Page 1 of 16
High Impact Instructional Strategies
for School Improvement
Carrie Brewington (UNC-Pembroke, NCDPI)
Page 2 of 16
Cumulative Daily Review
Page 3 of 16
Cumulative Daily Review
Bell-ringers, exit tickets, etc. should incorporate previously taught objectives.
Assessments should incorporate all content learned. (Modeling standardized tests with random ordering as well)
If it is an assessment item, it should be reviewed (chuck reviews over several days).
Take time to review all skills.
Repetitive practice will culminate in better retention.
Repetitive practice will build learning confidence.
Note: If it has been taught, then it is fair game. Create opportunities for students to build stamina by replicating what will be assessed daily. Teach, review with items, etc.
Challenge: Locate item bank that closely resembles assessment items used for accountability and incorporate items into daily instruction.
Page 4 of 16
There’s a huge learning benefit to intentional, daily, engaging review. Kids get more at bats with the content and skills. Sustained mastery is possible.
There’s also a huge benefit to kids’ understanding of the idea of school and knowledge.
When we fail to do intentional, daily cumulative review we unwittingly encourage the idea that you are only learning for a test.
Cumulative review is one of the easiest ways to show kids the ways in which knowledge builds on itself.
Resurfacing prior content, even prior content that isn’t immediately relevant, increases the likelihood that kids will make meaningful and unexpected connections to the new content.
Page 5 of 16
Robert J. Marzano
To ensure that content stays current for students, teachers must plan for and provide cumulative reviews.
Content will fade in students' memories if it's not reviewed systematically. Although teachers commonly engage students in reviews of content from previous lessons or units, they rarely engage students in reviewing the content from an entire semester or year.
Cumulative reviews are not only useful—they're also necessary. Consider the rather common practice of testing students at the end of a semester or year on previously taught (but not systematically reviewed) content. At the beginning of a semester, a 5th grade language arts teacher might emphasize chronologies—how to read them, how to create them, what type of information they provide, and so on. If the teacher doesn't address chronologies in subsequent units but includes them in a comprehensive test at the end of the semester, it's unreasonable to expect students to accurately remember what they learned about chronologies.
Page 6 of 16
How to Do a Cumulative Review
Identify Crucial Information and Skills
Many teachers organize content into units based on standards, be they state standards, the Common Core standards, or the Next Generation Science Standards. Unfortunately, many standards statements are so broad that they fail to provide specific guidance concerning essential information and skills.
To determine what will be the subject of a cumulative review, a teacher must ask, "Will students be held accountable for this at the end of the semester or year?"
Consider that there are different types of content knowledge: declarative knowledge and procedural knowledge. Declarative knowledge is informational, such as understanding what erosion is and how water, ice, and wind affect it. Procedural knowledge involves skills and processes, such as making observations and making measurements. Both kinds of knowledge are important to the cumulative review process.
Page 7 of 16
Review for Declarative Knowledge
Cumulative reviews for declarative knowledge should help students identify errors and omissions in their original understanding. They should also help students merge new information with old information and organize the two into big ideas.
For example, students might have learned the following declarative knowledge about erosion: It's a natural process, human activities have increased erosion globally by 10–40 times, water and wind erosion are the two primary causes of land degradation, and so on. During a cumulative review, the teacher would ask students to identify anything new they had learned about erosion, even if they hadn't discussed it recently in class. A student who had read a news item that explained how irrigation can cause erosion could share this information with the class.
The teacher would then help students develop comprehensive statements about erosion, which would encompass everything they'd previously learned about the topic—for example, "Erosion is a process by which soil and rock are removed from their current location and transported to other locations by forces like wind and water."
Review for Procedural Knowledge
Cumulative review for procedural knowledge also involves adding to what students have previously learned. Let's say that an 8th grade social studies teacher presented students with a strategy for reading contour maps. During a cumulative review, students might describe how their experiences since the initial presentation have augmented their skill in this area.
Cumulative review for procedural knowledge also involves developing fluency. The more procedures students practice, the more fluent they become. Like reviews focused on declarative knowledge, cumulative reviews for procedural knowledge should help students see how the original content fits into a bigger picture.
