Hierarchic: 4 Main Ideas

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STAD
Main idea Main idea

A cooperative learning strategy that provides multi-ability teams with practice in learning concepts and skills.
Main idea Main idea

Planning

Implementing

Assessment

Motivation

Planning for whole-group instructionplan for presenting the content that students will practice on in groups. It is important to have clear learning objectives, high-quality examples, and promote interaction. Organizing groups in advance- create teams that are mixed ability, gender, ethnicity, high and low achievers, nonminorities and minorities, and students with and without exceptionalities. Planning for team study- having highquality materials to guide interactions between groups. Need to insure that the group instruction and team study are aligned with learning objectives. Study materials need to have answers that are clearly correct or incorrect. Calculating base scores and improvement points-all students can expect to be recognized for their efforts.

Instruction- The skill is explained and modeled in a whole group setting. Transition to teams- Students move from whole group instruction to team study. It is important that students understand improvement points prior to doing team study so that their incentive to work together increases. If individual members improve, then the entire team is rewarded. Team study- Student teams practice performing academic skills and receive feedback from other group members. Monitoring the students is essential to make sure appropriate social skills are being developed. Recognizing achievement- Improvement points and team rewards are given.

There will be team scoring and team awards. Team scoring is based on the improvement of individual members. Improvement points are awarded when the individual improves from his/her base score. Team scores are determined by averaging the improvement points for the team, and then the team awards are given. These can be in a variety of forms, whatever motivates your students.

This model is designed to increase learner motivation by giving students improvement points and team rewards for increases in their performance. Students will be motivated to help their peers and work together because the entire team is rewarded if individuals in the team improve.

So what? What is important to understand about this?

It is an effective strategy for promoting social development, self-direction, and communication skills between students while they are learning specific content.