Leveraging Hattie’s “Big Hitters”

Literacy Instructional Practices to Improve Student Outcomes

Participant Workbook

David E. Forbush, Ph.D.

Rebecca Peterson, M. Ed.

UMTSS – 2017

Objectives:

1: Demonstrate conceptual knowledge of two of Hattie’s big hitter practices for literacy instruction (i.e., vocabulary & self-questioning).

2: Demonstrate skill in enacting two of Hattie’s big hitter practices for literacy instruction, in role-play situations, and demonstrate appropriate levels of competency as per peer observation.

Two types of literacy learning

Surface

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Deep

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Surface and deep literacy skills

Vocabulary acquisition

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Metacognitive skills

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Vocabulary Instruction – Effect size = .67

Types of Vocabulary

•Listening Vocabulary – words we know when ______.

•Writing Vocabulary – words we know and ______.

•Reading Vocabulary – words we know when we ______.

Vocabulary inputs

•Listening to people ______

•Listening to people ______

•Reading on your ______

Four Vocabulary instruction approaches

1)______Analysis - Using word parts to figure out meaning of unknown words.

2)______Analysis - Using context to figure out meaning of unknown words.

3)______Use - Using a dictionary to figure out meaning of unknown words.

4)______Word Instruction - Instruction in the meaning of a word.

Three Part Heuristic

1)Look inside the word or phrase for structural clues “Morphemic Analysis”

2)Look outside the word or phrase for contextual clues “Contextual Analysis (CA)”

3)Look further outside the word or phrase for resources “Dictionary Use”

Context Analysis Teaching Sequence

  1. Model and guided Practice (detailed in presentation)
  2. Directed use (see below)
  3. Independent use see below)

II. Directed use of context during independent reading.

List words on board from reading that are likely to be unknown to the students.

  1. Tell students to:
  2. Copy words on their paper.
  3. Look for words in reading.
  4. Figure out what they mean from context.
  5. Write down inferred meaning.
  6. After reading, review predicted meaning of each word:
  7. Everyone goes to relevant sentence.
  8. Student reads sentence with unknown word.
  9. Student gives inferred meaning.
  10. Other students give their meanings and rationale.
  11. Teacher confirms good use of context.
  12. Teacher confirms correct meaning.

III. Independent use of context during independent reading.

  1. Preview the reading and identify words likely to be unknown to most students. This time, don’t give the list of words to the students (focus is on them finding unknown words and using CA).
  2. Beforereading, tell students:
  3. “Students, write down words from the reading that you do not know.
  4. Figure out what the words mean from context.
  5. Write down predicted word meanings.”
  6. After reading:
  1. Ask student if she listed a certain word

Whether or not the student listed the word, do the following steps. If she did not have it listed, treat this as a way to test if she was right about knowing the word.

  1. Everyone goes to relevant sentence.
  2. Student reads sentence with unknown word.
  3. Student gives inferred meaning.
  4. Other students give their meanings and rationale.
  5. Teacher confirms good use of context.
  6. Teacher confirms correct meaning.

Deep learning – metacognitive strategies

  • What is metacognition?

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Self-Questioning – Effect size = .64

Self-questioning and literacy

Explicitly teach student to:

–Plan tasks

•What do I need to accomplish?

•What does success look like?

•Break tasks into manageable chunks

–Monitor comprehension

•What unfamiliar concepts are present?

•What chapters, sections or other breaks are present?

•Are there graphs? Diagrams? Images?

•What questions can I ask? Are there chapter questions?

–Evaluate progress

•How will I know when I have accomplished the task I need to accomplish?

•How often will I monitor my progress?

•What will I check to see if I am making progress toward my goal of success?

–Correct errors

•How will I check my work or understanding for errors?

•How will I correct my errors? What strategies can I use?

•How often will I check for errors?

Purpose of self-questioning

Guide student decisions about learning by asking key questions

Shape the internal dialogue about thinking

Make the invisible, visible

Teach self-questioning skills explicitly

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Self-Questioning – Example think-aloud

Article 1: “Designer Viruses Stimulate the Immune System to Fight Cancer”

Questions from the section on monitoring comprehension:

–What unfamiliar concepts are present?

–What chapters, sections or other breaks are present?

–Are there graphs? Diagrams? Images?

–What questions can I ask? Are there chapter questions?

