Guiding and monitoring student practice with Rosenshine’s principles

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In this blog post we propose 3 learning techniques to support you in the application of Rosenshine’s Principles in the classroom, when guiding and monitoring student practice.

This previous blog post provides a brief introduction to Rosenshine’s Principles.

1) Wheel of knowledge

A word wheel (see above image) is at its essence a compact puzzle that your students can solve individually, or in groups of two or three.

The goal is for your students to spot as many combinations as possible. It doesn’t matter what you ask your students to combine: letters, numbers, etc. What matters is that students always use the central word, letter or number to resolve the puzzle.

This learning technique is applicable to all subjects and topics, and during all phases of a lesson. It could be an interesting technique to implement during a test, perhaps as a bonus question? Alternatively, it could be offered at the beginning of a lesson as a lesson starter to boost student engagement, and get them ready for the challenge ahead.

2) Observe, discuss, draw… and observe again!

As a teacher, you are constantly looking for visuals related to your subject matter. You know how powerful imagery is. Images leave a strong impression on your students’ minds, stimulate curiosity and boost engagement. But how do students look at an image? Do they see all its details, or does that take more than just looking at it briefly?

This learning technique is perfect to practise ‘seeing’ while looking at something. It also supports students’ communication skills, and builds their ability to perform under pressure.

Divide your students into teams of 3 or 4. Within each team, number your students from 1 to 4. Provide them with pencils, an eraser, and a white sheet of paper.

All students with the number 1 are invited to study the image first. They can look at it for 20 seconds. After 20 seconds they go back to their group, and have to explain what they have seen. Each team has between 5 and 10 minutes to replicate the picture.

After the assignment and while discussing it with your class, remember to focus also on the process, and not only on the resulting drawings. How was the teamwork and the communication flow? Which strategy did each team follow?

3) Match a question to this answer

One of the best ways to understand a new topic is to ask questions about it. This is valid for everybody, and especially for students who are preparing for an assessment, or simply revising a lesson. Asking questions helps memorise and anchor new concepts.

With this learning technique, students are shown a phrase or sentence concerning a certain topic, and they have to think of a relevant question to the answer.

‘Match a question to this answer’ is perfect for subjects such as history or geography, but could be applied, with some adjustments, to maths or modern languages.

Free white paper

For more information on practical ways to implement all Rosenshine’s Principles during your lessons, download our detailed white paper with 12 learning techniques.

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