Rosenshine’s Principles in

Rosenshine’s Principles in Action at Bangkok Patana School

By Carly Ellis and Aidan McDonagh, Learning and Teaching Advisors, Secondary School

At Bangkok Patana School we are committed to developing our students to achieve their full potential as independent, motivated and engaged learners. Our passionate teaching staff make this possible by continuously striving to enhance their own professional learning. They work collaboratively in teams, both within faculties and across multiple subjects.

In Term 1 the staff focused on a book called Rosenshine’s Principles in Action by Tom Sherrington. This concise book summarises the work of Barak Rosenshine, a psychology professor and classroom teacher whose extensive research identified 10 ‘Principles of Effective Instruction’ for teachers. Tom Sherrington groups the 10 principles into four different strands: Reviewing Material, Questioning, Sequencing Concepts/ Modelling and Stages of Practice. He then expands on each of the principles using academic research as well as his own experience as a teacher and school leader in the UK and abroad. Bangkok Patana staff received the book during the first day of school in August.

Tom Sherrington Visits Bangkok Patana School

We were fortunate enough to have Tom Sherrington visit the school virtually in October, where he expanded upon some of his writing and worked with teachers to apply the principles to the Bangkok Patana context. Teachers spent time discussing memory; the limits of our working memory, how to cement knowledge in long term memory, and lastly how to retrieve that information. The trick being that our working memory is limited, we can only hold about five to seven items in our working memory at one time. Therefore, teachers need to help students to consolidate their understanding in the limitless longterm memory and build upon previously learned knowledge.

One teacher commented that “Both speakers were excellent. The resources which Tom used in particular, drawn from Rosenshine’s Principles in Action, were clear, interesting and relevant. I appreciated the way in which Tom used examples across many different subject areas and topics in order clarify what these principles entail”

Secondary Workshop

The following day in the Secondary workshop, Tom and teachers focussed on Strand 1: Reviewing Material. Studies have shown that students should start each lesson with a small review of the previous lesson’s content, so they can build upon the previous knowledge learned. This helps students build and secure their schemas. Additionally, students need spaced practice over the weeks and months at school to give them the opportunity to remember topics and material from the past. This concept is called retrieval practice. Tom gave teachers some hands-on ideas and strategies to help our students remember and retrieve all the information they process in the school days, weeks and months. These include: short quizzes, brain dumps, knowledge organisers and flash cards. Retrieval practice is not only great for revision (Year 11 and Year 13!) but also helps students to remember content in the long term.

One teacher reflected that they will be “Dedicating more lesson time to teach and model recall techniques and strategies to provide students with the skills necessary to study independently at home.”

Secondary Response

In the weeks before and since Tom Sherrington visited Bangkok Patana, the teaching and learning advisors have been conducting learning walks around the school. They have seen clear considerations of Cognitive Load Theory and Retrieval practice across many subject areas. In the run up to the trial exams, Year 11 had been doing lots of retrieval of their entire (I)GCSE course. In Geography they were asked to do a ‘brain dump’ activity. Students were required to use their lesson titles to write down everything they can remember about particular topics. They were asked to dual code the information (use pictures, diagrams, words, bullet points etc). Once they have recorded everything that they remember, the students move on to the next section. Then students go back through their notes to check the information is accurate and look for any gaps in knowledge. This not only helps students to retrieve information but identifies what they need to revise. In World Languages students have been playing ‘Cops and Robbers’: a task in which they record as many vocabulary words they can remember for a particular topic and then steal other groups’ words. Teachers across faculties have also been using starters which require students to recall information from last lesson, last topic and last half term, which helps students to retrieve previously learned content. One student said they like these starters because “it gets easier every time you do it” and another agreed adding “it helps to make sure we remember what we did and it stays fresh in our memory”. Keep up the good work students and staff!

Teacher Learning Communities (TLCs)

Another way in which teachers apply their professional learning to the classroom is through joining a Teacher Learner Community (TLC) where they can meet regularly with colleagues from different subject areas and work on improving their practice in an area of their choice. This year has been no exception, and we have been pleased to see seven different groups starting up in Term 1, with 35 teachers involved. There are a wide range of themes this year, including Rosenshines’ Principles in Action, Well-being, MS Teams and Flipped Learning. Meeting in these groups gives a platform to the vast wealth of knowledge and expertise within the teaching staff and enables discussions to happen which will lead to positive changes in the classrooms of the school. This helps the school work towards Hattie’s vision of Collective Teacher Efficacy (CTE): “(CTE) refers to a staff’s shared belief that through their collective action, they can positively influence student outcomes”.

(https://thelearningexchange.ca/collectiveteacher-efficacy/#:~:text=Collective%20 teacher%20efficacy%20(CTE)%20refers, are%20disengaged%20and%2For%20 disadvantaged.)