Research-Based

Best Practices
Literacy
Recommendation How to Implement
Provide explicit vocabulary • Dedicate a portion of regular
instruction (What Works classroom lessons to explicit
Clearinghouse) vocabulary instruction

• Provide repeated exposure to new

words in multiple contexts (Xin and
Reith, 2001)
o Example: exposing them
to vocabulary/concepts
using films, music, visuals,
varied texts, writing, etc.

• Provide students with strategies to

make them independent vocabulary
learners
o Example 1: Mnemonic
Keyword Method, which
involves student first
learning a concrete word
that sounds like the target
word, and then creating an
image linking the target
work to its definition. For
example, for angler, a
keyword could be angel
and the interactive image
could be an angel
catching a fish.
o Example 2: Teaching
students how to use
context cues to infer
meaning of challenging
vocabulary (Gee, 1995, p.
5)
Recommendation continued...
Provide direct and explicit
comprehension strategy
instruction
Provide opportunities for extended
discussion of text meaning and
interpretation (What Works
Clearinghouse)
How to Implement continued...
o Example 3: Giving
students an opportunity to
pick up on and use
vocabulary as both
listeners and learners
during discussion-based
activities
• Show students how to apply the
strategies they are learning to
different texts
o Examples: summarizing,
asking and answering
questions, paraphrasing,
finding the main idea,
combining textual
information and
background knowledge to
draw inferences, and
thinking about the types of
questions they are being
asked to answer
• Make sure that the text is
appropriate for the reading level of
students
• Do “think-a-louds’ while teaching
students new strategies
• Increase or decrease the amount of
time allotted for guided practice
depending on the difficulty of the
strategies that students are learning
• Select engaging materials and
develop stimulating questions
(avoided closed questions)
• Ask follow-up questions that help
provide continuity and extend the
discussion
• Provide a task or discussion format
that students can follow when they
discuss text in small groups
• Example:

Recommendation continued...
Phonemic awareness
• Assign students to read selections
together and practice using the
How to Implement
comprehension continued...
strategies that have
been taught and demonstrated. in
groups, students can take turns
playing various roles, such as
leading the discussion, predicting
what the section might be about,
identifying words that are confusing,
and summarizing. Meanwhile, other
students can then respond with
other predictions, other things that
are confusing, or different ways of
summarizing the main idea.
• During activity, the teacher should
actively circulate among the groups
to redirect discussions that have
gone astray, model thinking
strategies, or ask students
additional questions to probe the
meaning of the text at deeper
levels.
• Develop and practice the use of a
specific “discussion protocol”
o Example: Set ground rules
for discussion
• Teach students how to manipulate
phonemes using letters
• Teach students to convert letters
into sounds and then blend the
sounds to form recognizable words,
and then analyze and blend larger
subparts of words and phonemes.
• Most effective phonemic awareness
programs involve teaching word
recognition skills for 1.5 hours a
week for more than 8 weeks.
 Recommendation continued…
Differentiating reading materials
(Swanborn & de Glopper, 2002)
Provide intensive, systematic
instruction on up to three
foundational reading skills in small
groups (or to students who score
below the benchmark on universal
screening)—What Works
Clearinghouse site
Provide Feedback on Writing
Teach skills through “reciprocal
teaching” method
Use images to support
comprehension (Levie and Lentz,
1982, p. 206)
How to Implement continued…
• Match reading level of assigned
texts to students’ reading levels to
increase comprehension
• Have students meet between 3-5
times a week, for 20-40 min
• Recommended one-on-one
intervention: Reading Recovery
Program
• Pairing students or holding student-
teacher conferences to facilitate
exchange of constructive feedback
regarding writing process
• Using rubrics that are well
understood by all students so that
constructive feedback is even more
meaningful/focused
• Support student mastery of skills
through modeling strategies before
allowing them time to practice and
then engaging in a dialogue with
students as you work collaboratively
to gain meaning from text.
• Incorporate visuals (especially
animations) to reinforce points
• Have students examine directly
relevant pictures while reading or
include them in text
 Special Education
Recommendation
Combine direct instruction and
cognitive strategy instruction (Swanson
et al., 1999, p.218; Swanson, 2000;
Forness and Kavale, 1985)
How to Implement
• Recommended direction instruction
techniques:
o Drill-repetition-practice
o Segmenting information into
parts or units for later
synthesis, controlling task
difficulty through prompts
(scaffolding)
o Directing students to ask
questions/Socratic teaching
o Using technology
o Making use of small
interactive groups
o Providing students with
extended practice
• Recommended cognitive strategies to
teach:
o Literacy: word recognition,
decoding, letter awareness
o Cross-content: planning, self-
questioning, drawing
inferences, thematic
understanding, verbal
rehearsal (repeating
something aloud to
themselves)
 Mathematics
Recommendation How to Implement
Use data-driven mastery framework to • Establish benchmarks based on the
inform instruction critical foundations for algebra to
systematically gain mastery of key
topics.

