Rosenshine's Principles: A teacher's guide
Rosenshine's principles of instruction: a classroom guide on the theory and practice for teachers and educational leaders.
What are Rosenshine's Principles of Instruction?
Rosenshine's Teaching Principles emerged from a desire to enhance learning outcomes and offer a systematic approach to learning. By synthesizing various aspects of teaching, Rosenshine developed an approach to teaching that optimizes effective instruction.
Over time, these principles have evolved to accommodate diverse learning styles, incorporating cognitive science insights to further improve their efficacy. Teachers who adopt Rosenshine's Principles can expect to create a more engaging learning environment that caters to students' individual needs and fosters better understanding and retention of subject matter.
A professor and expert of Educational Psychology, Barak Rosenshine (1930 – 2017) at the University of Illinois explored teacher instruction along with Robert Stevens and identified the effectiveness of methods and approaches that were practised by the most successful teachers. Barak Rosenshine's ‘Principles of Instruction’ (2010) are based on the following three sources:
- Research on scaffolds and cognitive supports, such as the use of instructional procedures and models, enabled students to grasp difficult tasks.
- Directly observing ‘practices of master teachers’, those effective teachers whose students made the most educational progress as calculated by the attainment tests. These directed on characteristics such as how these teachers taught new information and made precise links to previous learning, how they monitored and examined the knowledge of their students, how they offered opportunities for practice and rehearsal, and the kinds of support used for scaffolding the knowledge retention and development of understanding.
- Research on Cognitive Science on how the human brain acquires and utilizes new knowledge. This offers knowledge of how to endure the limitations of students' long-term memory when trying to learn new conceptual ideas.
Through the above sources, Barak Rosenshine specified seventeen effective methods of instruction, used as the teaching practices of ‘master’ teachers within their effective lessons to facilitate the most effective student learning to occur. If you are tasked with the job of moving the principles forward in your school then this article will help you think about the implementation of the principles and the professional learning that needs to accompany it.
These broad principles offer educators high-level concepts to focus on and they shouldn't be seen as a tick box exercise. If you have responsibilities for teaching and learning across your institution then we encourage you to think about the educational theory that sits behind the principles. Once educators have a grasp on these ideas, then they can choose instructional practices that meet the classroom demands they face.
Within this article, you could also download a top-level PDF that explains these principles in an easy to understand graphical format. Please do feel free to download this and use it for your CPD activities.
Rosenshine's most effective methods of instruction
Rosenshine’s principles of instruction have garnered significant attention in recent years for offering a set of flexible, evidence-informed guidelines that can be adapted to suit various teaching contexts. These principles are not rigid frameworks but rather guiding methods designed to help teachers enhance their practice while maintaining professional autonomy. In the UK, where schools increasingly value evidence-based teaching, Rosenshine’s methods provide an excellent foundation for fostering effective instructional behaviours. However, for these principles to truly succeed, it is essential that teachers understand the rationale behind them. Without this clarity, there is a risk of superficial adoption without meaningful impact.
To begin, lessons should start with a brief review of prior learning, ensuring students are prepared to engage with new material. When introducing new concepts, teachers should do so in manageable steps, allowing students to practice after each step to solidify understanding. To prevent cognitive overload, it is crucial to limit the amount of new material introduced at one time and provide clear, detailed instructions and explanations. Teachers should ask many targeted questions to test understanding and ensure clarity, guiding students as they begin practicing new skills.
Active, high-quality practice is essential for students to develop proficiency. Teachers should model processes explicitly, using worked-out examples to illustrate steps clearly. Students should then demonstrate their understanding, enabling teachers to check their responses and provide corrections or feedback as needed. Complex material may require re-teaching to ensure comprehension. Teachers should allocate ample time for clear explanations, reinforcing key concepts and addressing gaps in knowledge.
Finally, students should be prepared for independent practice, which must be closely monitored to ensure success. By following these principles, teachers can create structured, engaging learning environments that promote student progress while adapting to the unique needs of their classrooms.
The 10 Key Rosenshine Principles
From the above procedures, Rosenshine developed 10 key principles, which he claimed to support any effective approach to instruction in the class. The following are the Rosenshine's Principles Of Instruction:
- Daily Review
Rosenshine suggests spending between 5-8 minutes each day, mostly at the beginning of a lesson, to review past learning. As mentioned in the Cognitive Load Theory, our cognitive load (the quantity of information our working memory can keep at one time) is relatively small, if we wouldn't review past learning, then our previous knowledge will get in the way of learning new knowledge.
By devoting class time to reviewing and evaluating past academic performance, learners will eventually perform more effectively. Students will construct a more in-depth awareness of syllabus material, improve their basic skills, critical thinking skills and make connections between ideas.
- Presenting New Material in Small Steps
Our working memory has a limited capacity. If learners are presented with a lot of information at the same time, their working memory will suffer from overload. This will slow down or even stop the learning process as the students mind will no longer be able to process every piece of information at once.
