One approach to designing learning sequences is to imagine the process as a set of building blocks that serve specific functions. This section lists a number of such blocks that can be choreographed into a sequence that optimizes learning.
Introduction to new material.
A student can be exposed to new concepts or skills in any form or modality, including listening to a teacher lecture, watching a video, reading a chapter, or doing an exploratory activity like a station lab. It can happen in class or as homework as part of a “flipped” classroom. It can be done individually, in a small group, or with the whole class. Like all of the building blocks in this process, introducing new material can also be a blend of many modes. For instance, good lecturing requires frequent interjections of student activity, whether individual practice or conversational learning, to let them process the new information.
Exploration / practice.
Once students are exposed to new concepts or skills, they need to process that new knowledge through exploration and practice. The form of exploration depends largely on the nature of the material. For instance, after reading a short story for an English class, students may be given prompts to guide a discussion to think more deeply about character development, say, or the dramatic arc of the story. Algebra students learning how to graph a function, on the other hand, need to practice solving problems until they reach proficiency.
Working as an individual can be useful during the exploration phase, but individual work should be differentiated if possible to avoid forcing students to do busywork. Unless handled carefully, practice can actually be counterproductive. If a student isn’t in her learning comfort zone, independent practice will be ineffective; both busywork and panic undermine the learning process. Exploration and practice in groups can also be used to resolve this problem. Conversational learning enriches the exploration phase for all students, regardless of how quickly they master the new material.
Individual Work / Metacognition.
In any learning sequence, there must be time spent in individual effort. Working alone requires a student to confront the true limits of what she can do independently of others. Metacognition, by definition, is an inward-directed, individual effort. As described in “Grades Reconsidered”, an assessment of self-understanding can consist of:
Articulating the new concepts or skills. Simply having to express new material in her own words forces a student to work with the problem at a deeper level than, say, highlighting text.
Assessing how well she understood or mastered it. This can, for example, be a 1 to 5 scale, where 5 means a student knows the new material well enough to teach it, a 4 means she needs to talk about it, a 3 means she has serious questions about it, and a 1 or a 2 means she is in over her head.
Describing, as specifically as possible, what she didn’t understand or master. If it is anything less than a 5, what is the impediment to understanding?
Doing these last two steps, in particular, prepares the student to participate in conversational learning, described below.
Conversational learning.
One of the most important aspects of learning occurs when students talk to each other, ask each other questions, teach each other. While conversational learning can occur at any point during the learning sequence, it is most effective after a student has done the individual metacognitive work described above. Now she is ready to join in a discussion with other students. If she has mastered the new material, she should be prepared to teach it. If she still needs to work on it, she should be prepared to ask good questions to continue learning. Because of this preparation, the teaching and learning that takes place during these conversations can be the most effective aspect of the learning process. Along with differentiated learning, it is also one of the prime ways of dismantling the bell curve.
Open work time / differentiation.
In general, there will be one or more points in the course of any learning sequence when the needs of students diverge. For example, after being introduced to and exploring new material, some students will have mastered it and are in danger of becoming bored, while others may feel lost and confused, and need more time to process it.
What is called for at such moments is open work time, when students can work on different activities to suit their various needs simultaneously. As described in “Differentiated Learning: Building the Responsive Classroom”such activities can respond to the needs of students in a number of ways, including:
Differentiation by level of challenge. As described above, some students may need enrichment activities, while others need remediation and more practice.
Differentiation by learning style. Since students learn in different ways, the same material can be learned through activities that accommodate visual, auditory, and tactile-kinesthetic learners, for example.
Differentiation by pace. Some students learn more quickly than others. If there is a set sequence of activities — say a series of mathematical problem sets of ever-increasing difficulty, or a writing assignment that requires a sequence of drafts — then open work time can allow each student to proceed through a given learning sequence at her own pace.
Differentiation by topic. With some activities, such as long-term projects, writing and/or research assignments, scaffolding can be created to guide student choice. The timing of deadlines for various milestones of long-term work can also be differentiated based on the capabilities and needs of individual students.
Differentiated learning can be woven into almost any phase in a learning sequence, and can serve specific functions, such as test remediation, exploration of new material in different learning styles, or individual preparation for an exam.
Review.
Summarizing what has just been learned helps students gain perspective and attach new material to existing understanding. A teacher-led review in the form of a lecture will generally be less effective than a process that requires students to be actively engaged. Whether they are doing presentations, discussing a review packet, or simply engaged in conversation, the more student-directed this phase is, the likelier the review is to enhance their learning. This is described further in "Study Groups: The Heart of Conversational Learning".
Assessment.
At some point in the learning sequence, it is necessary to establish the level of mastery students have achieved in a more formal way. In general, such an assessment should be formative in nature, with well-established pathways for students to do remediation work as needed.
Remediation.
An essential aspect of formative assessments is the opportunity for a student to learn from her mistakes. The form this remediation takes will depend on the nature of the learning goals that have been assessed. Two broad categories of learning goals are skills and concepts.
When assessing skills, there are few practical alternatives to having students demonstrate those skills directly. When a student has not mastered a specific skill, the remediation process should help her isolate the difficulty she is having, practice that specific issue, and assess the skill again.
If, on the other hand, concepts are being assessed, the act of learning from mistakes looks different. Depending on the subject matter, conversational learning about mistakes made on tests is often an effective way to isolate the difficulty the student is having. There should also be a process for the student to express what she has learned from those mistakes and to show that she now understands the concept.