• Regularly use formative assessments

to target and differentiate instruction.

• Use a combination of instructional

methods for students experiencing
mathematical difficulties, including
explicit instruction, multiple
representations, and additional
materials.

• Differentiate instruction for

mathematically gifted students (by
level, complexity, breadth, and depth)
and ensure that it’s developmentally
appropriate and taught at an
accelerated rate.

Interlacing modeling with work time • Teaching problem, then allowing

students to work on problem that
assesses mastery, and then repeating
process again.

Maintain high expectations for

performance
Monitoring and evaluation (Hattie, 2009) • Get students to think about nature and
quality of their work

• Encourage students to test

mathematical ideas and discovery
mathematical principles

Explicitly teaching students problem- • Example: Teaching ways to solve

solving strategies/approaches problems using the following heuristic
(Mellinger, 1991)
Use comprehensive instructional
approach that helps students develop
conceptual understanding,
computational fluency, and problem-
solving skills (Doing What Works web
site)
Teach major topics in algebra that are
recommended by the National
Mathematics Advisory Panel (Doing
What Works site)
methods…
o Understand the problem
o Obtain a plan of the solution
o Carry out the plan
o Examine the solution
obtained to determine the
solution
• Simultaneously develop students’
conceptual understanding, procedural
fluency, and problem-solving skills
• Provide adequate practice
opportunities to develop fluency with
arithmetic facts and standard
algorithms
• Encourage students to apply effort,
and to persist in developing
conceptual understanding,
computational fluency, learning of
facts, and solving problems.
• Build understanding of major algebra
topics and connections: symbols and
expressions, linear and quadratic
equations, functions, algebra of
polynomials, combinatorics and finite
probability.
• Develop students' proficiency in
solving problems, which includes
problem formulation, problem
translation, transformation of
equations, and explanation of the
steps in problem solving.
• Enhance teacher understanding of the
topics of algebra, the links among
those topics, and how to teach those
topics, including strategies for
addressing student misconceptions in
learning algebra
Encourage Girls to Pursue Mathematics
and Sciences (Doing What Works site)
• Provide prescriptive, informational
• Show students female role models to
• Spark curiosity and foster long-term
• Teach students that science and
mathematical intelligence is malleable
(can be increased with practice)
o Teach students that the brain
grows when new material is
learned
o Remind students that the
mind grows stronger with
use; over time and with
continued effort,
understanding may get
easier
o Encourage students to keep
seeking challenges to further
develop their brain
connections
feedback on strategies and effort
o Provide students with
feedback on learning
strategies
o Praise effort, not ability
o Avoid using general praise,
such as “good job”
o Offer multiple opportunities
for students to receive
feedback on their
performance
counter gender stereotypes
o Assign biographical readings
o Highlight achievements of
women in the news
o Talk about the number of
women who receive degrees
in math and science related
disciplines
o Introduce students to
mentoring programs
interest in math and science
o Embed mathematics and
 sciences in contexts that are
interesting, especially to girls
(e.g., for middle school
children and older, using
real-world problems—such
as figuring out how to build
an effective skateboard ramp
given a limited budget—can
be motivating and support
learning)
o Capitalize on novelty:
Project-based learning,
group work, innovating tasks,
and technology to spark
initial interest
o Encourage students to
examine their beliefs about
which careers are typically
female-oriented and which
are typically male-oriented

