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Instructional Hierarchy

Instructional Hierarchy Overview 

When zoomed out across time, learning is not a linear event.  A student will grow in different areas at different rates.  Any student will have strengths and gaps in learning over time.  If we think about learning as a graph, it will form a curve over a student's life.  However, if we zoom in close enough on any curve, it will increasingly appear to be a line.  This allows us to think about small increments of learning in a more linear fashion.  There is a clear beginning, middle, and end. 

Haring and Eaton (1978) describe this linearization of learning as the instructional hierarchy.  There are specific stages of learning within the hierarchy through which students must progress.  Each stage includes general characteristics of student performance to help us understand which students’ skill development fall within that stage.  Additionally, evidence-based practices are linked to each stage, allowing educators to identify where students’ skills are, and what instructional practice will benefit them the most. 

The first stage of learning is Acquisition.  In an acquisition stage of learning the learner is inaccurate, confused, and often frustrated with new content.  The goal of instruction is to teach students new concepts and procedures so that they can understand and do them independently.  The general focus of instruction is to provide help to students.  This is an important step in learning because students need to be able to understand on do the required work without help from others.  Educators will know students have completed this stage when students take their time and independently complete their work correctly.  

The second stage of learning is Proficiency.  We use the term fluency (i.e., fast and accurate) interchangeably.  A learner in this stage is accurate, but slow in performing the work.  The goal of instruction is to increase the rate at which students can complete the work.  The general focus of instruction is to provide enough practice.  This is an important step in learning because it gives the time and practice students need to get good with the work.  The way we measure “being good” is with time.  Students who can apply concepts and procedures quickly demonstrate a decreased cognitive load, suggesting that their working memory is not overtaxed.  This, in turn, allows them to focus their working memory on more difficult tasks in the next stage of learning.  Educators will know students have completed this stage when their data meets or exceeds expected rates of performance. 

The third stage of learning is Generalization and Adaptation.  Students in this stage are ready to apply the content across settings and adapt it to learn more advanced concepts and procedures.   The general focus of instruction is to provide practice that asks students to apply what they have learned in new ways.  This is an important step in learning, because students apply their knowledge to solve problems, as well as learn more complex ideas.  This stage of learning never ends.  Over time, students will have more concepts and procedures ready to help them solve new problems as they arise.  Even adults continue to use old skills in new ways to address new situations. 

 

Instructional Matching 

Instructional Matching is a process where data are used to decide where students' skills fall within the instructional hierarchy, then matching evidence-based practices based on students’ skill development and stage of learning.  Once this match is made, educators collect data to determine students' skill growth to know when to shift the focus of instruction and provide students with continued opportunities for growth.  Instructional mismatch results in minimal growth and an increase in unproductive student behavior.  One of the most important jobs any teacher has is understanding what instruction each student needs and setting the environmental conditions within the classroom so that students are academically engaged.  

Core  

Instructional matching at the core instruction level is based on formative assessment.  The three basic questions teacher must assess to answer are:  

1) Who needs help to understand and do this work? 

2) Who needs more practice to get good with this work? 

3) Who is ready to apply this work in new ways? 

At the beginning of a unit/lesson most students are likely to need help.  Therefore, the teacher will employ evidence-based strategies that provide help to the whole class.  Over time, some students will show independence more quickly than others, thus the teacher will need to provide both help (for acquisition) and practice (for proficiency).  As students demonstrate proficiency, they will progress to apply what they have learned.  This application can include a combination of current and previously learned content.  By this point, the teacher will use a blend of whole group and small group instruction.  Even though students are at various stages of learning, the teacher may continue to provide some whole group instruction for all students based on overall classroom performance.  As fewer students need acquisition focused or fluency focused instruction, the class will converge back into one group focused on generalization/adaption.   

Formative assessment is the primary source of data used to make these decisions.  If it turns out that the teacher was incorrect, they can make the needed alterations in real time during class.  Every teacher has experienced a time when they thought students were ready for something and then backtracked and provided a different support based on students' needs.  These real-time decisions based on formative assessment data allow educators to adapt instructional plans to better meet students' needs as they progress through the stages of learning. 

