicit approach for teachers (Archer & Hughes, 2011; Knight,
2012).

1. Teacher selects the learning area to be taught.

2. Teacher sets criteria for success.
3. Teacher informs students of criteria ahead of the lesson.
4. Teacher demonstrates to the students successful use of the knowledge/skills through
modeling.
5. Teacher evaluates student acquisition.
6. Teacher provides remedial opportunities for acquiring the knowledge/skills, if necessary.
7. Teacher provides closure at the end of the lesson.

A common complaint of an explicit instruction approach is that it does not offer sufficient
opportunities for students to build on acquired knowledge/skills in creative and novel ways that help
them to assimilate the material. The reality is that all effective instruction, regardless of philosophy,
must aid students in generalizing newly taught knowledge/skills in a context that is greater than a
single lesson. An explicit model accomplishes the goal of building toward “big ideas” by first
emphasizing mastery of foundation skills such as reading and mathematics, and then systematically
introducing opportunities to integrate these critical skills in discovery-based lessons to maximize
students’ experience of success.

Effective explicit instruction practices include these features.

1. Well-designed and planned instruction: Instruction that is well planned moves students

from their current level of competency toward explicit criteria for success.
o Instructional design with clear instructional objectives:  The teacher should present
these objectives to students for each lesson.
o Scope and sequencing: The teacher should teach the range of related skills and the
order in which they should be learned.
2. Instruction that offers sufficient opportunities for successful acquisition:
o High rates of responding for each student to practice the skill:  The teacher should
provide sufficient opportunities for unpunished errors and ample reinforcement for
success.
o Sufficient quantity of instruction:  The teacher should allocate enough time to teach a
topic.
 3. Teaching to mastery: Students need to learn the knowledge/skills to criteria that are verified
by teachers or students’ peers.
4. Teaching foundation knowledge/skills that become the basis for teaching big
ideas: Current lessons should be built on past knowledge to increase fluency and maintain
mastery of material. The teacher should relate lessons to complex issues and big ideas that
provide deeper meaning and give students better understanding of the content.

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Classroom management: Classroom management is one of the most persistent areas of concern

voiced by school administrators, the public, and teachers (Evertson & Weinstein, 2013). Research
consistently places classroom management among the top five issues that affect student
achievement.

To put its in perspective, classroom management was associated with an increase of 20% in student
achievement when classroom rules and procedures were applied systematically (Hattie, 2005).

A good body of research highlights four important areas that classroom teachers should be proficient
in to create a climate that maximizes learning and induces a positive mood and tone.

1. Rules and procedures: Effective rules and procedures identify expectations and

appropriate behavior for students. To be effective, these practices must be observable and
measurable.

o Schoolwide rules and procedures: Clearly stated rules identify, define, and

operationalize acceptable behavior specific to a school. These rules, applicable to all
students, are designed to build pro-social behavior and reduce problem behavior in a
school. They distinguish appropriate from problem behavior as well as specify
consequences for infractions.
o Classroom rules and procedures: Another set of clearly stated rules establishes
acceptable behavior specific in a classroom. These rules need to be consistent with
schoolwide rules, but may be unique to meet the needs of an individual classroom.

1. Proactive classroom management: These are the practices that teachers and

administrators can employ to teach and build acceptable behavior that is positive and
helpful, promotes social acceptance, and leads to greater success in school. The key to
proactive classroom management is active teacher supervision. The practice elements that
constitute active supervision require staff to observe and interact with students regularly. The
goal is to build a positive teacher-student relationship by providing timely and frequent
positive feedback for appropriate behavior, and to swiftly and consistently respond to
inappropriate behaviors.
 2. Effective classroom instruction: The key to maintaining a desirable classroom climate is to
provide students with quality instructional delivery aligned to the skill level of each student.
This enables students to experience success and keeps them attentive.
3. Behavior reduction: These practices, designed to reduce problem and unacceptable
behavior, are employed in the event the first three strategies fail. Behavior reduction
strategies include giving students corrective feedback at the time of an infraction, minimizing
reinforcement of a student’s unacceptable behavior, and guiding students in how to behave
appropriately.