• Teach students spatial skills such as

how to visualize and manipulate forms
and shapes
o Encourage young girls to
play with building toys
o Encourage older girls to use
spatial information when
solving math and science
problems
o Require answers that use
both words and spatial
displays
o Provide specific training in
spatial skills (e.g., use step-
by-step instruction that
develops skills in mental
rotation of images, spatial
perspectives, and embedded
figures).
 Cross-Content Practices
Recommendation How to Implement
Use Problem-Based Learning to • Student-centered learning
increase recall (Gijbels, 2005)
• Learning occurs in small groups

• A tutor is present as facilitator or guide

• Authentic problems are presented at

the beginning of the learning sequence

• The problems encountered are used

as tools to achieve the required
knowledge and the problem solving
skills necessary to eventually solve the
problem

• New information is acquired through

self-directed learning

Practice the “Five C’s” During One-on- • Foster a sense of control in the student
One Instruction
• Appropriately challenge the student

• Instill confidence in student

o Maximize success
(expressing confidence in the
student, assuring student
that they’re solving difficult
problems)
o Minimize failure (provide
excuses for mistakes and
emphasize part of problem
that student got right)

• Foster curiosity
 • Use Socratic methods via leading
o Questions
o Link problem to real-world
problems or those seen in
another context

• Contextualize the problem

• Place problem in real-world context or

from a movie/TV show

Alternate worked examples with • Develop homework sets that ask

problem-solving practice students to alternate between reading
already worked solutions and solving
problems on their own.

• Have teachers conduct “thinkalouds” in

which they explain their thinking

• Process as they complete problems

• Plan for professional development to

identify the characteristics of a good
example

• Consider incorporating online tutorials

that assist students

Avoid “dumbing down” material for • Instead, present material in a different

struggling students (Lepper, ) way or context

Ask leading/higher-order questions and • Study your discipline to better

then ask them to justify their responses understand how scientists, historians,
(Doing What Works site) mathematicians, and those who study
literature ask questions and provide
explanations.

• Encourage students to dig deeper by

asking them to explain their thinking in
speaking and writing.

• Create a classroom culture that

encourages students to take academic
risks and share ideas with the class.

Build positive relationships with
students (Batten & Girling-Butcher,
1981; Cornelius-White, 2007, p.123)
Teaching strategies via direct
instruction
Assess students more frequently with
smaller tests/quizzes
Emphasize student progress over their
abilities when collaborating with other
colleagues as well as when engaging
with students (Hattie, 2009)
Recognize that boredom is often a sign
that tasks are too easy or difficult
(Steinberg, Brown and Dornbusch,
1997, p.63)
Connect abstract and concrete
representations of concepts (Doing
What Works site)
(e.g., allow sufficient wait time for
responses, provide sentence starters
to scaffold explanations, create norms
and structures for respectful dialogue)
• Provide teachers with professional
development about how to make
question-asking and explanation-
generating a natural part of the
classroom environment.
• Respect child for what he/she brings to
the classroom
• Show genuine interest in students’
lives/hobbies outside of school
• Demonstrate ability to see their
perspective and then give them
relevant feedback that allows them to
• Encourage them self-assess as well as
to understand others and the content
with the same interest and concern
• Teach students test strategies directly
• Explain the how, when, where, and
why of these strategies’ use.
• Make sure to accompany frequent
quiz/test-giving with appropriate
feedback
• Avoid praising students for being
“smart” or “advanced,” especially In
front of other students
• Differentiate so that you’re
appropriately challenging students
• Identify the challenging concepts in
your discipline and how you might
 demonstrate these concepts in
concrete contexts.

