MACS Flourishing Learners - Vision for Instruction
We continue to bring you an Annotated Glossary of Terms to support your understanding of MACS Vision for Instruction: This glossary features essential terms and concepts related to evidence-based teaching practices, cognitive science and the Melbourne Archdiocese Catholic Schools (MACS) Vision for Instruction. It provides concise definitions of each term along with annotations.
The following terms are separated into categories. The second section is Memory.
At St. Mark's, we understand the importance of human limits in cognitive architecture and the need to ensure we do not overload our students' working memory. We work to ensure learning is in long term memory and can continue to be accessed. Human memory has a limited capacity; therefore, instructional procedures need to avoid overloading it with those activities that don't directly enhance learning.
Vision for writing instruction
One of the most fundamental responsibilities of schools is teaching students to read and write. Reading and writing are foundational literacy skills, and foundational to all other learning areas. Implementing evidence-based instructional practices enhances students’ writing skills and confidence while fostering a deeper understanding, enjoyment of, and appreciation for the writing process.
Research summaries
• AERO (2022b) – Writing and writing instruction
• Shanahan (2019) – ‘Reading-writing connections’ in Best practices in writing instruction
• Chen, Myhill & Lewis (2020) – Developing Writers Across the Primary and Secondary Years: Growing into Writing
The following recommendations are based on evidence-based practices for writing across all years of schooling:
Create supportive writing environments
• Establish writing instruction as a priority across all learning areas and year levels.
• Create motivating and supporting writing environments where writing is explicitly taught and valued.
• Ensure students write frequently for a range of meaningful audiences and purposes.
• Integrate instruction across the curriculum, recognising the reciprocity of reading and writing to support learning.
• Provide additional scaffolding and instruction for students with learning difficulties and additional needs.
Develop essential writing skills
• Explicitly teach handwriting and keyboarding skills and give students opportunities to compose using digital and handwriting tools.
• Prioritise explicit instruction in spelling and orthography (encompassing morphology, etymology and phonology).
• Utilise explicit word, sentence, and paragraph analysis to enhance student writing.
• Embed grammar and punctuation instruction in meaningful tasks.
• Ensure adequate instruction in planning, drafting, evaluating and revision of writing, and embed formative assessment to provide explicit feedback to progress students.
Build knowledge for writing
• Explicitly teach genre macrostructure and microstructure through modelling, guided practice and exemplars, providing subject-specific instruction as required.
• Build knowledge that includes rich content knowledge and language for expressing and developing ideas, such as knowledge of linguistic and rhetorical features, and opportunities to build and extend vocabulary.