Learning-Focused Connections Newsletter

So Many Strategies, So Much to Teach

by Peggy Corbett

One premise of the LEARNING-FOCUSED model is that students can learn if the strategies we select match our desired learning outcomes. The word strategy is about choices that affect outcomes and is closely related to the word strategic. For teacher and student this distinction is crucial. To be strategic, both must know which strategy is appropriate to the task, how to do it, and equally important, when to do it.

Simply knowing a strategy does not guarantee that one is strategic. I may know what a power circular saw is, but it does not guarantee that I would know when to select it or that I would produce anything of value with it. This is the difference between declarative knowledge (knowing) and procedural knowledge (using). Another crucial distinction of knowing is conditional knowledge (adapting). With conditional knowledge, the learner knows when or why to use a strategy. If the teacher or student can complete an If-Then statement when selecting a strategy, he is displaying conditional knowledge. So, I might say, "I want my students to understand why X happened and the effects of X on Y, so I should use a cause/effect graphic organizer to guide their thinking." The ultimate objective is to develop pathways in their thinking that lead to conditional knowledge (the process of cause and effect in any given situation).

To frame the conversation in a football analogy, consider this. If the coach develops his play book and has his team memorize the plays, he has created declarative knowledge. If he trains them to run the plays precisely as he created them with never a variation, he has created procedural knowledge. If he wants to win, he knows the team must know and understand when and how the plays work and how to adapt the plays on a moment's notice. That is what we want as practitioners and what we want for our students.

Good learners are strategic when they can choose from several options the approach best suited to the task. Good teachers are also strategic when they choose strategies and techniques of instruction that match the purpose of the instruction. Our ultimate goal is to engender independence; we want our students to be good learners without us.

The following strategy provides practice in the manipulation of information. It would be a great way to examine historical or scientific information through multiple lenses.

Pattern Puzzles: A Strategy

Students are given an envelope containing ideas that are mixed up with instructions. You might ask students to sort them, or you might arrange them one way and ask students to arrange them another way. They might put them into a hierarchy; group them from smaller ideas into larger concepts, from chronology to cause and effect, etc. Through trial and error they achieve a logical arrangement of ideas. So how does teaching and practicing this strategy extend to future student performance? The strategy is a means to an end. If students can complete this strategy/action in a classroom setting, ideally they will apply the process of sorting and classifying to future academic endeavors, such as sorting research notes in order to begin organizing a research paper, searching for patterns in scientific phenomena, or observing social patterns, etc.

The teacher's ultimate objective is to create self-regulated learners who manage their own learning with strategies learned from their teachers through modeling, practice and support. This is achieved through the consistent and pervasive principle that drives the LEARNING-FOCUSED model. Through the use of the LEARNING-FOCUSED Strategies Model teachers discover an array of research-based instructional strategies that weave their way through the learning process and guide students to academic success. Each of the LEARNING-FOCUSED solutions provides teachers with guidance and ideas for achieving the goals they set with each of their students.