Crafting impactful lessons with research-based strategies

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Discover how research-based strategies like chunking, backwards design and clear learning goals empower teachers to boost student engagement, simplify lesson planning and improve learning outcomes in today’s classrooms

IN RECENT years, PISA results have shown a decline in Australian students’ performance in maths and science. Attention spans have declined to as low as 47 seconds – not helped by the plethora of distractions provided by digital devices. At the same time, teachers face growing challenges, from skills gaps and staff shortages to the diverse demands of students with different learning needs. In light of this, The Educator spoke to two former teachers, who both emphasised the importance of implementing evidence-based instructional practices, using ready-to-teach resources to complement a holistic pedagogical approach. So, what does the research say about best practice for teaching and learning, and how can teachers apply it in their classrooms?

Pearson Australia is a leader in education, dedicated to helping learners of all ages achieve their potential. With a focus on innovative digital solutions, Pearson provides high-quality resources that support teachers, schools and institutions across Australia. The Pearson Secondary Teaching Hub is a new one-of-a-kind digital product, and the new 7–10 Pearson Mathematics and Pearson Science series is designed to simplify teaching and energise learning. The series’ high-quality content was created by experienced Australian educators who know how to engage students best; it is based on research and tested by Australian teachers for ease of use.

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“The research shows that it can take 15 to 17 years before best practice becomes everyday practice in our Australian classrooms. Support from school leadership and resource providers is crucial in implementing these strategies”

Lindy Sharkey, Pearson

Lindy Sharkey, mathematics portfolio manager at Pearson, says the Australian Education Research Organisation’s recent research paper ‘How Students Learn Best’ has made a particularly big impact across Australian states. This paper compiles an overview of the learning process and makes recommendations around instructional practices to ensure that teachers’ efforts have the greatest impact on student learning. “We start our content creation with ‘backwards design’, emphasising the importance of understanding your end goal in order to effectively progress students towards it,” Sharkey explains.

“We took the new curriculum for Mathematics and Science as our end goal, and we worked backwards to break that down into topics. Everything is chunked into topics and further into lessons with clearly articulated learning objectives and success criteria, giving both teachers and students clarity on how learning progresses and what success looks like.” Sharkey notes that it’s important to plan and sequence lessons across the year, but it’s equally important to know what progress you want your students to make over multiple years. This may all sound obvious, but think back to your school years – how often were you explicitly told, “This is what you’ll learn in this lesson, topic or year level, and here’s how you’ll know that you’ve succeeded”? And how often did you have an understanding of where it would ultimately lead to?

The concept of ‘chunking’ content down into bite-sized, manageable pieces is particularly important in this process and is based on the principles of cognitive load theory and neuroscience. This means approaching each lesson one skill or concept at a time. Each skill or concept supports success criteria with opportunities to check for understanding, get immediate and corrective feedback, and engage in guided practice and then independent practice, gradually releasing the responsibility from the teacher to the student. “It’s about breaking our content down, which in turn reduces the cognitive load on our students to reduce overload and overwhelm,” Sharkey says. “Chunking is really about supporting our students to utilise their working memory and to be able to store the information into long-term memory ready for retrieval. We know we’re not going to achieve a one-size-fits-all ideal, but the approach embedded in our resources has been shown to support the vast majority of our students – and then, using a multi-tiered system of support, we can implement additional strategies like diagnostic or clinical assessment to progress the other 10–20% of students.” Sharkey believes it’s the duty of content creators such as publishers and technology providers to ensure that the content isn’t just meeting the curriculum but is also carefully curated to support chunking for learning.

Misal Belvedere, Pearson’s senior portfolio manager for science, notes that the ‘backwards design’ strategy has been integral to writing the new curriculum, rather than repurposing existing resources and moulding them to fit the curriculum changes. This ground-up process of creating topics, learning intentions and success criteria ensures a solid foundation both for teachers and their students on the learning journey from years 7 to 10 and beyond. “The ultimate goal for us is for our young people to continue with a passion for lifelong learning beyond secondary education in STEM-related fields,” Belvedere says. “It takes an immense amount of work to plan for a new curriculum, and the risk is that the student gets left behind if the planning and sequencing isn’t done clearly for them in each lesson.

“We assume that our teachers have the content knowledge, but we’re finding that many who are new to teaching are looking for support with both pedagogical content knowledge and explicit teaching strategies”

Misal Belvedere, Pearson

Teacher shortages across Australia mean that many educators are now teaching subjects outside their main areas of expertise, particularly in subjects like maths and science. This has led to a significant number of ‘out-of-field’ teachers in Australian classrooms. Sharkey points out that 60–80% of current students in years 7–10 will have been taught maths and science by a teacher teaching out-of-field. For these

Building teacher confidence through resources and leadership

Published 04 Nov 2024

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The power of planning: Chunking, sequencing and ‘backwards design’

“A process like chunking is really the secret to introducing complex topics like chemical bonding, for example,” she adds. “If you’re breaking it down enough and checking for student understanding at each stage, you can start building on that knowledge very effectively, taking relatively simple and seemingly unrelated ideas to build out complex schemas.”

Belvedere also highlights the importance of supporting both new and experienced teachers with practical, easy-to-use resources, such as the Pearson Mathematics and Pearson Science series. “We assume that our teachers have the content knowledge, but we’re finding that many who are new to teaching are looking for support with both pedagogical content knowledge and explicit teaching strategies,” she says. “For us, it’s about providing high-quality, rigorous, peer-reviewed content that is developed around the best instructional design practices. This gives our teachers peace of mind, value for effort, and is a real time-saver in meeting their AITSL teaching and learning goals.” When it comes to implementing these strategies, there is evidence from outside of the education industry that a top-down approach really produces results. Teaching and learning are at the heart of all schools, but the key is how you go about making them as effective as possible. If leadership is putting these research principles at the forefront of the pedagogical framework and teachers are supported with putting them into practice, that strategy will come through in the classroom. “The research shows that it can take 15 to 17 years before best practice becomes everyday practice in our Australian classrooms,” Sharkey explains. “Support from school leadership is crucial in implementing these strategies. However, resource providers also play a key role in supporting the implementation of the most effective teaching and learning strategies. That has been a really big focus for us here at Pearson – the ability to say, “Hey, we are here for you, supporting pedagogical content knowledge and instructional practice in our online, offline and print resources. This allows teachers to develop confidence in delivering best practice the more they use it.”

Looking forward with confidence

Ultimately, the main goal of publishers like Pearson is to drive teachers’ increasing confidence in delivering best practice. Belvedere encourages educators and leaders to be inquisitive, to ask questions about the evidence that backs up resources and hold resource providers accountable for supporting the implementation of solid, evidence-based practices, looking past the overwhelming number of features – many of which will go unused. For Pearson, the goal is to constantly take on feedback and data and use it to improve its resources. “We want to continuously respond to the needs of our teachers and learners, and a product like Teaching Hub has the luxury of being digital, so we can do that very quickly,” Belvedere says. “We’re really excited about what we’re building and how it can positively impact teaching and learning across the nation.”

Declining student performance

Lower attention spans

Teacher shortages

Need for personalised learning

Teaching and learning: Key challenges

Source: Pearson

Plan and sequence your lessons and topics

Share learning intentions and success criteria

Manage cognitive load by ‘chunking’

Evidence-based strategy: Essential steps

Source: Pearson

teachers, resources that break down the curriculum into well-defined topics and lessons using effective instructional practices are invaluable for both increasing their self-efficacy and maximising the impact on the learning outcomes of their students.