Article from:

Université de Genève. (2017, May 26). Designer viruses stimulate the immune system to fight cancer.ScienceDaily. Retrieved from

Swiss scientists from the University of Geneva (UNIGE), Switzerland, and the University of Basel have created artificial viruses that can be used to target cancer. These designer viruses alert the immune system and cause it to send killer cells to help fight the tumor. The results, published in the journalNature Communications, provide a basis for innovative cancer treatments.

Most cancer cells only provoke a limited reaction from the immune system -- the body's defense mechanism -- and can thus grow without appreciable resistance. By contrast, viral infections cause the body to release alarm signals, stimulating the immune system to use all available means to fight the invader.

Bolstered defenses

Immunotherapies have been successfully used to treat cancer for many years; they "disinhibit" the body's defense system and so also strengthen its half-hearted fight against cancer cells. Stimulating the immune system to specifically and wholeheartedly combat cancer cells, however, has remained a distant goal. Researchers have now succeeded in manufacturing innovative designer viruses that could do exactly that. Their teams were led by Professor Doron Merkler from the Department of Pathology and Immunology of the Faculty of Medicine, UNIGE, and Professor Daniel Pinschewer from the Department of Biomedicine, University of Basel.

The researchers built artificial viruses based on lymphocytic choriomeningitis virus (LCMV), which can infect both rodents and humans. Although they were not harmful for mice, they did release the alarm signals typical of viral infections. The virologists also integrated certain proteins into the virus that are otherwise found only in cancer cells. Infection with the designer virus enabled the immune system to recognize these cancer proteins as dangerous.

The unique combination of alarm signals and the cancer cell protein stimulated the immune system to create a powerful army of cytotoxic T-lymphocytes, also known as killer cells, which identified the cancer cells through their protein and successfully destroyed them.

Hope for new cancer treatments

The treatments available to cancer patients have developed enormously in the last few years. However, as the researchers report, current treatments are still inadequate in combating many forms of cancer. "We hope that our new findings and technologies will soon be used in cancer treatments and so help to further increase their success rates," say the study's senior authors, Professor Doron Merkler and Professor Daniel Pinschewer. This very promising designer virus has already been patented through Unitec, a structure that offers advice as well as industrial and financial contacts to UNIGE, the University Hospital and the University of Applied Sciences and Arts of Geneva researchers.

  1. Sandra M. Kallert, Stephanie Darbre, Weldy V. Bonilla, Mario Kreutzfeldt, Nicolas Page, Philipp Müller, Matthias Kreuzaler, Min Lu, Stéphanie Favre, Florian Kreppel, Max Löhning, Sanjiv A. Luther, Alfred Zippelius, Doron Merkler, Daniel D. Pinschewer.Replicating viral vector platform exploits alarmin signals for potent CD8 T cell-mediated tumour immunotherapy.Nature Communications, 2017; 8: 15327 DOI:10.1038/ncomms15327

Teacher provided questions:

Planning:

  • What do I need to accomplish? I need to understand how viruses help the immune system to fight cancer
  • What steps do I need to take to accomplish my task? I need to read the article through once to look for main ideas and concepts, and then reread for details.
  • What can I predict about the kind of information I will need to learn from the article based on the title? I will need to learn about designer viruses. Designer viruses are viruses that are man-made. I will need to learn about how the viruses fight cancer cells. I will need to learn about how we can use viruses to treat cancer.
  • How will I break the text into manageable chunks by using breaks, sections, subtitles, or other strategies? When I look at the article I notice that there is a summary introductory paragraph, and there are two bolded subtitled sections: Bolstered defenses, and Hope for new cancer treatments. I worry that there are too many concepts in the sections to just use those divisions, so I will check my comprehension by checking at each paragraph break.

My text sections are:paragraph breaks

Monitoring Comprehension:

  • What words are unfamiliar to me?
  • Important vocabulary: immunotherapies, “disinhibit,” Llymphocytic choriomeningitis virus (LCMV), virologists, cytotoxic t-lymphocytes
  • What strategies can I use to find meaning of the vocabulary words I identified? I can use root words, for immunotherapies and disinhibit, and virologists. I can use context cues for LCMV and cytotoxic t-lymphocytes.
  • Are there concepts that I do not understand? I can guess that since cytotoxic t-lymphocytes are called killer cells they must be important parts of the immune system. They must kill the cells that the body doesn’t want to have.
  • Are there chapters sections or other breaks? There are two main breaks in this article. One subheading is about improving defenses, and the other is about hope. That can help me to identify which parts of the article are talking about the scientific investigation and virus manipulation, and which parts are talking about the effect of the change.
  • Are there graphs, diagrams or images? There aren’t any images in this article
  • What questions can I ask? I can ask why one section is called “Bolstered Defenses” and why the other section is called “Hope for new cancer treatments.” If I understand the article, I should be able to answer those questions.

