Lesson Segment: Addressing Content

Design Question: #2 – Helping Students Interact with New Knowledge

Element 6:
Identifying Critical Content

A teacher’s growth in using instructional strategies can be tracked along the developmental
scale. Coaching and growth needs vary for each developmental category on this scale. A
teacher at the “beginning” level on the development scale has very different needs than a
teacher at the “applying” level. Therefore, in order to track a teacher’s growth in using this
strategy, it is important to begin by pinpointing his/her current level of use.

Monitoring for the desired effect of a strategy is a critical component addressed in the
developmental scale. Monitoring is the teacher act of checking evidence for desired student
learning of critical content during instruction, which includes student action and teacher
witnessing of that action.

For this element, the teacher continuously identifies accurate critical content during a lesson or
part of a lesson that portrays a clear progression of information that leads to deeper
understanding of the content.

The desired effect of this element states that students know what content is important and
what is not important.

Developmental Scale
Beginning Developing Applying Innovating
Uses strategy Signals to students Signals to students Adapts and creates
incorrectly or with critical versus non- critical versus non- new strategies for
parts missing. critical content and critical content and unique student needs
portrays a clear portrays a clear and situations in order
progression of progression of for the desired effect
information, but the information and to be evident in all
majority of students monitors for evidence students.
are either not of the extent to which
monitored for or not the majority of
displaying the desired students are attending
effect of the strategy. to critical versus non-
critical content.

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The following scale has been enhanced to demonstrate common mistakes, examples and non-
examples, along with ideas for scaffolding and extended learning.

BEGINNING – Uses strategy incorrectly or with parts missing.

Some common mistakes include:
• The teacher cues critical information inconsistently.
• The teacher makes general statements that do not specifically help students identify
critical information.
• The teacher provides incorrect information.
• The teacher does not explicitly point out the critical information when students
perform or dramatize content.
• The teacher does not focus on the critical information during instruction.
• The teacher is not clear about what is critical information.

DEVELOPING – Signals to students critical versus non-critical content and portrays a clear
progression of information, but the majority of students are either not monitored for or not
displaying the desired effect of the strategy.
Some examples of typical, correct use of the strategy include:
• The teacher continuously highlights critical information that portrays a clear
progression of information during content chunks.
• The teacher cues students that information is critical through tone, gestures, and
body position.
• The teacher tells stories about critical information.
• The teacher uses visual cues such as pictures, storyboards, or graphic organizers to
highlight critical information in the lesson.
• The teacher pauses at key points in a presentation to signal what is important.

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 APPLYING – Signals to students critical versus non-critical content and portrays a clear
progression of information and monitors for evidence of the extent to which the majority of
students are attending to critical versus non-critical content.
At this point in development, the teacher uses the strategy with increased accuracy and
fluency while staying focused on student outcome, or desired effect. At the “applying” level,
the teacher must provide opportunity for students to demonstrate that the strategy is having
the desired effect – in this case, students know what content is important and what is not
important. Planning for the implementation of this strategy allows the teacher to identify how
he/she will monitor for the desired effect. Some examples of monitoring may include:
• The teacher examines students’ responses on their exit cards to identify areas
requiring further clarification of the important information.
• The teacher observes and interacts with students as they highlight critical information
in their notes/reading.
• The teacher listens as students discuss with each other the critical information during
the critical input experience.
• The teacher reads student notes to ensure that critical information is highlighted.
• The teacher collects formative data providing evidence that students were attending
to the critical content.

INNOVATING – Adapts and creates new strategies for unique student needs and
situations in order for the desired effect to be evident in all students. In order to do this, the
teacher scaffolds, extends, and/or creates a macrostrategy as necessary. As a result of
this, ALL students know what content is important and what is not important.
Examples of providing unique support to meet the individual needs of all students include:
• The teacher provides a list of information and asks students to prioritize what is most
critical.
• The teacher asks guiding questions to help students explain what information is
critical.
• The teacher directs students to a word wall that can be useful in identifying critical
information.
• The teacher provides sentence starters or key words for students to use to complete
their advance organizers, or skeletal outlines.
• The teacher asks students to sort content statements into important and not
important groups.

Examples of extension include:

• The teacher has students create their own pictures and storeies to remember critical
information.
• The teacher asks students to create their own graphic organizer to highlight critical
information.
• The teacher has students decide which hand gesture or movement best illustrates
the critical information.
• The teacher asks students to prioritize or classify the critical content from the lesson.

© 2016 Learning Sciences International. Page 3 of 3