• Use graphic representations with

verbal descriptions that illustrate key
processes and procedures.

• Help students understand the benefits

and limitations of concrete
representations.
• Provide teachers with professional
development in creating lessons that
situate challenging course material in
real-world problem scenarios.

Teach students that intelligence is • Tell them research shows that if they
malleable (Nesbitt, 2009) try harder they will eventually improve

• Avoid praising students for their

intelligence

Creating Learning-Centered • Create flexible room arrangements

Environments (National Education (e.g., desks are clustered to maximize
Association) face-to-face interaction)

• Vary social forums (e.g., set-ups

ranging from whole class to small-
group instruction) depending on the
learning goal

• Encourage students to use multiple

information resources and make these
resources readily available (e.g.,
peers, teachers, outside experts, the
Internet, primary source documents,
and supplemental resources obtained
at the library)

• Encourage students to not only take

responsibility for their own learning but
to support and monitor the learning of
their peers

• Share responsibility of assessment

with students

Establish clear implementation and
evaluation intentions (Elliot and Dweck,
1988)
Set appropriately challenging goals
(Latham and Locke, 2006)
Provide appropriate feedback to
students that promotes self-
efficacy/agency
o Student self-assessment
(e.g., through pre-test
surveys)
o Peer assessment (e.g., per
editing of essays or
assignments)
• Effectively communicate to students
how you expect to help them learn the
day’s objective as well as how they’ll
be responsible for showing you that
they’ve mastered it
• Avoid “do your best” goals
• Goals that are too challenging are
counterproductive.
• Do not punish students for failing to
meet academic goals; doing so
discourages risk taking
• Focus feedback on the product:
o Example: “You need to
include more about the
Treaty of Versailles in your
answer to receive full credit”
• Focus feedback on process that leads
to higher achievement:
o Example: “You already know

Provide students with spaced over
massed practice (Doing What Works
site)
Encourage visualization of achievement
(Feltz and Landers, 1983)
Encourage peer tutoring
Cooperation is superior to competition
in promoting achievement (Johnson,
Maruyama, Johnson, Nelson, and Skon,
1981)
Purposefully using computers
the key features of the
opening of an argument.
Check to see whether you
have incorporated them in
your first paragraph”
• Use quizzes and fun games for
retrieval practice to reduce forgetting
• Teach students how to test and assess
their own knowledge and focus on
study strategies accordingly
• Use technology to provide quick-
response to quizzes
• Plan for important content to be
revisited and reviewed over time
• Provide common planning time for
teachers to revise grading systems
that capture review and students’
mastery of skills over time than a
students’ performance on a single
assessment
• Encourage students to visualize
themselves concentrating or being
engaged
• Pair higher-performing with lower-
performing students for maximum
results
• Design structured activities with highly
detailed directions to promote
collaboration between students
• Use diversity of strategies when
teaching with computers
• Undergo pre-training in the use of
computers as a teaching and learning
tool (minimum of 10 quality hours)
 • Design student-centered computer
learning activities

• Pair students up into heterogeneous

groups during computer activities;
make sure to encourage students to
work together to use appropriate
learning strategies and provide highly
detailed instructions for group work
(Lou, Abrami, and d’Apollonia, 2001)

Teaching through backwards design • Start by crafting test/desired results

(van Gog, Ericcson, Rikers, & Paas, and then units/plan lessons to ensure
2005; Wiggins and McTighe, 2005) that students work toward mastering
the assessed standards/objectives

Teacher Characteristics Most

Associated with Student Achievement
Recommendation How to Implement
Open to feedback from students as to • Administer surveys that ask students
what they know and understand, where to rate your clarity of instruction,
they make errors, when they have degree of responsiveness to students’
misconceptions, when they are not learning needs, what they do/don’t like
engaged (Marsh, 2007; Irving, 2004) about the class, etc.

