Acceleration

Acceleration Strategies and Interventions

Whether you’re looking for additional support for struggling students, or instructional strategies to improve student engagement, Learning-Focused is here to help. Check out our Accelerated Learning 101 guide and our articles below, designed for educators and school leaders looking for proven, data-driven insights, tools, and classroom tips.

Curriculum Planning: Why (and How) Educators Should Adopt a Standards-Driven Approach

By Lindsey Hampton

Have you ever considered how you approach travel planning may be the same as how you approach curriculum planning?  I love traveling, but I must sheepishly admit I think I like planning for it even more. Over the years, I have planned trips with a myriad of people, and I have noticed three distinctive types…

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For Instructional Improvement, Address the Knowing-Doing Gap Represented In Instructional Continuums

By Lindsey Hampton

If learning can be thought of as a continuum or an ongoing journey to improve, adapt, and grow, then so must instruction. After all, instructional improvement, or effective instruction, is largely an outcome of a teacher’s understanding and use of specific strategies, skills, and structures – each ranging in its use and effectiveness. It is…

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catching up at kids and at-risk students

Accelerate Learning: How Do You Move Them Forward Quickly and Effectively?

By Don Marlett

Schools and school districts know the importance of communicating a shared vision of success for their students, staff, and community. This vision often focuses on the idea of preparing students for their future. But what happens to that future when students struggle, year after year, and fall continuously behind? How do we teach all students…

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“Reviewing” Strategies That Increase Student Achievement

By Don Marlett

How do exemplary schools use “Reviewing” strategies to increase student achievement?  When reviewing for end-of-course tests or final exams, or even unit tests, there are several things to consider doing to reinforce the High-Yield Strategies you already use with students. Now is not the time to revert to the “old way” of reviewing. Students should…

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Five Strategies to Increase Student Motivation

By Lindsey Hampton

Why are some students reluctant to learn? Experienced teachers will tell you that there are many reasons why a student may be less than enthusiastic about learning, such as hunger, a lack of support at home, feeling emotionally distressed or worried, or a lack of self-confidence. In fact, this last reason can be one of…

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3 Previewing Strategy Examples That Increase the Impact of Technology

By Lindsey Hampton

Technology has often been seen as a catalyst that would revolutionize education. But whether that technology was papyrus and ink, slate and chalk, the Socratic Method, or a Chromebook, what has remained a constant, proven repeatedly by research, is that technology is only a means to an end and that in itself, does not lead…

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Ways To Reduce Stress for Students: 3 Actionable Classroom Tips

By Lindsey Hampton

In his book, Mind Rules, John Medina describes key principles on how the brain works. One of these principles is “Stressed brains do not learn the same way as non-stressed brains.” Emotional instability can lead to chronic stress and chronic stress affects concentration, language processing, problem-solving, and memory (Medina, 2008). More specifically, children who are…

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Learning Loss Recovery: 2 Case Studies of Successful Schools

By Don Marlett

There has been an ongoing discussion of COVID learning loss: how much learning did students forget from March of 2020 to the school’s return and how effective hybrid or complete remote learning has been since then. In a recent survey, teachers from eight different countries, including the US, reported “that students were on average two…

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activation strategy in the classroom

ELL Classroom Strategies: Activating Prior Knowledge in English Language Learners

By Lindsey Hampton

There are many challenges that face students whose native language is other than English and whose background experiences may have occurred in a different culture and geography. Early experiences may have been rich or chaotic, but regardless, both make up the life experiences of these students.  We know that students build new knowledge on previously…

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classroom management

Behavior Management In the Classroom or Academic Instruction: What Comes First?

By Lindsey Hampton

A popular viewpoint among educators is that discipline must come before instruction. Because student disruptions create a ripple effect across a classroom, teachers often feel forced to immediately deal with every misbehavior, resulting in a significant loss of instructional time. Teachers report losing as much as 144 minutes of instructional time on average to classroom…

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