Make It Systematic
Ideally, some form of cumulative review should occur after every unit of instruction. Each time a cumulative review occurs, students should record in a notebook or online journal, in connection with that review, any changes and additions to their original knowledge base. Over time, students will be able to see the gradual shaping of their knowledge.
Page 8 of 16
Resources:
http://www.ascd.org/publications/educational-leadership/apr14/vol71/n um07/Review-for-Retention.aspx
https://lvp.digitalpromiseglobal.org/content-area/math-pk-2/strategies/c umulative-review-math-pk-2/summary
Page 9 of 16
Classroom Discourse
Page 10 of 16
Classroom Discourse
Allow students opportunities to engage in rich dialog with each other.
Student in groups does not equal cooperative learning. (Pay attention to the conversations.)
Keep reaching during questioning.
Allow wait time
Rigor is often associated with classroom conversations.
Note: Administrators can often just listen to dialog (teacher-student, student-student) to determine the level of instruction. What is happening in groups? How is teacher reaching for more from student dialog?
Challenge: Make cooperative groups meaningful by initially assigning questions, controlling conversations, etc. This sets an early expectation for student conversations.
Page 11 of 16
Page 12 of 16
Bringing students into the fold of rich discourse:
Invite them to discuss a topic that is important to them. Interest inventories, heart maps, and informal conversation can help you uncover such topics.
Engage them in partner talk (e.g., pair-share, turn-and-talk) or small group before whole group. More students participate in whole-group talk if first allowed to articulate, clarify, and reorganize thoughts with a partner.
Appreciate wait-time. When you want to know how to repair that leaky faucet in your kitchen or where your favorite retailer is located, you want the best answer in the shortest amount of time. Similarly, in the classroom, you may be guilty of wanting the best answer in the shortest time, given the pressure of staying on target with the pacing guide. Hardly novel but wholly effective, wait-time has been shown to improve not only the proportion of students who respond but the quality of the responses as well.
Name the strategy after a student. For instance, when a student provides a substantive contribution, call it the Johnathan way, Maureen method, or Sharon technique.
Page 13 of 16
Conventional Classroom Discourse
Rich Classroom Discourse
Convergent responses
Divergent responses
Known answer questions atypically posed
Multiple answers/explanations possible
Predominantly teacher-driven and led
Students co-construct, drive, and often lead discourse
Students rarely afforded latitude to build on peers’ thoughts
Students build on, challenge, revoice, and share ideas with peers
Teacher relies on a few students to carry talk
Many students eagerly participate
Aim is to have correct answer given in shortest time
Goal is to have students articulate strategic thinking
Page 14 of 16
The following excerpt from a whole-class discussion in a fifth-grade science class illustrates the nature of this typical participation structure. The teacher was reviewing what the students learned earlier in the day during a science activity on light.
Teacher. What's transparent? Something is transparent. What does that mean? We did that this morning, didn't we? What does transparent mean?
Valerie. Ah, it doesn't … It goes through.
Teacher. Can you explain that a little more? What goes through?
Valerie. Well it goes through like, um … You can, like, you shine a torch on and you can see.
Teacher. What goes through?
Valerie. The light.
Teacher. The light. Light can pass through something if it's transparent. What's the next one? Translucent. What does it mean? Jordan?
Jordan. Um, just some light can get through.
Teacher. Absolutely. Some light can get through. Can you look around the room and see an example of something that might be translucent? Well, you all can tell me something in here that's translucent because you discovered something this morning that would let some light through. What was it?
Page 15 of 16
Self-Checking Discourse Quality
Is the emphasis on giving the right answers rather than processes and strategies?
Do the verbal interactions follow the teacher-dominated initiation-response-evaluation pattern?
Is discourse carried by the voices of a few where the others are reluctant to contribute?
Do you often provide opportunities for students to lead the discourse?
Do you model and insist wait-time be used as a key component of dialogue?
Do you send non-verbal signals to students based on your perception of their ability to give a quick or correct response?
Does your lack of comfort with content lead you to pose more close-ended questions?