How to Make Our Teaching Even Better: How We Teach is as Important as What We Teach

In this pursuit, as well as in the years since then, I learned a whole lot about the science of learning as well as the science of reading and reading instruction. As with everything I learned, I would apply the practices with students and teachers. If they served to help accelerate literacy learning, I would refine the instruction, embed it into our EBLI instruction, and share it with the educators and others who we trained.

Some of these practices included cognitive processes such as Dr. Das’ PASS (Planning, Attention-Arousal, Simultaneous, and Successive processing) theory, assessment, and instruction, Interactive Metronome for timing and rhythm, The Out of Sync Child for teaching children with sensory processing challenges, Perceptual Development (fascinating!) and many, many others. While my learning from these resources has impacted how I teach students and train teachers, the resource that has had the greatest impact on my thinking and teaching is Reuven Feuerstein’s Mediated Learning. 

Reuven Feuerstein was a cognitive psychologist who developed Mediated Learning for children who were concentration camp survivors in Israel. Those tasked with teaching these traumatized children declared that they were impossible to teach and unable to learn. Mediated Learning, which was and continues to this day to be wildly successful, was born as a result of these teachers’ frustrations and as a way to guide them in helping these children learn.

In the 1950s, Feuerstein, who firmly held to the belief that the damaged brain could grow and all people can learn, was often vilified for his optimism as the quote from this article states: “Over the ensuing decades, Feuerstein was scorned and criticized for being a ‘dreamer’ and an irresponsible optimist. The prevailing opinion was that the brain is incapable of producing new neurons to replace those that are destroyed.” As is common knowledge now, brain plasticity research has shown how humans are capable of producing new neurons to replace those that are damaged or destroyed.

The implications of this to reading instruction are significant, and Feuerstein’s Mediated Learning is ideal in learning to read or improving reading. The resource I used most extensively to apply Mediated Learning was the book What Is It About Me That You Can’t Teach?. Reading this book is where I was first introduced to the concept that if a student is not learning, the problem lies with the instruction or delivery of the instruction as opposed to with the student. This, from page 12, was jolting: “Poverty, family history, and race are too easily used as excuses by educators who get low-performance results from students, largely because they teach with low expectations, beliefs, and strategies.” That was a sobering realization that significantly impacted my thinking, speaking, training of teachers, teaching of students, and organization of EBLI instruction.

Mediated learning depends heavily on the ‘mediator’ providing mediation through positive feedback, guidance, and supported problem solving.  As for the holocaust survivors, “noting how ‘teacher talk’ and mindless seatwork had failed with these children, Feuerstein adapted the inquiry strategies that he has learned as a child psychologist and teacher. These strategies, which he labeled ‘mediation’, because the essential tools for enabling classroom teachers and parents to uncover the cognitive functions necessary for all children, especially children challenged to learn how to learn.” (What Is It About Me You Can’t Teach? Pg. 15)

This effective teaching required the educator interacting with the students, whether whole class, small group, or 1:1, providing explicit and interactive instruction, corrective feedback, and guidance with gradual release to student independence. Feuerstein’s work is where I learned the I do, We do, You do process with gradual release and learned practical ways to apply it.

I tried this first with my youngest daughter Kelly, while putting together puzzles, when I was reading this book years ago.  She was about 5 and we had a pack of 4 puzzles that were 25 pieces. For the first puzzle, I walked and talked her through turning over all the pieces, pulling out the edge pieces, putting those together, then arranging the remaining pieces by similar color. Then I began putting the edges together, telling her what I was doing and why. I then did the interior pieces, again, talking her through what I was doing and why. For the next puzzle, I talked her through as she did each task, asking her what she thought would happen next and redirecting her if she was off base. For the last two puzzles, she put them together in a matter of minutes!

Next was Colleen, at this time in 4^th grade, and laboring over a page of long division. She was frustrated as she had no idea how to do it. I did the first problem, verbalizing every step as I did it. The second problem, she held the pencil and did the work as I guided her with prompts such as “2 goes into 6 how many times?” and providing corrections as needed. Then gave her the next step ‘Now put the 3 on top of the line and put the 6 down below’. For the third problem, she both said and did it with me providing redirection as needed. Then the phone rang. After my five minute conversation I came back and she proudly showed me how she finished the whole page; all the answers were correct!

The process of mediating, gradual release with I do, You do, We do is now a natural part of my teaching, whether I’m training teachers or teaching a classroom of students, differentiating as needed. It is very simple to teach this way whole class too once the process becomes familiar. The learner success with Mediated Learning is astonishing! A major key, which is often an adjustment for educators, is that both teacher and student are actively involved in the learning. 