Critically Reflective (Popper, 1963) • Excellent teachers are students of their

own effects
• They seek evidence as to why their
teaching may not have been
successful
Exhibit good knowledge, empathy, and
verbal ability (Hattie, 2009)
Welcomed and were open to learning
from classroom observations by other
teachers/administrators
Less likely to give positive feedback • Instead, empower students to evaluate
their own work
 School-Wide Characteristics Associated with Achievement
Recommendation
High levels of trust between educators
and administrators alike (Schneider,
2002)
Schools in which educators and
administrators alike collaborate around
student achievement data to drive
decisions about how to maximize
teacher efficacy and student
achievement (Hattie, et al., 2007)
Provide incentives for teachers whose
students get results on standardized
tests (e.g., bonuses)
Offer students intellectually stimulating
after-school and summertime activities
(Nesbitt, 2009)
Recommendations for Turning Schools
Around from the US Dept of Ed’s
“Doing What Works” Web site:
How to Implement
• Principals must signal change by doing
any of the following:
o Communicating a clear
purpose to school staff
o Creating high expectations,
o Sharing leadership
o Demonstrating a willingness
to
o Make changes him or herself
o Identifying advocates on staff
o Building consensus
o Eliminating distractions
o Establishing a cohesive
culture.
Example: To signal change and
to develop targeted goals for the
school, one principal analyzed
different types of data, such as
data on student achievement,
discipline, class size, staffing,
and use of instructional time,
and involved the staff in a
process to clearly identify what
was or was not working. They
identified discipline as a problem
and so they adjusted the
schedule to reduce time
 students spent in the hallways
where many of the discipline
problems had occurred.

• Improve the quality of instruction

(Doing What Works site)
o Examine school-level data to
identify areas of school
weakness
o Examine student-level data
to inform interventions, group
outreach, differentiate
instruction
o Have staff work together to
review the curriculum for
alignment with state and
local standards to ensure all
standards are being
adequately addressed in
instruction.
o Track progress and make
adjustments.
o Focus professional
development on areas of
greatest need

• Make visible improvements early in the

school turnaround process (Doing
What Works site)
o Pick a viable and important
goal that can lead to visible
improvement: the use of
time, classroom resources,
student discipline, and
building improvements
o Pick an efficient plan of
implementation that
minimizes the principal’s
reliance on others and
financial dependence
o Consider goals that have
worked in other turnaround
schools: adjusting the
schedule to improve the
functioning of the school;
provide time for academic

Implement Drop-Out Prevention
Programs (What Works Clearinghouse)
support; give teachers
additional time to collaborate;
improve access to
instructional materials and
basic supplies for teachers;
improve appearance of
facilities through painting,
changing displays, and
cleaning
• Build a committed staff (Doing What
Works Site)
• Recruit new staff
• Evaluate the strengths and
weaknesses of the staff.
o Redeploy staff
o If staff members have
valuable skills but are not
effective in their current role,
consider other roles for them
• Replace teachers who actively resist
the change
• Assign adult advocates to students at
risk of dropping out
o Adults should have an
appropriate background and
low caseloads and be
appropriately matched with
students
o Provide students at risk of
dropping out with academic
support and enrichment to
improve academic
performance
• Personalize the learning environment
and instructional process
• Provide rigorous and relevant
instruction to better engage students in
learning and provide the skills needed

