Predictability: Environment & Structure
Overview
Maintaining consistent classroom routines and schedules ensures that students are able to trust and predict what will happen next. Predictability in the learning environment helps students feel secure because they know the expectations, freeing up their Working Memory so they can apply their cognitive skills to learning.
Example: Use This Strategy in the Classroom
Watch how this class transitions from their individual desks to a group of four through an established routine. By teaching this through an I do, we do, you do structure, students know what is expected of them and show that a routine can be fun and effective.
Design It into Your Product
Additional Resources
Additional examples, research, and professional development. These resources are possible representations of this strategy, not endorsements.
Factors Supported by this Strategy
More Teacher Modeling & Support Strategies
Teachers support language development by using and providing vocabulary and syntax that is appropriately leveled (e.g., using simple sentences when introducing complex concepts).
Content that is provided in clear, short chunks can support students' Working Memory.
Building positive and trusting relationships with learners allows them to feel safe; a sense of belonging; and that their academic, cognitive, and social and emotional needs are supported.
Teaching students how to label, identify, and manage Emotion helps them learn Self-regulation skills.
Actively and authentically encouraging all students to seek support, ask questions, and advocate for what they believe in creates a safe space for risk-taking and skill development and supports a Sense of Belonging.
Teachers can help students understand that learning involves effort, mistakes, and reflection by teaching them about their malleable brain and modeling their own learning process.
Attributing results to controllable aspects (strategy and effort) fosters students' beliefs in self.
By talking through their thinking at each step of a process, teachers can model what learning looks like.
Teachers sharing math-to-self, math-to-math, and math-to-world connections models this schema building.
Providing students a voice in their learning is critical for making learning meaningful.
Wait time, or think time, of three or more seconds after posing a question increases how many students volunteer and the length and accuracy of their responses.