Learn more examples of teaching this way in our webinars More of This and Less of That. Part 1 is about phonemic awareness and phonics; Part 2 addresses comprehension, writing, spelling, and handwriting.

Feuerstein focused on limitlessness and what was possible as opposed to why someone couldn’t learn:  “Feuerstein also did not believe that intelligence is inexorably fixed at birth, but that it could develop and be enhanced. In a typical case, Feuerstein saw a child who was initially assessed to have an IQ of 35 and went on to have an IQ over 100, leading a normal life. ‘I accept the existence of heredity’ he declared, ‘but for me the chromosomes do not have the last word’.”

While there are 10 criteria for mediated learning, Feuerstein found these three were necessary in any instructional setting:

• Intentionality and reciprocity
  • Intentionality is focusing students in a firm, direct, respectful, caring, engaging manner while consistently maintaining high expectations with clarity of tasks, expectations, encouragement, redirection, feedback, examples, and support.
  • Reciprocity – Exchanging information and interaction with students for maximum benefit in ways such as pre-teaching vocabulary with interactive discussion, honoring all answers by noting what part was correct and asking others to add to the correct part, using visuals, rubrics, and checking frequently for understanding.
• Meaning
  • Meaning making is a necessary and powerful learning tool. Answering the ‘why’ question, for both teacher and learner, before engaging in a lesson or activity is imperative for the most engaging, effective instruction. The best question for a teacher to ask themselves is ‘Why am I doing what I’m doing?’ with the ideal answer being ‘to advance and accelerate student learning’. The teacher also should have a solid answer for the student questions such as ‘Why are we doing this?’ or ‘Why do I need to know this?’.
• Transcendence
  • The goal of transcendence is for students to transcend or go beyond learning how to perform a task. The teacher facilitates learner’s connections with higher-order goals and purposes. Abandon instruction that is superficial and take time to mediate for in-depth understanding of the most critical concepts and information.

The remaining criteria, which Feuerstein labeled as ‘helpful in specific situations,’ are competence, self-regulation and control of behavior, sharing behavior, individuation, goal planning, challenge, and self-change.

I appreciate the differentiation Feuerstein gives to these criteria and the hierarchy of importance. In some classrooms or instructional situations, control of behavior is a top priority and must be addressed but in others it is a non-issue. This is a great example of how we must discern with our instruction as we can’t use a rote process for all students in every situation.

A second point that has been imperative to my instructional practices is that stuff does not teach children, the teacher teaches the children. This is why the focus of EBLI is on the teacher and assisting them to refine and differentiate their instruction while also simplifying it for the utmost effectiveness, efficiency, and engagement. While this is simple in theory, it is not easy to do. It is why Mediated Learning and literacy instruction like EBLI – with a strong focus on teacher practices, explicit instruction, and application of what was taught – as opposed to heavy emphasis on student-led and independent practices, use of worksheets, and uncorrected errors, is a paradigm shift for educators and requires effort to shift how instruction is delivered.

“Tell me and I’ll forget. Teach me and I’ll remember. Involve me and I’ll learn.” Benjamin Franklin

Delivering information rarely results in learning. Teaching oneself often results in confusion and inaccuracies. Showing someone how to do something is not the same as them learning how to do it. Instruction that engages and challenges the learner, with feedback and redirection, results in successful learning. 

I had this experience myself today. Hannah, who processes our payroll, will be out on maternity leave soon and I needed to learn how to do the payroll process. She told me it was quick and easy but as she walked me through it last week, it did not look easy but seemed to at least be manageable! This week, I followed the process and did it myself. Manageable is not a word I would use to describe my experience. It was a whole different story doing it as opposed to just watching it, and I took a whole lot longer doing it than Hannah did when showing me. However, we were on Zoom and she provided me with redirection when I got stuck and encouraged me to verbalize what the next step would be. I felt frustrated and irritated but I worked through it and kept moving forward. The sense of accomplishment and pride I felt at the end was motivation to try it again with a bit more automaticity. It took me a long time…but I know next time it will be much faster.

This quote from an article about the book Building a Community of Self-Motivated Learners by Larry Ferlazzo speaks to delivery of instruction such as Mediated Learning:

Assuming automatic transfer of learning will more likely lead us to live out the supposed Chinese proverb that says “People have to stand still for a long time with their mouths open before roast chickens will fly into them.” Transfer will not happen magically.

Content and what we teach is critical but HOW we teach it is even more imperative if we expect our students to successfully and fully learn, integrate, and apply the content. Refining our teaching is a process that takes time and effort. It is constantly honed over time and through trial and error. The significant benefits and rewards, for both teachers and students, make the process well worth undertaking!