Reflection on Learning - Week 3: Guided Learning

In week 3 of our 6 week Reflection on Learning, we will focus on how we provide intervention supports in the classroom to students who have deficits in their learning..  This week, we will use our collaboration time to reflect on how we use our instructional block to intervene for students who struggle.  This week's component of instruction is called Guided Learning.

Description

Once the bell ringer hooks kids into learning for the day, and  the focus lesson has modeled what learning looks like for the class, students are now ready to interact with new content through activities that involve guided learning or collaborative learning (Week 4 Topic).  In guided learning, students are gathered in need-based groups based on performance data. “The groups consist of students who share a common instructional need that the teacher can address.” (Fisher, Frey. 2008)  To be effective, guided learning must provide students the opportunity to follow the teacher as she scaffolds the learning objective in smaller chunks that are easier for the students to grasp.  In other words, guided instruction breaks down learning for struggling students in ways that the focus lesson cannot.

Guided learning lessons begin with prerequisite skills that students already know and have under control independently.  Without focusing on skills that struggling students have mastered, guiding students to learning cannot begin.  Furthermore, to lead students to complex levels of  cognitive thinking at DOK 2 or 3, teachers must understand that in most cases students will have to scaffold learning by beginning with DOK 1 questions.  

Activities in guided learning  require complex thinking for all students and “the teacher should provide suitable scaffolding and challenges for students to explain their thinking” (Danielson 2013, p 66).  In successful guided learning lessons, teachers differentiate learning by varying either the content, the process or the student product.  Differentiating learning in a guided learning lesson is essential to lead each student to overcome their instructional deficit, and great teachers know how to individualize and personalize learning for each student.  

To create the environment for guided learning to work effectively and efficiently, the teacher must engage the rest of the class in meaningful work with specific procedures that hold all kids accountable.  Successful teachers leverage strong classroom routines and procedures as well as relationships with the kids to set the expectation that all students must work hard in whatever task they are given.  Teachers should plan to group other students, not being pulled for guided learning, in pairs or groups of 3 or 4 to work on meaningful activities that help them interact with the content addressed in the focus lesson without interrupting the teacher.  These students must work collaboratively or independently while the teacher pulls students for guided instruction.  Furthermore, the teacher must structure student expectations for learning in such a way that all students know and meet the expectations for holding appropriate conversations, accessing help independently, and completing the activity successfully without disturbing the teacher as she works in guided learning.    

Engagement Activity	Description	Questions	Content
		How are DOK 1, 2 & 3 questions provided and responded to?	What content is addressed?
Guiding Learning	Intervention activity that allows the teacher to remediate a small group of students who share a common instructional deficit.	Provided by the teacher to scaffold learning beginning with prerequisite skills and leading to skills on grade-level.	Prerequisite and grade level skills that have not been mastered which also includes processing standards.

Reflection

In what ways do you identify students with common instructional deficits and provide guided instruction during your instructional block? (CLICK HERE)