Best Practice For Research-Based Instruction:

 A Checklist for Teacher Reflection

In their research-based products we want students to demonstrate ethical behavior, individual thought, evidence for assertions, accuracy in documentation, and problem-solving process.  How can teachers ensure that students have both the experiences and the tools to help them develop these qualities?

_____Provide--Challenging Assignments that require students to manipulate and synthesize information.

_____Develop inquiry-driven (thesis-driven or hypothesis-driven) assignments for papers, projects, and presentations.  Ask students to compare/contrast, evaluate, justify, conclude rather than to regurgitate or report.

  _____*Give the assignment a voice that allows and encourages students to see themselves as detectives: asking questions, evaluating and weighing evidence, making inferences.

  _____Change the approach, format, perspective, and/or time period.

            (i.e., the “What if ?” approach—What if Othello were the protagonist in Hamlet and Hamlet were the protagonist in Othello?; a thesis based on unlikely pairs; a dialogue between the mayors of the same city in different decades with a concluding piece of commentary/analysis/ evaluation/prediction, etc.; a short story in which the conflict involves five different characters affected by the Alaskan oil spill; a scientist whose theory went unrecognized during his/her lifetime gets his/her say in a forum; what a specific historical figure or literary character would/should do differently; a filmmaker responds to reviews; a teenager of today time travels to19^th c. Paris; a baby in utero criticizes pre-natal care available to his/her given socio-economic situation or nation or time period; etc.).

              _____Require primary sources (letters, maps, interviews, etc.).

              _____Require specific primary and secondary sources or types of sources or combination of sources; vary the           

            requirements each time you give the assignment.

  _____Add an oral and/or in-class piece

(Student leads a discussion based on his/her product, prepares an abstract of the work, summarizes learning, defends conclusions or aspects of the process or aspects of the product, defends sources.)

              _____Keep the assignment fresh and meaningful.

            _____Make regular and frequent changes to the particulars of the assignment; vary the particulars from class to class,                from one year to the next.

  _____Make the assignment “unique” to the experience of these students in this class during this year/semester.  Allow assignments to grow out of the classroom activities and experiences of this particular group of students as a distinct community of learners in this time and place.

_____Consider individual differences in learning style, experiences, interest, readiness, etc.  Give differentiated learning options and individual choice.

____Communicate--explicit expectations.

_____Provide an explicit assignment sheet that specifies the requirements and expectations and includes a context that connects the paper/project/presentation to class work and to instructional goals.

_____Make sure that students understand why the assignment is valuable and that research takes time and focused attention.

           _____Include a checkpoint calendar for various aspects of the process.

            _____Provide an explicit rubric that values process and product; give it to students in advance.

           _____Create a climate that values ethics-- model it, talk about it regularly, monitor it, and specify what constitutes acceptable collaboration

            _____Require documentation (Works Cited, Works Consulted) for all research-based work including posters, videotapes, skits, panels, debates, etc.

_____Require an “Acknowledgments” page where students specify the help they received from others (peers, siblings, parents, etc.).

_____Distribute an explicit policy that states the consequences of plagiarism.

_____Encourage students to seek help from you, from the librarian, and from peers and other adults as appropriate.  Provide opportunities for help:

_____peer revision/edit groups, problem-solving groups, pair chores, conferences in class, adjusting checkpoint stages to accommodate individual needs/weaknesses/difficulties, phone calls to parents

____Focus Instruction--and provide the tools that students will need to be successful during the process and in completion of the product.

_____View yourself as a facilitator for students.  Help them to think through the issues, problem-solve, etc. (Provide graphic organizers, structures, resources, etc. as the individual need arises.)

  _____Teach or review as necessary and require precision in the technical aspects of ethical documentation (in-text documentation format, Works Cited and Works Consulted pages, paraphrase, summary, common knowledge) particularly as they relate to your discipline and in relation to graphs, charts, maps, visuals, etc.

____Manage the process (require checkpoints, conferences; accomplish tasks during class).

_____Use time management intervention (parent contact, workshop points, detention with production requirement).

_____Require students to submit with the final product all checkpoint aspects.  

_____Help students locate materials meaningful to them and appropriate to their developmental level. With assistance from the librarian, create a “research hotlist” for students (Guiding Readers and Writers: Grades 3-6 (Fountas and Pinnell 433).

_____Give students strategies and graphic organizers for note-taking, weighing ideas, looking for absences and tailor these to your content perspective (i.e., How does a historian approach these issues, this time period, this contradiction?  How does a parent weigh conflicting theories about child-rearing?)

_____Teach mini-lessons as needed and remind students to use chunking, highlighting, topic sentences, chapter heading, paraphrasing, etc. independently as reading tools.

_____Communicate with your colleagues to establish grade level/course/cross-curricular expectations, commonality of terminology, co-teaching opportunities, etc.

____Provide Practice--that is content-based.

_____Teach/expect/assess higher level thinking on a regular basis (See Bloom’s Taxonomy or Marzano’s Dimensions of Learning 3,4). As you develop curriculum and plan instruction in the content/process/skills of your content area, include inducting, deducting, abstracting, inferring, analyzing, synthesizing (i.e., class discussion points), applying (i.e., students write alternative scenarios as homework after reading a history text chapter rather than complete end-of-chapter questions; write entrance slip summaries of last night’s reading and make one prediction; write paraphrases of conflicting opinions in class using correct documentation format, then evaluate the opinions; etc.)

_____Create research projects that grow out of classroom activities and expectations that students will extend through:

_____Analysis (identify the parts and their relationships; what makes it work or not; find the errors or absences.  Use to study a poem, painting, music score, legal case, government policy, scientific theory, mathematical process, etc.

_____Synthesis (pull several sources or ideas together and “make sense” of them)

 ____Evaluation (develop criteria, weigh issue or works)

_____Develop class activities throughout the course/grade level to give students  multiple opportunities for judgment and evaluation (i.e., determine the effectiveness of…, justify the…; judge the performance of…; develop criteria for…; defend (answer questions about assumptions, facts, research, conclusions); look for bias, separate fact from opinion; compare and contrast).

_____Work with primary documents as resources for information (letters, interviews, documents, notebooks/journals, logs).

_____Use paraphrase, summary, and quotation as tools for learning content.

_____Use mini-papers/projects/presentations and/or develop multi-stage, scaffolded, research-based class performance activities for curricular learning.  (Debates, interview with a historical figure, create a comic strip, etc.)

____Reflect--On the efficacy your practice.

              _____Use your students’ work (process and product) to inform you about the challenge and clarity of the assignment, the effectiveness of the communication, focused instruction, and everyday classroom practice strategies.  On the basis of what students have accomplished and what they have not, determine how specific revisions to assignments, rubrics, expectations, instructional practice will improve student performance next time.

Developed by: Carol H. Rohrbach, K-12 Language Arts Coordinator

School District of Springfield Twp. 3/03

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