Formative assessment: Effective ongoing assessment, referred to in education literature as

formative assessment and progress monitoring, is indispensable in promoting teacher and student
success. It is frequently listed at the top of interventions for school improvement (Walberg, 1999).

Feedback, a core component of formative assessment, is recognized as an essential tool for

improving performance in sports, business, and education. Hattie (2009) identified feedback as the
single most powerful educational tool available for improving student performance, with a medium to
large effect size ranging from 0.66 to 0.94.

Formative assessment consists of a range of formal and informal diagnostic testing procedures,
conducted by teachers throughout the learning process, for modifying teaching and adapting
activities to improve student attainment. Systemic interventions such as Response to Intervention
(RtI) and Data-Based Decision Making depend heavily on the use of formative assessment (Hattie,
2009; Marzano, Pickering, & Pollock, 2001).

The following are the practice elements of formative assessment (Fuchs & Fuchs, 1986).

1. Assessment: (Effect size 0.26) Assessing a student’s performance throughout a lesson

offers a teacher insight into who is succeeding and who is falling behind. It is important that
teachers collect and maintain data gained through both informal and formal assessments.
2. Data display: (Effect size 0.70) Displaying the data in the form of a graphic has a
surprisingly powerful effect on formative assessment’s usefulness as a tool.
3. Data analysis following defined rules: (Effect size 0.90) Formative assessment is most
valuable when teachers use evidence-based research and their own professional judgment
to develop specific remedial interventions, before it is too late, for those falling behind.

Personable competencies (soft skills): An inspiring teacher can affect students profoundly by
stimulating their interest in learning. It is equally true that most students have encountered teachers
who were uninspiring and for whom they performed poorly. Unfortunately, effective and ineffective
teachers have no readily discernable personality differences. Some of the very best teachers are
affable, but many ineffective instructors can be personable and caring. Conversely, some of the best
teachers appear as stern taskmasters, but whose influence is enormous in motivating students to
accomplish things they never thought possible.
What soft skills do successful teachers have in common? Typically, the finest teachers display
enthusiasm and excitement for the subjects they teach. More than just generating excitement, they
provide a road map for students to reach the goals set before them. The best teachers are proficient
in the technical competencies of teaching: instructional delivery, formative assessment, and
classroom management. Equally significant, they are fluent in a multilayered set of social skills that
students recognize and respond to, which leads to greater learning (Attakorn, Tayut, Pisitthawat, &
Kanokorn, 2014). These skills must be defined as clear behaviors that teachers can master for use
in classrooms.

Indispensable soft skills include:

1. Establishing high but achievable expectations

2. Encouraging a love for learning
3. Listening to others
4. Being flexible and capable of adjusting to novel situations
5. Showing empathy
6. Being culturally sensitive
7. Embedding and encouraging higher order thinking along with teaching foundation skills
8. Having a positive regard for students

What does research tell us about personal competencies? Quantitative studies provide an overall
range of effect sizes from 0.72 to 0.87 for effective teacher-student relations. Better teacher-student
relations promote increased student academic performance and improve classroom climate by
reducing disruptive student behavior (Cornelius-White, 2007; Marzano, Marzano & Pickering, 2003).

Conclusion

There is abundant research to support the notion that teachers play the critical role in improving
student achievement in schools. What teachers do in the classroom is crucial in this process. The
breadth of high-quality research accumulated over the past 40 years offers educators a clear picture
of how to maximize teacher competency in four critical categories: instructional delivery, classroom
management, formative assessment, and personal competencies. There is now ample evidence to
recommend these competencies as the core around which to build teacher preparation, teacher
hiring, teacher development, and teacher and school evaluations.