Intervention/Special Education 

There is no room for error for students receiving intervention or special education services.  Therefore, educators can no longer rely on formative assessment data and quick changes to instructional plans.  Diagnostic data, to identify the root cause of the problem, are needed for initial instructional matching.  Once instructional supports are in place, progress monitoring data will be used to alter the content or the instructional focus. 

 

Howell and Nolet (1999) provide metrics that can be used to make decisions.  They found that a general rate of 40 digits-correct per minute (DCPM) correlated to reaching mastery for math computation skills.  Similarly, 20 DCPM was associated with skill acquisition.  This means that the following ranges can be used for instruction matching purposes: 

  • If the rate is between 0 and 19 DCPM, the student needs acquisition instruction. 
  • If the rate is between 20 and 39 DCPM, the student need fluency instruction. 
  • If the rate is 40 DCPM or more, the student has mastered the skill. 

 

Single-skill mastery measurement most directly links to instructional practices for mathematics.  Therefore, it is recommended that educators use a logical sequence of skills to drill back, finding the earliest pre-requisite skill in need of remediation to make an instructional match between content and instruction for the student.  Weekly progress monitoring data corresponding to the established rates is then used to make alterations to instructional supports.  

(Howell and Nolet provide one set of dcpm metrics linked to the instructional hierarchy.  There are other metrics available with more specificity as they relate to specific grade levels and specific skills.  Howell and Nolet's rates were used to provide general guidance.)   

 

Acquisition Instruction/Intervention 

The purpose of evidence-based practices that support acquisition is to provide help so that students learn the concepts and procedures.  Explicit, systemic instruction is the backbone of instruction at this phase.  Students must know what they are learning and how they will know they learned it.  Teachers should leverage explicit instructional approaches to make the new learning clear and concise for students.  General instructional strategies and specific intervention protocols are listed as examples of routines that support acquisition.  This list is not exhaustive as new evidence-based routines will continue to be highlighted in research.  

  • Explicit Models  
    • Concrete-Representation-Abstract sequence (or CRA) 
    • Visual Models 
    • Think-Alouds 
  • Scaffolding 
  • Frequent Feedback 
  • Incremental Rehearsal 
  • Math to Mastery 

 

Proficiency Instruction/ Intervention  

The purpose of evidence-based strategies that support building proficiency, or fluency, is to provide enough practice (i.e., response opportunities) in order to help students complete their work quickly and accurately.  This often takes the form of independent practice within systematic instruction. General instructional strategies and specific intervention protocols are listed as examples of routines that support fluency.  This list is not exhaustive as new evidence-based routines will continue to be highlighted in research. 

  • Independent Practice 
  • Timed Trials 
  • Math to Mastery 
  • Cover-Copy-Compare 
  • Detect-Practice-Repair 
  • Classwide Intervention 
  • Incremental Rehearsal 
  • The Reat Race 
  • Race to Space 

 

Generalization/Adaptation 

Once students progress through the stages of learning to the generalization/adaptation stage, they are ready to apply what they know within the context of core instruction.  Intervention is not typically prioritized at this stage. 

There may, however, be specific cases where students still need support in this area.  Listed below are a few examples of instructional supports/routines that can be utilized along with their purpose. 

  • High-preference/Interspersed Problems – Support the generalization of complex computation 
  • Self-Regulation Strategies – Support the ability to work through a longer process without losing track, e.g. Understand, Plan, Slove, Check (or UPS √) 
  • Schema-based instruction – Supports word problems by identifying problem types.  (could also be thought about as an explicit model for teaching word problem to support acquisition) 

 

References  

Haring, N. G., & Eaton, M. D. (1978). Systematic instructional procedures: An instructional hierarchy. The fourth R: Research in the classroom, 23-40. 

Howell, K. W., & Nolet, V. (1999). Curriculum-based evaluation: Teaching and decision making (3rd ed.). Belmont, CA: Wadsworth.