A pedagogic basis for multigrade teaching – the 3Ps
Anita Pincas
Draft - January 2007
This model is suitable and relevant for all teaching, and can be of considerable use in multigrade classrooms. It is explained in detail below. As with all advice to practising teachers, it is important for them to understand the principles, and then to adapt them to their own circumstances. Further, any set of principles, such as this one, can be of value, but needs to be supplemented with hands-on support.Only in a live, teacher training programme that works intimately with teachers in the classroom, can a trainer help the teachers to apply the model.
The 3Ps are
P1 = Teacher presents the content
P2 = Teacher helps learners to practice the activities proposed by the teacher, and offers feedback.
P3 = Teacher asks learners to perform by producing evidence of their competence, for which they receive feedback and/or grades.
Content
Whatever the learning context, whoever the learners, whether there is one teacher or peer learning, there is always content. Without content there is nothing for the learner to learn. Whether learners find something to learn independently, perhaps through stimulating activities devised or proposed by the teacher, or have it brought to their attention - i.e. presented to them in some way by someone else, who is often a teacher but may be another learner - it has to be there. It might be concepts, or facts, or skills, or processes, or attitudes and approaches.
In multigrade classrooms, how to manage access to the appropriate content for different ages and different levels of pupils is one of the three predominant concerns that can worry the teacher. They will ask themselves whether they ought to prepare different content for different levels, or expect the lower levels to “stretch” themselves in order to understand at least some key points of a higher level lesson. This paper will make clear how content relates to the other two predominant concerns for the multigrade teacher: learning, or practice, activities, and feedback or assessment.
Of course all creatures learn a great deal on their own. But schools enhance learning by organising it and using strategies to improve the process of acquiring the content. The teacher is key in this process, without diminishing the contribution of peers, facilitators, and others. In other words, the teacher scaffolds the learning process. Part of that scaffolding is to package the content in a manner that s/he believes will make it more learnable. Many factors come into play here, and they normally include arranging the content in a sequence from familiar to new, easy to more difficult, simple to more complex, or perhaps in a hierarchy from general to particular (or vice versa), or even presenting it in simplified form.
In the first stage of the 3Ps model, learners become aware of content. It may be directly stated and described [i.e. presented], by the teacher or another learner, or an automated teaching program; or else it may be revealed through resources such as reading, audio-visual materials or learner activities designed to lead to it. It can be presented to the learners in a great variety of ways using traditional or newer ICT.
Activities
Learners are always active. They do not come with a tabula rasa on which a teacher inscribes knowledge. Their minds work at learning, willy nilly. For motor and other physical skills, their bodies are likewise active and participatory, experimenting and re-trying. In this way, the content, whatever it is, becomes embedded in the learners’ cognitive or functional structures. Again, the teacher’s role is to enhance such activities by organising them, and encouraging learning strategies to improve acquisition, understanding, and memory.
Feedback and assessment
Learners always need and seek ways of evaluating their own learning. They do their own trial and error practice, and in their own independent learning, they adjust and unconsciously improve – up to a point. It is one of the teacher’s key roles to help them recognise the extent of their own competence, as well as the opportunities for improvement. The teacher’s feedback can be crucial in some learning contexts. More formal assessment, rather than merely feedback, offers a more absolute measure, or in any case a referential measure of what the learner can do.
In a traditional view of teaching, the 3 elementsare used in the chronologicaldefault order. This is reflects the planned delivery order. It is NOT the same as the order of importance of any of the elements! It is:
P1 = Teacher presents the content
P2 = Learners practice the activities
P3 = Learners perform by producing evidence of their competence
It is not essential for all 3 Ps to occur in every teaching event. Often the final P, assessment and feedback, is postponed; sometimes content is presented repeatedly before activities are arranged, and so on.
Whether it is the activities that are more important in the teacher’s view than the content or the assessment, or the content itself is the key focus and activities are secondary or even optional, the sequence in which the lessons deals with them is crucial. Different sequences are a different kinds of teaching and learning. Some are appropriate for whole class teaching with multigrade pupils, others are not. Some lend themselves only to small group work. This will be dealt with later in the chapter.
The 3Ps can be manipulated in an infinite variety of ways. This will be illustrated in relation to further and higher education in the section Variety in the elements of teaching. As a preliminary, it is important to stress three self-evident factors in teaching that have an important influence on how the 3Ps can be applied in class.
First, it needs to be remembered that teachers cannot control their students’ actual learning processes. However much they might attempt to do so, they are limited to advocating or directing learning activities, without being able to affect the learners’ attention or receptiveness to learning. While the teacher fulfils the role of organiser of the context of learning, this does not guarantee success; on many occasions learners deliberately or unknowingly subvert the teachers’ intentions, though sometimes to their own benefit. Learners give themselves feedback by making judgements about their successes, and these may be at variance with what teachers discover by observing them more objectively.
