Most high school students are accustomed to learning in two ways: by listening to the teacher and by reading books and other texts. These familiar ways of learning work for them so long as their teachers demand only that they grasp and remember the given content. However, if the goal is to help students learn in more intellectually sophisticated ways, then teaching and learning will have to look quite different.
In a paper titled “Students at the Center” published by Jobs for the Future, Magdalene Lampert provides a close, detailed description of “deeper teaching” in which the author describes the kinds of instructional strategies and moment-by-moment teaching decisions that enable students to learn deeply. According to the author, in order to enact deeper teaching, teachers must use a process of repeated observing, planning, teaching, and analyzing the use of specific teaching routines, known as “Instructional Activities.” Instructional Activities, in this case, are well-designed templates for organizing classroom instruction, in order to engage students in problem solving, communication, collaboration, and the development of metacognition and academic mindsets.
When the use of Instructional Activities is woven into teacher preparation and professional development, the cognitive load of ambitious teaching is reduced, so that the teacher can pay close attention to students, their understanding of the given content, and their participation in the classroom.
For a brief summary, see the executive summary.
For the report, see Students at the Center: Deeper Learning Research Series