Evaluating progress

  • How will I know when I have accomplished the task I need to accomplish? What questions do I have? Can I explain how this article shows that viruses are engineered to kill cancer cells? If not, what do I need to do? What do I need to re-read? What other information do I need to gather?
  • How often will I monitor my progress? At the end of each paragraph, I will summarize and ask myself if I understood and can restate the paragraph.
  • What will I check to see if I am making progress toward my goal of success? As I read, each paragraph should help me to be able to explain how making “designer viruses” can help with treating cancer. I will ask how the information helps to answer my question.

Correcting errors

  • How will I check my work or understanding for errors? What can I check to make sure I am not making mistakes? I can check to make sure that the information from one paragraph makes sense with the information from the next paragraph. I can ask if what I am reading makes logical sense, and if not, why not. I can look up information online if I need additional information.
  • How will I correct my errors? What strategies can I use? If I find things that are wrong, I can look information up online, I can ask a peer, or I can ask a teacher. The best thing to do is to try to find the information by asking questions and looking for information.
  • How often will I check for errors? I will check for errors every paragraph when I summarize what I read to see if what I am reading is making sense.

Teacher modeled thinking - Let’s try it!

Read article 2: Tree-climbing goats disperse seeds by spitting

  1. Model your thinking
  2. Monitoring comprehension
  3. What unfamiliar concepts are present?
  4. What chapters, sections or other breaks are present?
  5. Are there graphs? Diagrams? Images?
  6. What questions can I ask? Are there chapter questions?

Article 2: Tree-climbing goats disperse seeds by spitting

Ecological Society of America. (2017, May 24). Tree-climbing goats disperse seeds by spitting.ScienceDaily. Retrieved from

In dry southern Morocco, domesticated goats climb to the precarious tippy tops of native argan trees to find fresh forage. Local herders occasionally prune the bushy, thorny trees for easier climbing and even help goat kids learn to climb. During the bare autumn season, goats spend three quarters of their foraging time "treetop grazing."

Spanish ecologists have observed an unusual way in which the goats may be benefiting the trees: the goats spit the trees' seeds. Miguel Delibes, Irene Castañeda, and José M Fedriani reported their discovery in the latest Natural History Note in the May issue of the Ecological Society of America's journalFrontiers in Ecology and the Environment. The paper is open access.

Argan may be familiar from popular beauty products that feature argan oil, made from the tree's nuts. The nut is surrounded by a pulpy fruit that looks a bit like a giant green olive. For goats, the fruits are a tasty treat worth climbing up to 30 feet into the branches to obtain.

But the goats don't like the large seeds. Like cows, sheep, and deer, goats re-chew their food after fermenting it for a while in a specialized stomach. While ruminating over their cud, the goats spit out the argan nuts, delivering clean seeds to new ground, wherever the goat has wandered. Gaining some distance from the parent tree gives the seedling a better chance of survival.

This novel seed dispersal effect is a variation on the mechanism ecologists callendozoochory, in which seeds more commonly pass all the way through the animal's digestive system and out the other end (or sometimes throughtwodigestive systems). The authors suspected that reports of goats dispersing argan seeds by this more common mechanism were mistaken, because goats do not usually poop large seeds.

The researchers have witnessed sheep, captive red deer, and fallow deer spitting seeds while chewing their cud, and suspect this spitting variation on endozoochory may actually be common -- and perhaps an essential route of seed spread for some plant species.

Journal Reference:

Miguel Delibes, Irene Castañeda, José M Fedriani. Tree-climbing goats disperse seeds during rumination. Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment, 2017; 15 (4): 222 DOI: 10.1002/fee.1488

Brainstorm

What other questions could you use to develop your students’ ability to think about their thinking?

Write your plan

•What “big hitter” practice will you implement next year to improve literacy in your setting?

Vocabulary instruction

Self-questioning

Both

•What student learning improvements do you anticipate from your “big hitter” implementation?

•How and when will you implement the practice(s)?

•What barriers do you anticipate?

•How could you address the barriers?

•How will you know if what you are doing is working?