Mastery learning is a way of designing units of work so that: 1. each task (or set of tasks) focuses on a particular learning objective; and 2. students must master a task in order to move onto the next one. Teachers use formal or informal assessments to monitor students’ progress and provide additional support to students who have not yet mastered the learning required in the task. Research shows that when instruction is sequenced in this way, students learn more efficiently and effectively.

This practice guide will help teachers check that students understand and can apply new knowledge and skills, and give additional instruction, guidance or feedback where necessary.

This practice guide will help you understand how to:

*check your students understand and can apply the knowledge and skills they have gained
*be responsive to students’ needs by supporting them with additional instruction, guidance or feedback where necessary.

High-probability requests are one feasible classroom technique that can be effective in motivating students to engage in assigned classwork (Lee, 2006). The teacher first identifies an academic activity in which the student historically shows a low probability of completing because of non-compliance. The teacher then embeds within that low-probability activity an introductory series of simple, brief 'high-probability' requests or tasks that this same student has an established track record of completing (Belfiore, Basile, & Lee, 2008).

Profile of a Student with This Motivation Problem: The student lacks essential skills required to do the task. Areas of deficit might include basic academic skills, cognitive strategies, and academic-enabler skills. Here are teacher behaviors to help fix this motivation problem.

Although the student has the required skills to complete the assigned work, he or she perceives the ‘effort’ needed to do so to be so great that the student loses motivation. Learn teacher behaviors to fix this motivation problem.

The student is distracted or off-task because classroom instruction and learning activities are not sufficiently reinforcing to hold his or her attention. Learn teacher behaviors to help fix this motivation problem.

The student requires praise, access to rewards, or other reinforcers in the short term as a temporary ‘pay-off’ to encourage her or him to apply greater effort. Learn teacher behaviors to help fix this student motivation problem.

The student has a low sense of self-efficacy in a subject area, activity, or academic task and that lack of confidence reduces the student’s motivation to apply his or her best effort. NOTE: Self-efficacy is the student’s view of his or her own abilities specific to a particular academic area (e.g., mathematics) and should not be confused with self-esteem, which represents the student’s global view of his or her self-worth. Learn teacher behavior to help fix this student motivation problem.

The student appears indifferent or even hostile toward the instructor and thus may lack motivation to follow teacher requests or to produce work. Learn teacher behaviors to help with this student motivation problem.

This guide is the second in a series of 4, and focuses on prioritising curriculum, pedagogical and assessment approaches to achieve the goals in a strategic plan. Once you’ve set goals and associated targets in specific learning areas, you’ll need to prioritise approaches to achieve each goal. An approach is a high-level improvement strategy that shows how you will work towards a goal. Approaches that focus on curriculum, pedagogy and assessment have the greatest impact on learning. This guide recommends practical steps for prioritising approaches to achieve each goal within a strategic plan. We recommend reading this guide after you have read the first guide in this series, Setting Goals and Targets for Student Learning. After reading this guide, we recommend you read Selecting Practices to Deliver Improvement.

This tool can be used to examine your own approaches for engaging with families to support student learning. It is designed around the ‘promising approaches’; the approaches for engaging with families that research evidence shows can have a measurable positive effect on student learning outcomes.

This tool can be used to examine your school’s approaches for engaging with families to support student learning. It is designed around the ‘promising approaches’; the approaches for engaging with families that research evidence shows can have a measurable positive effect on student learning outcomes.

This tool can be used to examine your own approaches for engaging with families to support student learning. It is designed around the ‘promising approaches’; the approaches for engaging with families that research evidence shows can have a measurable positive effect on student learning outcomes.

This tool can be used to examine your school’s approaches for engaging with families to support student learning. It is designed around the ‘promising approaches’; the approaches for engaging with families that research evidence shows can have a measurable positive effect on student learning outcomes.

Intervention Central provides teachers, schools and districts with free resources to help struggling learners and implement Response to Intervention and attain the Common Core State Standards.

As a behavior-management tool, response effort seems like simple common sense: We engage less in behaviors that we find hard to accomplish. Teachers often forget, however, that response effort can be a useful part of a larger intervention plan. To put it simply, teachers can boost the chances that a student will take part in desired behaviors (e.g., completing homework or interacting appropriately with peers) by making these behaviors easy and convenient to take part in. However, if teachers want to reduce the frequency of a behavior (e.g., a child's running from the classroom), they can accomplish this by making the behavior more difficult to achieve (e.g., seating the child at the rear of the room, far from the classroom door).

This practice guide will help teachers understand the ways rules and routines support learning and how to equip students with the skills to participate in routines that support their learning.
This practice guide will help you reflect and take action to develop your practice with a greater understanding of:

*the ways rules and routines support learning
*how to equip students with the skills to participate in routines that support their learning

tudents who have chronic difficulties paying attention in class face the risk of poor grades and even school failure. Inattention may be a symptom of an underlying condition such as Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder. However, teachers should not overlook other possible explanations for student off-task behavior. It may be, for example, that a student who does not seem to be paying attention is actually mismatched to instruction (the work is too hard or too easy) or preoccupied by anxious thoughts. Or the student may be off-task because the teacher's lesson was poorly planned or presented in a disorganized manner. It is also important to remember that even children with ADHD are influenced by factors in their classroom setting and that these students' level of attention is at least partly determined by the learning environment. Teachers who focus on making their instruction orderly, predictable, and highly motivating find that they can generally hold the attention of most of their students most of the time.

This guide is the third in a series of 4 and focuses on selecting practices to deliver improvement. Once you’ve prioritised the curriculum, pedagogical and assessment approaches that relate to each goal and target, you need to select practices to improve each approach and plan how to deliver this improvement. For the purpose of this guide, a practice is the practical application of an approach. This guide recommends practical steps for selecting practices that support your prioritised approaches, as well as for planning how to deliver improvement. We recommend reading this guide after you have read the second guide in this series, Prioritising Approaches to Achieve Each Goal. After reading this guide, we recommend you read Evaluating for Continuous Improvement.

Strategic planning is an iterative process that requires a purposeful investment of time. These guides are designed for flexible use alongside system supports, providing a starting point rather than a complete outline of everything schools must do. They are designed to help school leaders with strategic planning directly related to learning. School leaders may also choose to include aspects of school improvement that enable learning (for example, student wellbeing) using a similar approach. Some guidance may not apply in all contexts and may look different in schools of different sizes. Reasonable adjustments should be made to fit school context where necessary. This guide is the first in a series of 4 and focuses on setting goals and targets for student learning. In the context of this guide, a 'goal’ represents an aim for improvement in a learning area. A ‘target’ enables you to monitor progress towards this goal by measuring changes in the learning area over a specified time period (for example, by the end of the school term or year). This guide recommends practical steps for setting goals and targets for student learning. After reading this guide, we recommend you read Prioritising Approaches to Achieve Each Goal.