Reciprocal teaching
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[edit] Definition
An instructional technique in which students and teacher take turns leading a dialogue about strategies for how to study some material (Mayer 440) It is a form of apprenticeship and can be used with various curricula.
[edit] The Main Goal
To promote better Reading comprehension
[edit] How It Works
Learning groups are formed with a teacher and one or more students. They use a variety of different reading comprehension strategies to study a text passage in different ways. The teacher and students take turns being discussion leaders. The teacher can provide hints, feedback, and comments as needed.
The teacher starts out being the leader and models to the children how to lead a discussion. The teacher first generates a question about the text, then summarizes the main points, clarifying any comprehension difficulties including unknown definitions, and then helps children make predictions about the subsequent text. After finishing a section of the text with these steps, the teacher passes on the leader role to one of the students. (Mayer 441)
Step One: Questioning Generate an appropriate question for the passage
Sample Questions: Who or what is this lesson about? What do we know about _________? What are the clues that tell us __________?
Step Two: Clarifying Detect and correct any potentional comprehension difficulties
Sample Questions: What does ________ mean? What is a ________?
Step Three: Summarizing Produce a consise summary for the passage
Sample Questions: What is the main idea of this passage? What is it mostly about? What information in this passage tells you that?
Step Four: Predicting Suggest what will occur in subsequent text
Sample Questions: What do you think the next part will be about?
[edit] Why It Works
Reciprocal teaching combines different techniques involving the who, what, and where, of learning:
1. What is learned are cognitive strategies for reading comprehension rather than specific facts and procedures (Mayer, 221). The teaching focuses on how rather than what to learn.
2. Learning of the cognitive strategies occurs within real reading comprehension tasks rather than having each strategy taught in isolation (Mayer, 221). Learning takes place in an order, rather than learning everything separately.
3. Students learn as apprentices within a cooperative learning group that is working together on a task (Mayer, 222). The students are learning through themselves, and through the others in their group. The teacher basically is a mediator and a guide for the students.
4. Reciprocal teaching is a way of applying Cognitive Apprenticeship in the classroom. For example, "One way of learning as an apprentice within a group of learners is through reciprocal teaching - an instructional technique in which students and teacher take turns leading a dialogue about strategies for how to study some material (Mayer, 2003, p. 440).
[edit] Central Principles
The teacher should model the comprehension activities making them overt, explicit, and concrete
The teacher should model the activities in appropriate contexts, not as individual skills
The students should be informed of the need for strategic intervention and the range of uses for particular strategies
Students should realize that the use of strategies works for them
The responsibility for the comprehension activities should be transferred to the students as soon as they can take charge of their own learning
The transfer of responsibility should be gradual
Feedback should be tailored to the students’ existing levels
(Brown & Palinscar, 1985)
[edit] Evidence of Success
Ann Brown and Annemarie Palinscar conducted the original research which founded the reciprocal teaching method. In conducting their experiment, they found that by the third segment, students were producing less unclear question types, a mid-range of detailed question types, and significantly higher amounts of questions relating to the main idea. In the summaries produced by the third segment, students moved away from incorrect or incomplete and detail focused summaries and once again significatly increased the summaries focused on the main idea. Not only were students improving the quality of their summarization and questioning, but they also demonstrated higher comprehension when compared with control groups. Groups were formed within science and social studies that used reciprocal teaching and were compared to similar groups as an untreated control groups. Results showed that students who used reciprocal teaching scored about three times higher on comprehension tests than the control students (Brown & Palinscar, 1985).
[edit] Personal Testimonies
I realize this technique is for reading books, but I have used something similar to this with my band in reading a new piece of music. After they have read through the piece for the first time, I question them about the piece. I clarify difficult passages, or written cues that may be difficult to understand. I summarize the general ideas and style of the piece. All of this can then help the students to predict what a piece by the same composer could be like. Elizabeth Giger
I used reciprocal teaching with my science students also. If we needed to read a passage in the book that might not be too interesting, but they still needed the knowledge, I would first divide the class into small groups. Then I would have the small groups number off. Then I would have all the "ones", "twos", etc. get together and read a page and question each other about that page. Then I would have the students get back with their group. Then each child would have to "teach" all the other members of his/her group the material that he/she had read and studied. Then I would have a little all group game with rewards for the group who knew the most information. This worked because the students worked in small groups and could concentrate on just a small amount of information, and then they would become the "experts" on what they were to teach their peers. Sharon Morrisette
This is a great way to practice reading strategies in a group. When I have used reciprocal teaching in my classroom, we first teach the roles/strategies as a whole class. Then students are set free to practice these in small groups. The student picks one of the roles out and that is their task for the first reading. For some reason, this simple act of picking out of a hat so to speak excites the kids because it is a surprise. This is much different than if I were to specifically assign the role. J. Cappa
I was not aware of reciprocal teaching until we received professional development on it during my first year of teaching (in 2003). It is now 2006 and I must say that this reading strategy has certainly helped our students. Not only is it useful in the language arts classroom but also in all other subject-areas as well. In addition to using reciprocal teaching in my language arts classes, I have also used it in my Spanish classes when the students were doing various readings. Aside from reciprocal teaching being used with reading material, I have also used it with movies and TV shows. With the videos, I stop them at various parts and have the students do such things as: predict what will happen next, write a summary of what just happened, write a good, open-ended question related to what you just saw and have your partner answer it, and write down anything that needs to be clarified that you are uncertain or confused about. Using visual material rather than literary material to further develop reciprocal teaching and essentially reading comprehension skills is definitely useful. The students are highly motivated and engaged in this activity because they are getting to watch rather than read and because they have certain tasks that need to be accomplished, they are all the more engaged in the activity and pay very close attention. Either way you choose to incorporate this reading strategy into your classroom, it will be to the students' benefit and will be encouraging for you as the classroom teacher when you discover all the learning that is taking place. ~Kristy Kleckauskas
Many of the examples of reciprocal teaching has centered around reading and the benefits to students with their language skills. As a high school math teacher I've have been using reciprocal teaching in my upperclass honors class for the past 6 years. Reciprocal teaching is the cornerstone of our AP Calculus class. Students lead the rest of the class through problems at the board about 40% of the time in class. Each student is invited to present and question other students and the teacher for the problems of the day. At first, the same 4 or 5 students lead the discussions, but by the end of the first semester, every student has lead at least 5 discussions. Students will come into class early to make sure they get the problem that they want. It has been a very positive method in our class. Brad Frey, Johnsburg High School
References:
Brown, A.L. & Palinscar, A.S. (1985) Reciprocal Teaching of Comprehension Strategies: A Natural History of One Program for Enhancing Learning. Technical Report of University of Illinois Center for the Study of Reading, 334.
Mayer, Richard E. (2003). Learning and instruction. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Merril Prentice Hall.
Mayer, Richard E. (2002). The Promise of Educational Psychology. Pearson Education, Inc., New Jersey.
