High-Leverage Practice 21: Instruction

I am going to discuss High-Leverage Practices as mentioned on the CEC website organized around four aspects of practice. I hope you will join in the conversation!

HLP21 Teach students to maintain and generalize new learning across time and settings.

I’m always happy when my students learn new skills, but it is important that they are able to use these skills outside of my classroom.

I remember when my children were growing up and I wanted to make sure that I taught them good manners. I had them use “please” and “thank you” at home but did they remember to use them when they were with other people? I wanted them to not interrupt others, chew with their mouths closed, and be polite but I had no way of knowing if they were doing that when I wasn’t around. When other people would come up to me after spending time with my children, I was filled with pride when the adults told me how well-behaved my children were. I knew that some of the things that I had taught them were being used when they were away from me.

In the same way, I want my students to be able to use the skills that they learn in my classroom during other situations.

One day a student came back to my class and proudly announce that he helped a lady at the grocery store. We had just finished lessons on writing out a check and he said that while he was at the store, an elderly lady had trouble filling out her check because of arthritis in her hand. He offered to help her and was so happy that he knew exactly what he needed to do. This was a perfect example of maintaining and generalizing his new learning during a different situation.

It is important to encourage students to look for opportunities to try out their new skills in other situations and come back to class to share their experiences. This may give other students ideas on how to use these skills. The more that the students practice these skills, the easier it will be to retain this new learning.

How do you teach students to generalize their new learning to other situations? Please share.

Photo by Kien Nguyen on Unsplash