Rosenshine’s Principles: A shortcut to excellent instruction

Over the past 15 years, few ideas have shaped classroom practice as much as Rosenshine’s Principles of Instruction. Unlike many educational fads, their popularity endures for good reason: they’re practical, evidence-based, and they work. Rosenshine’s Principles are the double espresso of teaching—refreshingly simple, energising, and guaranteed to sharpen your practice.

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What are Rosenshine’s Principles of Instruction?

Barak Rosenshine, a renowned educational psychologist, studied classroom teaching and distilled his research into ten evidence-based principles that guide effective student learning and retention.

1. Begin a lesson with a short review of previous learning.
2. Present new material in small steps with student practice after each step.
3. Ask a large number of questions and check the responses of all students.
4. Provide models.
5. Guide student practice.
6. Check for student understanding.
7. Obtain a high success rate.
8. Provide scaffolds for difficult tasks.
9. Require and monitor independent practice.
10. Engage students in weekly and monthly review. Rosenshine, 2012—Principles of Instruction (ERIC)

Because ten principles can be a lot to juggle—and several overlap—Tom Sherrington distilled them into four practical strands.

“Sequencing concepts and modelling”

Working memory is limited, so if we throw too much at students at once, things get lost. Breaking material into small, logical steps helps students master information and move it into long-term memory, freeing space for harder tasks. We can further reduce the load on working memory by using models and scaffolds (temporary supports that guide learners through tricky material until they can manage independently).

“Questioning”

Ask plenty of questions. Encourage students to summarise, elaborate, think aloud, or explain their reasoning. Avoid “Any questions, anyone…?” Instead, be specific and involve everyone. Let students share answers with a neighbour, write responses on mini-whiteboards, or respond in unison. Check understanding often—this strengthens connections and helps you catch misconceptions early.

“Reviewing material”

Regular review is essential for moving knowledge into long-term memory. A quick recap of previous learning at the start of each lesson makes recall easier and frees up working memory for new ideas. Weekly and monthly reviews reinforce connections, ease the load on memory, and help students apply what they know in new ways. Plan short, frequent activities like quizzes, discussions, or paired explanations to keep students active and engaged.

“Stages of practice”

Practice is what makes learning stick—but it has to be guided first. Asking students to rephrase, summarise, and elaborate helps them rehearse ideas accurately, while your feedback prevents misconceptions from taking root. Aim for a high success rate (80%+) before moving to independent work to ensure students have built the fluency that frees working memory for higher-order thinking. A balance of guided, supported, and independent practice helps students turn new knowledge into long-term learning.

Putting theory into practice

Imagine teaching the cardiac cycle to a GCSE class. This teaching sequence illustrates how you can apply Rosenshine’s Principles to secure lasting understanding for your students.

1. You might begin with a quick recap, asking students to label the heart’s chambers from memory. This review refreshes prior knowledge and clears space in working memory for novel ideas.
2. Introduce the new material in small, logical steps. First, the abstract link between contraction and volume, then volume and pressure. Next, use a 3D animation of the cardiac cycle as a scaffold to help make the abstract concrete and link ideas together.
3. Check understanding throughout with targeted questions—e.g., ‘What happens when the right atrium contracts?’ Invite students to explain their reasoning aloud or in pairs. Their responses provide instant feedback, allowing you to address misconceptions before they take root. Ask peers to rephrase and summarise what they’ve heard, then pose process-based questions, such as ‘Why must the ventricles contract after the atria?’, prompting students to justify their reasoning.

4. In the following weeks, revisit the topic through low-stakes quizzes and short retrieval tasks, providing opportunities for ‘overlearning’, until recall becomes automatic.
5. Students practise labelling diagrams, describing stages to a partner, and tackling exam-style questions. Use ‘I Do, We Do, You Do’, moving gradually from modelling answers (‘I do’), to guided practice (‘We do’), to independent work (‘You do’), and encourage students to refine their responses using mark schemes.

Why Rosenshine’s Principles matter

Put simply, Rosenshine’s Principles make it easy for us, as teachers, to decide what to do. In bridging the research-practice divide, they let us know which classroom practices are valid, so we can employ specific teaching strategies, safe in the knowledge that they will help our students learn.

And by giving us a mental checklist, Rosenshine frees our own working memory to focus on higher-order thinking, such as how best to respond to the students in front of us!

Whether you’re teaching one-to-one or leading a class, Rosenshine’s Principles give you a ready-made toolkit for excellent instruction—and a shortcut to teaching that really works.

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