Hints to Help Your Students Succeed – TTAC Link Lines (2024)

Since the latest reauthorization of the Individuals With Disabilities Education Act (IDEA, 2004), Response to Intervention (RtI) has been widely implemented to identify and support students with learning and behavioral needs (Wisniewski, 2014). More than 40 states have adopted and successfully applied some form of a three-tiered prevention by integrating both RtI and schoolwide positive behavioral supports (SWPBS) models (Kaloi, n.d.; Sugai &; Horner, 2009). Use of the systematic screening, research-based interventions, ongoing decision-making, and progress monitoring involved in these models have broad implications for closing both the opportunity and achievement gap for students with academic and behavioral challenges (Benner, Kutash, Nelson, & Fisher, 2013). Moreover, SWPBS’s framework of overarching social expectations (e.g., respect, responsibility, and productivity), when translated into concrete behavioral terminology, including classroom procedures for task completion, provides opportunities for teachers to identify and explicitly teach prerequisite skills students need to perform learning tasks.

Hint #1: How do I know what prerequisite skills to teach?

The essential knowledge, skills, and processes outlined in the Virginia Standards of Learning (SOL) Curriculum Framework identify the behaviors necessary for students to access and use academic content. For example, to be able to solve problems that involve adding and subtracting fractions with like and unlike denominators, students must be taught how to use problem solving, how to make connections, and how to create representations (Virginia Department of Education [VDOE], 2009). Students with learning and behavioral difficulties often experience weaknesses in metacognitive processes and self-regulation behaviors necessary to perform mathematical and other complex academic tasks. As a result, they frequently struggle with process skills such as:

• Organizing and prioritizing tasks
• Completing tasks on time
• Connecting previous learning with new learning
• Reflecting on and critically thinking about work and learning (National Center for Learning Disabilities, n.d.; Willis, 2014).

However, by directly teaching metacognitive strategies, educators can help students acquire the prerequisite skills that facilitate academic learning. For example, in the above standard, students could be taught a strategy to organize and remember the steps to compute addition of unlike denominators or set and meet goals for work completion (Conderman & Hedin, 2011).

Hint #2: What strategy would assist students in learning these skills?

One strategy that helps students organize and prioritize cognitive processes is the use of cue cards. These visual representations describe procedures and processes in a step-by-step format or graphic organizer. Cue cards can be used for any content area, including behavior, and can be created by teachers as well as students. When teachers carefully consider the problem or procedure, analyze the steps involved, and select a clear, efficient representation of those steps, students are more likely to learn the concept or skill (Conderman & Hedin, 2011). For example, the cue card in Figure 1 was developed to “cue” students to the steps for how to solve problems involving addition of fractions with unlike denominators.

Figure 1. Adding unlike denominators.

To develop the cue card, the teacher first selected the sequence of steps required to solve addition of unlike denominators and then listed them in the order her students were to perform them. Vocabulary and illustrations were matched to the students’ skill levels. The teacher simplified the steps to fewer than seven and created a mnemonic to capture her students’ interest (Conderman & Hedin, 2011). Multiple pocket-size copies of the cue cards were made from card stock, folded in tent format, and tacked on the bulletin board. When students used the cue card, they placed a dot on the outside flap of the card. The teacher could then quickly assess how often students relied upon the hint and reteach the steps if necessary.

Hint #3: How do I help students learn and practice these skills?

Figure 2. Behavior cue card and self-monitoring.(Adapted from Rademacher, Pemberton, & Cheever, 2006)

Metacognitive Strategies:

• Grosser, D. (2014). Learning how to learn: A critical component of student success. Williamsburg, VA: Link Lines.
• Putting Metacognition into Practice

Universal Design for Learning:

• Universal Design for Learning Checkpoints

Edutopia:

• Brain-Based Learning
• Strategies that Promote Executive Functioning
• Strategies that Promote Student Engagement

Teaching Channel:

• Hint Cards
• Formative Assessment and the Back-Up Plan
• Growth Mindset – Fostering Persistence

References