Second, the close, regular, intimate classrooms of schools, has a tacit agreement that the teacher is in charge and pupils will follow. The school teacher-learner is relationship is that of adult-child. This is sometimes a spur to learning, and sometimes the opposite.
Third, the theory behind the 3Ps assumes that knowledge, skills, attitudes or beliefs can be “presented” to pupils. However, there are people for whom it is very important to encourage “co-construction of knowledge”, in which learners develop concepts of knowledge themselves. For instance, in a literature course, teachers often find it important for learners to discuss literary works and decide for themselves what they mean, whether they are “good”, “well written”, and so on. Teachers in such subjects often do not want to “present” knowledge to their classes. Although it is arguable that such co-constructivist approaches are more relevant to situations where there are strategies or policies or approaches or viewpoints to be thought through and worked out rather than knowledge as fact , that type of teaching can be accommodated under the 3Ps model, by taking account of the myriad variations that are possible. For instance, starting a lesson with learners inspecting resources or solving a problem would match many of the co-constructivist methods, bearing in mind that one cannot “create” knowledge, only discover it. One can create interpretations, hypotheses, strategies, policies, and viewpoints. See also the detailed description of Discovery Models inThe 6 basic templates explained, where a sub-type of the discovery model is proposed to meet the constructivist approach.
Regarding P2, Practice - what many people call an “activities model” or “active learning” model, is probably dominant through the social sciences today, with the strong emphasis on learning and the learner, rather than teaching and the teacher. It is appropriate for the social sciences but may be somewhat less so for the “hard” sciences. However, there is no absolute division between the two; they are on a scale from “hard facts” at one end to “open to interpretation” at the other. Even in the hard sciences, there are disputes about facts [ie their rightness, appropriacy, relevance, etc.].
Within this small project, we have put forward a framework around which you can build what you need for your own purposes. We do not claim to be offering a total set of universal truths.
Variety in the elements of teaching
The 3Ps default sequence can be changed, and elements can be interleaved, merged, repeated - in dozens of ways. The chart below shows the default sequence
In ordinary teaching this becomes the basis of variations that fall into one of 6 Basic template patterns.
1 / PREPARATION / PRACTICE / PERFORMANCE2 / PREPARATION / PERFORMANCE / PRACTICE
3 / PRACTICE / PREPARATION / PERFORMANCE
4 / PRACTICE / PERFORMANCE / PREPARATION
5 / PERFORMANCE / PREPARATION / PRACTICE
6 / PERFORMANCE / PRACTICE / PREPARATION
We derive infinite potential from these 6 horizontal or syntagmatic options, and also from repetition in any of them. For instance further practice is frequently added at the end of template 1.
PRESENTATION / PRACTICE / PERFORMANCE / PRACTICEGive the knowledge first / arrange activities / test / more practice as indicated by test
Further, the order of the elements can be changed to derive meaningful sequences that can be associated with a well-known teaching patterns. Thus, remembering that “content” refers to knowledge, skills or attitudes, different sequences in which a teaching event can be arranged represent some familiar “types” of teaching and learning. The following chart illustrates this in more detail, giving each one a name that links to common perceptions of teaching methods, and showing 6 ways of ordering the 3Ps, in each of which there is an instance of use.
This chart will be the basis of the templates provided by the project, and will be subject to considerable further exposition and analysis, especially in relation to the incorporation of different ICTs and media. See also The 6 basic templates explained with the linked examples in PowerPoint Format.
1 / Conventional / Presentation / Practice / PerformanceThe default sequence: Give the knowledge, skills or attitudes first, arrange activities, then check.
History: Show facts in pictures comprehension text Q/A
2 / Feedback responsive / Presentation / Performance / Practice
Give the knowledge, skills or attitudes first, check what further practice is needed, arrange activities.
Maths: Demonstrate check exercises more exercises
3 / Resource/research based / Practice / Presentation / Performance
Ask learners to inspect/consult sources of the knowledge, skills or attitudes, summarise the knowledge, skills or attitudes, check.
Botany: Plants to inspect Explain structure Write report
4 / Discovery based / Practice / Performance / Presentation
Arrange activities through which learners to discover the knowledge, skills or attitudes, check, summarise the knowledge, skills or attitudes.
Science: Watch chemical reaction Create similar one Explanation
5 / Problem stimulus / Performance / Presentation / Practice
Set a problem for the learners to solve, check and present the solution, arrange further practice.
Geography: Find average temperatures Explanation More temperatures
6 / Problem application / Performance / Practice / Presentation
Set a problem for the learners to solve, ask them to apply it, check and summarise the solution.
New language: Oral comprehension 1 w .picture clues to help in Oral comprehension 2 Language round-up
Part 2ge reviewwrt promptly.
singIt is fairly evident that the different orders represent the chief ways in which a teacher makes choices about how to present content. The contrast between 1 and 2 is in the amount of feedback the teacher seeks while presenting the content. In some cases, s/he may feel confidence not to require any; in other circumstances, s/he may feel it essential to check on the learners’ understanding quite frequently.
