Morningside Academy Summer School Institute (July 2010)

Early this year, I applied for a place on the Summer School Institute
(SSI) to study The Morningside Model of Generative Instruction and to gain
practice in teaching using their methods. The Morningside Academy (Seattle,
USA) is a world-renowned example of evidence-based teaching, and I was
lucky enough to be granted a place on this intensive, specialist course.
In the Summer School children, aged between 5 -14 years, enrol on the
four week programme. Morningside build on existing academic skills, and
tailor individualized and small-group instruction to meet each student's needs.
This is achieved through the combination of various evidence-based
approaches: two of the main ones of which are adhering to the principles of
effective instructional design, and the use of Precision Teaching
methodologies to measure learning for each individual child.
Precision Teaching is a system that builds fluency and helps teachers
ensure that every child in a class maintains rapid and successful learning.
This approach has had considerable success across a number of educational
settings and subject areas. Combined with regular teaching it represents a
powerful accelerated learning approach. Precision teaching is a general
approach that can determining whether an instructional method is achieving
its aims. It is not, as the name implies, a method of teaching. It would be more
accurately described as Precision Measurement, or Precision Learning
because it is primarily a sensitive measurement and navigation tool for
learning. The value of precision teaching lies in identifying a subject area in
which the child is failing to progress, followed by a daily session of teaching,
fluency building, monitoring and evaluating progress in order to optimise
learning (Lindsley, 1992). Some key methodological characteristics of PT are:
component/composite analysis, fluency training, time probes, tailoring practice
materials to the progress of individual children based on learning pictures and
the use of a standardised graphical display (referred to as the Standard
Celeration Chart [SCC]).
Component-composite analysis. This refers to conducting an analysis
of each composite (or complex) task in terms of what pre-skills or components
are needed to complete that task. Precision teachers believe that children
start to experience problems in learning when they are not fluent at some of
the basic prerequisite skills that are required to effectively complete a task.
For example, a child who is not fluent at simple multiplication or the times
tables would likely experience difficulties when encountering maths problems
that required them to use times tables in order to complete a more complex
task (e.g., long division sums). Another example, if a child is confusing the
numbers 6 and 9 because of the similarity in the two numbers, he or she will
likely find solving maths problems that contain these numbers more difficult
and if a child were confusing the letters d and b, he or she would likely find
reading more difficult as in the previous example. Similarly, if a child is not
fluent at decoding some of the basic sounds of the alphabet, they will likely
experience problems when they come to read words that contain those
components. The issue of basic components skills sets extends across all
curriculum activities.

Fluency training is a method used to develop speed and accuracy on

component skills (Binder, 1991). It is also known as automatic, effortless,
smooth and second nature (Kubina & Morrison, 2000). It is important
because speed is a significant indicator of expertise (Binder, 2003; Chiesa &
Robertson, 2000). For example, two children might score the same in a
mathematics exercise, but one of the children might have taken five minutes
to complete the task and the other thirty minutes. The child who completed the
exercise in the shorter time can be viewed as more accomplished. Fluency
training cannot only much improve the performance of composite skills, but
can improve the learning of new skills (Binder, 1996). It is obvious why: if a
child who performs at a slow rate on basic mathematical skills is taught a new
and more advanced skill, the childs learning will be hampered in comparison
with a child whose component skills are more fluent. The objective of mastery
learning at each stage in the curriculum sequence is fluency. Once a
behaviour or skill reaches an established aim for fluency particular learning
outcomes are expected.
Fluency is usually sufficient to ensure retention and application of skills
and knowledge even in the absence of instruction (Binder, 1991). The PT
approach concentrates on building fluency in basic skills by giving children
plenty of opportunities to practice, until the skill becomes fluent (preformed
with ease and without hesitation). This approach is common in other areas of
learning: more notably learning to play a musical instrument, martial arts, and
sports in general. Precisions teachers believe that this approach is also
beneficial to other areas of learning, such as numeracy and literacy.
More information about precision teaching can be found at, for
example, http://precisionteaching.pbworks.com/ and http://celeration.org/
Whilst in Seattle, I worked in the classroom with children as well as
attending lectures and workshops to improve my skills in Precision Teaching.
Whilst working with the children I had the opportunity to further develop the
skills I have been acquiring during work on my PhD in Evidence Based
Educational Methods at Bangor University. During the last week of the School
we had guest lectures from Carl Binder (http://fluency.org), Michael Fabrizio
(http://o4rl.com/), TV Joe Layng (http://headsprout.com/), and Marilyn Gilbert;
these lecturers are world-renowned within the teaching field.
This training has been invaluable for both my personal development
within my PhD and for the development of the year three module that I teach
at Bangor. I have now seen and experienced first-hand many of the
techniques that I had only learned about from textbooks and journal articles.
This trip has allowed me to deepen my understanding of a complex and
fascinating subject area and as a result of this, in partnership with my mentor
and PhD supervisor Dr. J Carl. Hughes we continue to deliver training to
teachers in both mainstream and special educational establishments to
spread these methods to a wider audience.

References
Binder, C. (1991). Marketing measurably effective instructional methods.
Journal of Behavioral Education, 1(3), 317-328. Retrieved from
http://www.fluency.org/
Binder, C. (2003). Doesn't everybody need fluency? Performance
Improvement Quarterly, 42(3), 14-20.
Chiesa, M., & Robertson, A. (2000). Precision teaching and fluency training:
Making maths easier for pupils and teachers. Educational Psychology
in Practice, 16(3), 297-310.
Kubina, R. M., & Morrison, R. S. (2000). Fluency in education. Behavior and
Social Issues, 10, 83-99.
Lindsley, O. R. (1992). Precision teaching: Discoveries and effects. Journal of
Applied Behavior Analysis, 25(1), 51-57.