Provides professional development
sessions that meet the following
criteria (“Professional Community and
Professional Development” brief on the
NEA’s Web site
to graduate and to serve them after
they leave school (e.g., introducing
students to postsecondary options)
• Focuses on the “instructional triangle”:
pedagogical content knowledge;
student thinking, learning, and
assessment (and facilitating
strengthening of this norm through
evidence-based discussions);
understanding and responding to
student diversity (giving teachers ways
to promote identity-safe classroom
environments)
• Strategies have characteristics
associated with effectiveness:
collective participation, active learning,
coherence (linking PD sessions with
each other and regular activation of
prior teacher knowledge), sustained
duration.
• Working conditions are conducive to
professional learning (sufficient
planning and collaborative time,
materials, and access to colleagues)
• Develops teacher professional
community that is characterized by the
following elements
o Shared values and purposes
o Collective focus on and
responsibility for student
learning
o Collaborative and
coordinated efforts to
improve student learning
o Practices that support
teacher learning: inquiry,
problem solving, and advice-
giving
o Collective control over
important decisions affecting
curriculum
Maintains workplace conditions that are • Appropriate teaching assignments; fair
conducive to learning and manageable teaching load and
class size

• Ongoing collaboration between

teachers

• Ongoing observation of, interaction

with, and advice from experienced
colleagues

• Collective teacher responsibility for

student achievement, comprehensive
student support services, school-
family-community partnerships

• Complete aligned curriculum that can

be used flexibly

• Sufficient resources and materials;

teacher stipends for extras

• Coherent, job-embedded assistance

that meets individual teachers’
instructional needs

• Increasing opportunities for career

growth (e.g., expanding roles in
professional development, curriculum
writing, and mentoring)

• Principal that actively brokers

workplace conditions; encourages
teacher interdependence and
collective work
Practices with Minimal-to-Low Association with Achievement
o Perceptual motor programs

o Team teaching/co-teaching

o Using technology in math classes

o Character-building interventions

o Homework in which there is no active involvement by the teacher

(e.g., no effort made to review homework material in class)

o Social skill interventions

o Providing extrinsic incentives (especially those that foster inter-

student competition)…verbal rewards better than tangible ones

o Praising the student (e.g., “You are a great student!” or “Good job!”)

o Giving students longer tests with long interludes in between

o Teacher education programs (Qu and Becker, 2003)

o Emphasizing learning styles

o Simply providing teachers with technology, and giving them no

preparation as to how to use these resources (Kulik, 1994)

o Subject matter knowledge (has diminishing returns beyond certain

base level of competency) Hattie, 2009

o Professional development sessions whose organizers evaluate the

success of the workshops/trainings on the extent to which teachers
report that they have changed (Wade, 1985)
 Recommendation 1: organizers of professional development should
focus on whether or not the diffusion of their practices and
knowledge leads to student gains in achievement
 Recommendation 2: gear professional development around
providing feedback about classroom observations by other
teachers/administrators
 Recommendation 3: provide opportunities for teachers to process
new information, incorporate into instruction, reflect, and then share
out during follow-up collaborative sessions

o Professional development sessions whose organizers evaluate the

success of the workshops/trainings on the extent to which teachers
report that they have changed (Wade, 1985)
 Recommendation 1: organizers of professional development should
focus on whether or not the diffusion of their practices and
knowledge leads to student gains in achievement
 Recommendation 2: gear professional development around
providing feedback about classroom observations by other
teachers/administrators
 Recommendation 3: provide opportunities for teachers to process
new information, incorporate into instruction, reflect, and then share
out during follow-up collaborative sessions
 Practices with Negative Effects on Achievement
• Demotivation caused by public humiliation, devastating test results, or
conflicts with teachers or peers
• Teaching through computer-based activities without at least 10 hours of
quality pre-training
• Schools that do not attend to student outcomes as much as the work and
structural conditions of teaching and learning (e.g., making sure every
student has a computer but not ensuring that teachers are prepared to teach
students how to learn through computer use)—Hanushek, 1997, p.305
• Schools that provide an incentive structure that does not reward educators
for promoting student achievement (Haunushek, 1997, p.305)
o Example: Schools that encourage teachers to measure success more in
terms of satisfaction they receive from doing a “good job” and the approval
or disapproval they receive from administrators as opposed to drawing
satisfaction from promoting student achievement