The contrast between 1 and 3-6 is in whether the content is revealed to the learners from the start, or whether some mode of prompting the learners to acquire it is preferable, e.g. by eliciting it through resources, or problems. No doubt, many teachers employ all these methods from time to time. The chart broadly sets out the chief options, remembering that any of the Ps can be repeated many times in the course of a lesson, and that they can be embedded within in each other [as demonstrated in the section on Course Design.]
For primary school teaching it may be necessary to add the following pattern.
4a / Peer constructed learning / Practice / Performance / PresentationAsk learners to canvass and discuss solutions to a problem, trial the solution, and summarise their findings, with teacher input at final stage.
Teacher training Agree teaching strategy Use agreed strategy in teaching Findings
This is appropriate where teachers do not divide their teaching day into periods for different subjects, but engage the children in some kind of group activities, often called project work in the UK, through which they will learn more than one subject at a time, e.g. history and essay writing, or geography and mathematics. Clearly, such group methods may be less appropriate if the teacher is constrained by the requirements of a tightly set and monitored curriculum.
The templates illustrate a wide range of possible teaching with different sequences of content, activities and feedback or assessment, and involving different uses of ICT. There are further choices within each of the 3P areas, which are well covered in the literature, often under headings such as “instructional sequences”. For instance, Joliffe et al (2001) list orders in which content may be presented:
- Chronological
- Order of performance (especially relevant to skills)
- Known to unknown
- Taxonomic (common in science)
- Simple to complex
- Problem centered
We can add:
- General to particulars or vice versa
- Known to unknown
- Complex to simple
- Causes to effects
- Effects to causes
- Events to reasons for them
and many more.
We follow Bloom (1984) and suggest that each of the 3 elements relates to the actions indicated by the verbs listed.
Teacher actionsPresentation / Practice / Performance
Tells
Explains
Shows
Describes
Evokes
Compares
Contrasts
Demonstrates Instructs
Gives instructions / Analyses
Dissects
Clarifies
Simplifies
Summarises
Harmonizes
Reflects
Postulates
Confirms
Acts as a resource / Guides
Organizes
Facilitates
Questions
Listens
Responds
Observes
Prompts
Comments / Gives impetus
Probes
Examines
Accepts
Rejects
Directs
Evaluates
Assesses
Comments
This illustrates the paradigmatic changes we made. However, we are not taking our templates down to this granularity. These functions are well enough known, and, in any case, the scope of our project is not such as to permit such detailed work. In Phase 2, we expect the learning templates necessarily to reach a deeper level of granularity than is possible here in Phase 1.
There are of course other actions that teachers perform in their teaching, but these are not elements of teaching; they are the phatic, or emotive aspects of the teacher’s behaviour, such as motivate, stimulate, encourage, cajole, discourage, disappoint, please, focus,pacify, and dozens more which, again, are not within the scope of this project.
The 6 basic templates explained
Conventional Models
follow the pattern
Presentation
Practice
Performance
Often called the ‘transmission’ model,
because it starts the learning process by presenting content
in well designed forms.
Presentation
This is still by far the most common model in use, judging by our research of the literature, our discussions with colleagues, and our knowledge from contact with thousands of educators over 40 years. Even the youngest and most recently trained use it predominantly. That is not to say that the focus of such teaching is necessarily on the teacher’s presentation of content. Indeed, the teacher frequently downplays the provision of content and places greater emphasis upon the practice and performance activities that the learners are asked to do.
In the first stage of this model, learners become aware of content. The content – knowledge, skills or attitudes - may be directly stated and described [i.e. presented], by the teacher or by another expert, another learner, an automated teaching program; or else it may be revealed through resources such as reading, audio-visual materials or learner activities designed to lead to it. It can be presented to the learners in a great variety of ways using traditional or newer ICT. In online distance courses, it has been most common to present content by text on web pages. However, the increasingly affordable and available other options, such as voice-overs, audio or video talks, make it seem likely that text will be supplemented or replaced to some extent in many such courses.
When
WhenWhen content is elicited from learners through questioning or other stimuli, this is to some extent a “learner directed” method. But there is a distinction between a truly learner determined course and one in which learners are prompted [perhaps very subtly] by the teacher. In some contexts, where a different template is the model, the learners may truly initiate a teaching event, but the constraints of higher education make it difficult for them to do so if the teacher is following this, the conventional, template.
Practice
It is not sufficient for learners simply to become aware of content. It needs to be activated so that it is fully understood, accepted, integrated with prior learning, remembered, and available for use in appropriate situations. “Practice” is the generic term for the second stage, Practice, i.e. that part of a teaching event where learning activities fulfil these aims.
As in the case of content, it need not be the teacher who organises the practice; it may be learners themselves who are motivated to do so. Also, as with content, the practice may involve direct management by teachers or learners, or else it may be arranged in an automated teaching program, or through written resources on paper or the world wide web, or audio-visual materials, or any combination of these. These may be done individually, in pairs, or in groups, and may be mediated through ICT.