Due to this, Rosenshine's principle suggests that new information must be introduced in small steps. Experienced teachers show that it is useful to remain focused on what students need to know and remove any irrelevant material from the lesson plan.
- Asking Questions
Asking students different kinds of questions (such as direct questions, closed question, comprehension questions) is one of the most powerful tools a teacher can use to enhance student learning and enable them to investigate a topic in more detail. Rosenshine states that less effective teachers ask a fewer number of questions and nearly no ‘process questions’ (questions about the learning process, such as how students performed a task). The greatest significance of questioning is that they strengthen students' long-term memory.
- Presenting Models
Providing new information to learners by linking it to their prior knowledge allows a quicker understanding, deeper retention and enhances students' memory. It is particularly true of different types of concepts such as complex concepts, essential concepts and sequencing concepts etc). Teachers can do this by providing appropriate support to their students. Thinking aloud, demonstrating the way to solve a problem, and working examples, are the modelling strategies teachers can use to enhance student learning.
- Guided Student Practice
Rosenshine's principle emphasizes the importance of giving students sufficient time to practise retrieval, ask questions, and get the desired help. Students must not stop after learning the information once, they must continue to rehearse it by summarising, analyzing, or applying their knowledge. If teachers do not reduce their pace of teaching a lesson, then students’ memory of that topic will be decreased.
- Checks for Student Understanding
Checks for understanding allow teachers to identify any misconceptions students may have and explain things they are still struggling with. Rosenshine's sixth principle suggest teachers take intermittent periods during the lesson to stop and assess whether students have understood the learning material. Teachers can do this by asking learners to make a presentation, share their opinion about the lesson, summarise the information and correct students' errors. Checks for student understanding assure that the students have a clear foundation for their learning and make them ready to learn the next topic.
- Achieving an Elevated Success Rate
Cognitive Psychology Research reveals that the instructors who utilized the most effective teaching strategies had more students with higher educational success rates. According to Barak Rosenshine, the optimal academic success rates educators need to strive for is 80% (which is similar to the optimal success rate for multiple-choice tests). An optimal success rate of 80% shows that although challenged, learners still grasped and learnt new concepts.
- Providing scaffolds for difficult lessons
According to Rosenshine's eighth principles, when using more complex material teachers must apply scaffolding in their lessons. Scaffolding means facilitating students’ incremental mastery of a skill or concept by gradually decreasing teacher assistance. The responsibility for the learning process shifts from the instructor to the student. The temporary support of scaffolding provides help to the students achieve higher levels of comprehension and skill acquisition that would have not been possible without the teacher's support.
- Independent Practice
The ninth principles of Rosenshine claim that scaffolding is crucial, but the students must also be able to complete tasks independently and take responsibility for their learning. Creating independent learners is vital as it helps students to improve their educational performance and stay motivated. By practising complex tasks again and again in their own time, students create greater automatically and fluency in the concept they’re trying to understand. Over-learning a concept, helps learners to recall the details automatically.
- Weekly & Monthly Review
Rosenshine's tenth principle is an advanced stage of the first principle, but it involves reviewing the prior knowledge over monthly and weekly timeframes. This mixture of retrieval and spacing is a method known as successive relearning which implicates spacing out the use of retrieval practise methods at various points in time until a specific level of mastery has been accomplished.
Weekly and monthly reviews allow students to make connections between new and old information, improving their understanding of a concept. Setting weekly homework tasks, doing a quiz every month and asking students to complete a monthly reflection, are all effective classroom strategies.
The Future of Rosenshine's Principles: Innovations and Adaptations
As classroom teaching evolves, Rosenshine's Principles continue to adapt, maintaining their relevance in everyday teaching. Future innovations include refined methods for scaffolding tasks to prevent cognitive overload, considering students' limited capacity for new information.
Additionally, increased focus on linking observations to student outcomes will help tailor instruction to individual needs. By embracing these adaptations and innovations, educators can ensure Rosenshine's Principles remain a cornerstone of effective education, fostering an environment where all students can thrive and achieve success.
Implementing Rosenshine's Principles of Instruction
Implementing Rosenshine's Principles of Instruction across a school requires a strategic and thoughtful approach to ensure meaningful impact on teaching and learning. For school leaders, this involves creating an environment where these evidence-based principles can flourish in everyday classrooms. By focusing on gradual, practical implementation and ongoing support for teachers, these principles can significantly enhance student outcomes.
