How to Use a Content Enhancement Routine

Educators are faced with the challenging goal of substantially improving the educational outcomes of all adolescents in academically diverse subject matter classes that include students with learning disabilities and students at risk for school failure as well as average- and high achieving students (Bulgren, Deshler & Lenz, 2007). Incorporating Content Enhancement Routines (CERs) into the teaching scenarios can be beneficial in the teaching of all students with no limit to learning abilities in social science.

Teaching within the Social Science content area can be hard, especially when you throw in diverse learners into your classroom. Trying to connect students to prior knowledge and personal experiences can be one of the toughest jobs as a teacher. Add in the various types of students with varying abilities and needs for accommodations to learn in the content area and the job can become overwhelming. However, using a CERs might be a great tool for content area teachers to use within their classrooms–including social science. According to Bulgren, Deshler & Lenz (2007), CERs contain components shown to have the potential of contributing to the success of students with disabilities in inclusive classes.

Content Enhancement Routines are defined as instructional principles designed to (a) teach academically diverse groups in ways that meet both group and individual needs; (b) carry out instruction in active partnership with students; (c) focus on the teacher as content expert and mediator of learning who selects critical features of the content and transforms them in a manner that promotes learning; and (d) maintain the integrity of the content (Bulgren, Deshler, & Lenz, 2007).

Here is an example of the Unit Organizer.

This planning and instructional tool helps students to see the overall structure of the unit. It guides the development of the other CERs to help students explore critical questions or relationships among chunks of information within the unit. By using the Unit Organizer, teachers are able to deliver domain specific content knowledge, support various levels of higher order thinking associated with expanded literacy requirements, and provide strategic cognitive and metacognitive supports for learning that can also be used within the unit of study. In the case of the example shown in the Unit Organizer, a teacher can teach the Causes of the Civil War to build into the unit and use the last unit information from The Growth of a Nation to give prior knowledge and demonstrate a lead-into the next lesson which is the Civil War. By using this strategy teachers are able to organize and create a systematic structure to their unit(s) and lesson(s) planning that students can see and respond to effectively with observable measurement.

Teachers can also use this strategy of teaching to pre-plan lessons and units for students and check for understanding from students along the way. Check this video of the Unit Organizer in action within a social science classroom.

I have only discussed one method of the Content Enhancement Routines, but there are several others that have demonstrated successful teaching with students in the content area of social sciences. Here are a few others that can be joined with the Unit Organizer to enhance and effectively teach students within any level of the social science classroom.

Examples of Integrated Content Enhancement Routines in Social Science:

Unit Organizer Routine
Expanded Unit Organizer
Question Exploration Routine
Concept Mastery Routine
Concept Anchoring Routine
Comparison Routine
Cause-Effect Routine

The research completed by Bulgren, Deshler & Lenz (2007) demonstrates that there are five attributes to the effectiveness of using Content Enhancement Routines within the social science classroom. When I taught social science, my biggest challenge was trying to connect lessons to prior knowledge and personal experiences within the content. In the future I would incorporate the CERs into my teaching strategies in order for my students to benefit from the effectiveness in this teaching method. Here are the five attributes in using CERs in social science:

Attribute 1: Fidelity and Ease of Use

Attribute 2: Effects on Subgroups of Students

Attribute 3: Validation Studies to Determine Effects on Student Performance

Attribute 4: Measurement of Components Associated with CERs

Attribute 5: Teacher and Student Satisfaction with the CER

This research has repeatedly shown that students in academic classes can master critical content elements and improve their outcome performance when teachers systematically incorporate CERs in their classes and teach them explicitly to their students (Bulgren, Deshler & Lenz, 2007). For me, this type of teaching makes sense and allows teachers to not only guide their students in learning, but to also have a systematic approach to collecting data and checking for understanding along the way.

REFERENCES

Bulgren, J., Deshler, D. D., & Lenz, B. (2007, April). Engaging adolescents with LD in higher order thinking about history concepts using integrated content enhancement routines [Electronic version]. Journal of Learning Disabilities, 40(2), 121-133.