Number 3 of the 6 Most Impactful Instructional Strategies
This article is the third in a series of the six MOST IMPACTFUL instructional strategies for educators from John Hattie’s study. To learn more about this study, read this introduction article and catch the first article here.
What is it?
Simply put, so much of life involves solving problems. How do I fix my leaky faucet? How do I find the best fertilizer for my lawn? How do I convince my wife to let me buy a new set of irons for the upcoming golf season?
As adults, our brains have the experience to both analyze when we are facing a problem and develop logical solutions for solving it. This cognitive processing is not innate and must be taught, which relates to student learning impact #4.
Hattie’s research discovered that teaching students an assessment strategy called Cognitive Task Analysis (CTA) has the potential to increase student learning to an effect size of 1.29. (Remember, anything above 1.0 has the potential to increase student learning by 50%, which equates to nearly two grade levels per school year!)
CTA requires two different components from an instructional perspective:
Teachers MUST provide students with a variety of challenging tasks related to problem solving, analyzing, synthesizing, evaluating, and creating (think upper-level Bloom’s taxonomy). Memorizing and regurgitating information via multiple choice, true/false, and matching does not cut it here.
Teachers then provide students with a variety of skills and strategies that they can use to diagnose and attack the task and similar tasks in the future. (I’ll give some suggestions shortly.)
Where’s the Research?
The first meta-analysis study on CTA was conducted by Lee (2004) and involved 7 different studies in the United States. The results produced a staggering effect size of 1.70. In 2013, Tofel-Grehl and Feldon conducted another meta-analysis of CTA, which produced an effect size of .87 (which is still positively impactful). Hattie averaged these two effect sizes when publishing his results.
What does it look like in the classroom?
As mentioned above, skills and strategies for tackling complex problems cannot be effective without a curriculum that challenges students with a variety of higher order thinking tasks. Knowing the correct answer is “B,” not “C” is not challenging.
Once students are presented with a challenging task, here are some strategies teachers can employ that relate to Cognitive Task Analysis and helping students intentionally create a plan for completing attacking the task:
Language Analysis: Help students break down the important verbs in the task first. Popular words for elementary students might be “find” and “solve,” which will require problem-solving skills. Middle and high school students should understand the meaning of words like “analyze” (break it down), “synthesize” (build it back up to create my own meaning), and “evaluate” (choosing the best response, based on evidence).
Writing Brain Dump: Sometimes I don’t really know what I am thinking until I write it. Have students write the one or more ways that they will attempt to address their task. This serves as an excellent reflection activity once the task is completed.
Graphic Organizers: While it is acceptable for teachers to occasionally provide these for students, the learning effectiveness increases when the choice is student-driven. For example, when tasked to evaluate the overall effectiveness of Bill Clinton’s presidency, students should decide the best way to organize their findings. Teachers may prompt students by asking them to remember what they used last time they solved an evaluation task…a continuum, a Venn diagram, a T-chart, a KWL chart, etc.
Encourage Discussion: When I am facing a problem, I need to talk about it with other people. I call my dad for help when my faucet is leaking. I ask friends about how they take care of their lawn. The same should be true for students. Solving problems is not a secret code that they need to figure out on their own; they should talk about their task (what it is and how they are solving it) with a variety of people, both in and outside the classroom…peers, parents, anyone!
Reflection Time:
Think of one challenging task that you give your students. Do you properly teach them how to think about solving the problem?
Does your entire instructional staff have a shared definition for important academic language - analyze, synthesize, summarize, paraphrase, and what constitutes an “essay”?
Finally, if you hear about any good deals on TaylorMade blade irons, let me know. :-)
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