Five Key Ideas for Implementing Rosenshine’s Principles of Instruction
- Start Small and Build Gradually
Avoid overwhelming staff by introducing all principles at once. Instead, focus on one principle, such as embedding direct instruction or regularly checking understanding through students’ questions. Provide resources and examples for teachers to integrate this principle effectively, and encourage reflective practice before moving on to the next. - Foster Professional Learning Communities
Support staff with structured professional learning opportunities, such as collaborative workshops or peer observations. Teachers can share strategies and challenges in implementing principles like scaffolding difficult tasks or encouraging lots of questions to check understanding. This collective learning process ensures consistency and builds confidence among staff. - Connect to Previous and Future Learning
Emphasize the importance of linking instruction to students’ previous learning while planning for future learning goals. Encourage teachers to revisit foundational knowledge regularly and to sequence lessons in a way that gradually builds complexity. This approach ensures students have a strong base for tackling difficult tasks and progressing in their learning. - Create a Culture of Questioning
Promote the use of frequent and varied questioning techniques in everyday classrooms. Encourage teachers to ask lots of questions to check understanding, stimulate critical thinking, and guide students through complex concepts. Support staff in refining their questioning skills to engage all learners effectively. - Monitor and Support Implementation
Regularly assess how the principles are being integrated into classroom practice. Use tools like learning walks, lesson observations, and feedback sessions to identify successes and areas for improvement. Provide targeted support for teachers who may struggle with specific principles, such as breaking down difficult tasks into manageable steps or using direct instruction effectively.
By taking a phased and supportive approach to rolling out Rosenshine’s Principles of Instruction, school leaders can embed these ideas into the fabric of teaching and learning. This not only enhances instructional quality but also builds a culture of continual improvement and student success.
Final thoughts on Rosenshine's Principals of Instruction
Rosenshine’s principles are based on Evidence-Informed Teaching that supports their efficacy. Steven and Rosenshine's Principles (1986) advance teacher performance by applying the most effective practice of teaching when the main goal is to master a key skill or body of knowledge using clearly defined stages, which the students apply later. Some of the above educational strategies may not be beneficial in certain situations, for instance, if someone is trying to find a unique, creative solution to a problem.
For this reason, as with any academic strategy, it is up to the professional judgement of the instructor to agree on how and when to use these strategies within their classroom practice. As with all new classroom concepts, teachers will need opportunities for deliberate practice. Simply providing teaching books in the classroom is not sufficient for whole school change. Educators need opportunities to develop a theory of action and then put this into practice. As an educational idea, the principles have really developed a lot of traction in British schools over the last two years. Their simplicity enables teachers to develop a strong understanding of instructional practices.
Over the last two years, these principles have been considered effective practice and have been adopted in many schools around the UK and further afield. They offer the classroom teacher a simple way of taking ideas of practice into their own classrooms. Taking these principles into practice does require a strong conceptual understanding of the rationale behind the technique. If educators don't acquire a fundamental understanding of the educational principle, then we run the risk of engaging in instructional behaviours that we don't fully grasp.
Experienced teachers have built their craft over years of effective practice and they understand when to facilitate certain teaching practices and when to avoid them. We have seen lesson observation templates that require teachers to incorporate the Rosenshine Principles even when they are not suited to the lesson material. Our advice would be to focus on developing a strong conceptual understanding of cognitive science and instructional practices. With a strong understanding of the broad principles, the teaching staff can then choose when to incorporate strategies into the lesson sequence. If we are too prescriptive within lesson observations then we run the risk of taking Rosenshine's Principles of Instruction out of context to the detriment of student progress.
Further Reading on Rosenshines Principles
These studies collectively underscore the efficacy of Rosenshine's principles of instruction in various educational contexts, emphasizing their impact on teaching practices and student learning outcomes.
1. Heath, R., & Nielson, M. A. (1974). The research basis for performance-based teacher education. Review of Educational Research, 44, 463-484.
Summary: This study reviews research on teacher performance and its relation to student achievement, highlighting Rosenshine's identification of key teacher behaviors like clarity and task-oriented instruction. These principles emphasize the importance of effective instructional practices in improving student outcomes.
2. Rosenshine, B., & Meyers, L. I. (1978). Staff development for teaching basic skills. Theory Into Practice, 17(3), 267-271.
Summary: Rosenshine and Meyers discuss a model of direct instruction that incorporates principles such as independent practice and daily review. The study emphasizes the need for structured teaching strategies to improve basic skills, especially for less academically inclined students.
3. Rosenshine, B. (1987). Explicit teaching and teacher training. Journal of Teacher Education, 38(3), 34-36.
Summary: This paper outlines the steps of explicit teaching based on Rosenshine's principles, including stages of practice and retrieval practice. It highlights the role of teacher training in promoting these instructional practices to enhance teaching effectiveness.
4. Mastropieri, M. (1989). Using general education teacher effectiveness literature in the preparation of special education personnel. Teacher Education and Special Education, 12(4), 170-172.
Summary: Mastropieri integrates Rosenshine's principles into a special education teacher preparation model, focusing on effective instructional practices. The study demonstrates the application of these principles in improving outcomes for special education students.
5. Good, T. (1979). Teacher effectiveness in the elementary school. Journal of Teacher Education, 30(2), 52-64.
Summary: Good's review of teacher effectiveness research highlights Rosenshine's emphasis on active teaching and structured instruction. The study discusses how these practices, including the use of students' questions and independent practice, contribute to student achievement.