Learning-focused strategies help to guide teachers towards developing that quality curricula. This lesson will explain what learning-focused strategies are and give some tips on how to use them.
What Is Learning-Focused?
The focus on quality instruction today is under the microscope. Parents, administrators, and even lawmakers are interested in what goes on in classrooms, and it’s for good reason. Without quality instruction students don’t learn. Models of instruction, therefore, are popping up at a pretty good clip.
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One of these models is called learning-focused. A learning-focused model (LFM) is a framework for planning exemplary lessons. Typically adopted by the school or district, it incorporates specific steps and strategies for teachers and administrators to use that result in high student achievement. Can teachers choose to adopt this model in their own classrooms? Of course! Let’s look at how.
LFM Guidelines for Teachers
The learning-focused model provides a structure for teachers to follow. Teachers have a lot of important decisions to make when faced with a classroom, so the learning-focused model incorporates several key guidelines that help guide teachers in this decision making process.
First, it allows them to decide what to teach. Despite what many think, teachers don’t just wake up knowing what to teach their students. The learning-focused model helps the teacher make informed decisions about what content to use in the classroom.Second, it allows them to use key strategies.
How teachers teach lessons is a varied art; sometimes whole group instruction works best, and other times individualized learning is a good choice. The learning-focused model outlines the ‘how’ of teaching.Third, it allows teachers to focus on high-level thinking, since the model is all about high quality teaching. To this end the model puts much emphasis on high-level thinking questions, guiding teachers in how and when to use them in their daily practice.
Lastly, it allows teachers to develop quality assessment. Testing is an important component of teaching in two ways. Daily, teachers administer formative assessments, which are small, informal assessments used to determine current student understanding so that future lessons can be planned. Summative assessment happens at the end of a unit and is designed to assess the overall understanding a student has of the content.
Both are necessary tools for a teacher, and the learning-focused model helps teachers recognize the difference between these two assessments and use them effectively.
LFM Unit Planning Strategies
The learning-focused model has steps to follow when planning for units focusing on the criteria we just learned about. This model stresses making connections between each component and recognizing the importance each plays in relation to the other.
Step 1: Complete the KUD Organizer
The first step is to complete the know-understand-do (KUD) organizer.
Using this tool focuses teachers on what students need to learn and how they can make sense of it and what activities can be done to achieve this goal. For example, a ‘K’ may be ‘students will know two digit addition’, a ‘U’ may be ‘how to carry numbers to the tens column,’ and a ‘D’ could be ‘practice in small groups with whiteboards’. Each step of the process will have a different KUD.
Step 2: Develop Assessments
The second step is to develop assessments. The teacher needs to decide how students will demonstrate their emerging understanding with formative assessments and their understanding of the concept overall with summative assessment. An assessment is needed for each goal on the KUD organizer.
Step 3: Create Student Learning Map
The third step is to create a student learning map, which is used for teachers to organize skills and concepts from the KUD. This graphic organizer helps make the steps visible to teachers by highlighting key concepts of the unit.It’s important to note that these steps are not day-to-day lesson plans but rather an overarching unit guide.
Planning an individual lesson has its own steps, which we’ll discuss now.
LFM Lesson Planning Strategies
After creating a KUD, developing assessments and pinpointing details on a student learning map, it’s time to get into the meat of the lessons – how you’ll teach on a day-do-day basis. These lessons continue to focus on connections back to your unit plan as well as to one another.
Teachers begin planning by creating an essential question. This question guides all learning in the unit. For example, for a unit on the Revolutionary War an essential question may be: How did living during the Revolutionary War change Americans? The questions are broad and require high level thought, as we talked about earlier. Next, formulate an assessment designed to determine what students need to learn to answer these essential questions. From these decisions, the teacher can then plan learning experiences for direct instruction, typically a lecture or teacher-led experience, followed by a formative assessment. Depending on the outcome of the assessment, students then participate in another learning experience – perhaps another teacher led or maybe an activity to reinforce.
This process continues until solid understanding of the content is demonstrated.Using this model ensures students truly understand the concepts taught. Teachers intentionally follow the process model of instruction followed by assessments, mostly informal, to determine the next step.
Key Strategies for the LFM
The LFM has key strategies used throughout the model.
These include:
- Essential questions, which are used to determine the goal of lessons
- Activating strategy, which is a method teachers use to get students excited about and connecting the content to their own lives
- Relevant vocabulary, which refers to using vocabulary that students understand
- Limited lecture; because children aren’t designed to sit and listen, the LFM stresses a maximum of 12-15 minutes of lecture time followed immediately by an activity
- Higher order thinking questions, of which teachers should plan to provide at least 3 in each lesson
- Rigorous activities that challenge and keep students engaged, and
- Student movement, where at least once a lesson children get to be active and get out of their seats
Lesson Summary
The learning-focused model (LFM) stresses the importance of a student-centered classroom by making teachers truly consider each step they use when planning lessons. The main objective of the LFM is high quality lessons which are gained by specific, strategic planning. Guidelines include having the teacher decide what to teach, use key strategies, focus on high-level thinking and develop quality summative (end of unit) and formative (informal) assessments.Focusing on decision making throughout the process of lesson planning, the LFM begins by developing unit goals and objectives and moves to planning daily lessons. During unit planning, teachers should complete the know-understand-do (KUD) organizer, develop assessments, and create a student learning map. Lesson planning should involve creating an essential question, formulating an assessment, planning learning experiences and instruction, and giving formative assessments.
Teachers can use key LFM strategies that include essential questions, activating strategy, relevant vocabulary, limited lecture, high-order thinking questions, rigorous activities, and student movement.
