Games in the Classroom: Not ALL Fun & Games

Do your students play games in your classroom as part of the content and skills they are learning? Great! Games can be an excellent venue for formative assessment because they provide awesome opportunities for immediate feedback and support.

Check out this post from Edutopia for some specific examples. This is a wonderful time of year to think about introducing games to your classroom to keep up that student engagement and motivation as the days get sunnier and warmer.

Concerned about just how you can use games as formative assessment, using the informal data you gather by observing your students to inform future instruction? Give your district's instructional coach a holler -- she'd be glad to collaborate with you on this! 

It's Not Over 'Til It's Over

Yup. It's mid-May. State-testing is just about wrapped up. Educator evaluations are being finalized. June, and, with it, the end of the school year, is literally right around the corner.

It can be hard to stay motivated and engaged at this time of the year, for students and teachers both. But we must, mustn't we? After all, there are still weeks and weeks left of learning (don't shoot me; I'm just the messenger, y'all!).

If you're having difficulty holding onto a feeling of excitement for the classroom right about now, maybe it's time to throw caution to the wind and try something new. It might be just the thing to give you that burst of energy and enthusiasm to carry you forward until that last bell rings.

The great thing about trying something new now is that you know your students SO well at this point. It can be tricky to "experiment" earlier in the year, especially when you're just getting a handle on who's who in your classroom. But if you try something out now, with students you know well, you may feel comfortable enough with it in the fall to begin the year with it!

So, if you're interested, think about the following possibilities:

• Maybe you've never felt quite comfortable with -- or never even tried -- a workshop format with your students. Why not try it out now?
• Perhaps you know you should use formative assessments more often to inform your instruction, but the day-to-day life of a teacher has slowed you down and distracted you from this. Now could be a great time to play around with it a little more.
• Maybe you find yourself using the same ol' activators and summarizers you always use -- or maybe you find yourself having strayed away from these valuable tools. Now could be the time to learn about some new strategies to use at the beginning and/or the ending of a lesson.
• You've always thought about trying to tier a lesson, but you're just not sure how. Now's a great time to learn more about this, especially with your knowledge of your students!

The possibilities are endless! If you'd like some guidance and collaboration, you can always contact your district's friendly instructional coach. *wink, wink.*

A Mile in Their Shoes

Hello readers!
I just stumbled across a decently cool video that really got me thinking. The video is from Burr and Burton Academy, a high school in Vermont, and it documents the reflections of several staff members who took on the life of a student at their school for one day. Walking a mile in their students' shoes was primarily conducted as part of an ongoing study by the staff on the effectiveness of their school day schedule, but I think this kind of social experiment offers endless possibilities for what we as educators can learn about the experience of school.

Check out the video here, and then I'll share with you my own take-aways:

• I thought it was a great touch to have the students-for-a-day actually do the assigned homework for all the classes they'd be attending. The teachers in the video don't discuss this in depth, but I think it would be fascinating to really experience what this is like: how difficult is it, how much time does it take, how do you balance it with other after-school activities and responsibilities, etc.
• The teachers mostly seemed to agree that, as the school day went on, it became more and more difficult for them to remain focused. I think this is something we all inherently understand, but perhaps actually experiencing it the way a student does would illuminate it even further . . . maybe it would help us think of what would work well for a student towards the latter half of the school day.
• Something I found really interesting was that one of the teachers said he had had a great day and had found himself fascinated by all the subjects. But some of the other teachers admitted to not connecting well with some of the subjects, which made those classes feel very long to them. I think this is pretty reflective of what our students experience. Sure, there are some kids who love every subject. But there are many others who, for many reasons, don't. How do we engage those students?
• A huge take-away for me as a former ELA high school teacher was the reflection shared by several of the teachers that it was an intense experience bouncing from one subject to the next. One of the teachers said it was difficult because he was processing "what I had done in science class and just a few minutes later -- Boom! -- you're into this totally different, new, intense" subject area. Another teacher commented that "there was no unwinding . . . it was stay wound and go from this to that." My work over the past year and a half in a K-12 position has helped me to learn a lot from elementary teachers about this sort of thing. Because they teach numerous subject areas, I've observed lots of elementary teachers who really get the need to transition from one "intense" area to the next. I know that when I taught high school, it was sometimes easy for me to forget that my students had already had 3 or 4 classes before they walked into mine and that their brains weren't necessarily already primed for ELA like mine was (because ELA was the only subject area I had to focus on).

I don't have all the answers to some of the questions I began to pose in these take-aways. But I do think this social experiment is a very valid one that the staff at any grade level could really learn from. The key is to really try and do something with what people learn from the experience. Are there some new instructional moves teachers can make with the student perspective in mind? Is there a need to try something different? What's working? What's not?


And finally, readers, Happy Holidays! My blogging will resume with the new year, so I want to take this opportunity to wish you all a lovely and well-deserved break. Enjoy!

Multiple Choice Doesn't Have to be Boring

Interested in providing your students with an opportunity to clear up misunderstandings and misconceptions, to collaborate with their peers, and to develop critical thinking skills? (And who isn't?) Then this is the post for you!

I'm not a huge fan of multiple choice assessments; I just never felt like they told me the whole story of what my students understood and didn't understand. But, I often had multiple choice assessments lying around, whether they were sample AP, SAT, or MCAS exams or standardized multiple-choice exams that came with the published study guides accompanying a novel or a textbook. And these assessments did come in handy for the following task for my students.

Placing my students into heterogeneous groups of 3 or 4 students (usually chosen at random), I'd give each group a copy of the same multiple choice assessment (sometimes with the aim of reviewing at the end of a lesson or unit, sometimes with the aim of targeting the use of a particular skill, etc.). First, I'd require all students to complete the multiple choice questions independently. Their next step was to share their answers within just their small group and not stop until they had reached consensus on each answer. This requires a lot of collaborative skill and higher-order thinking, as students would engage in some debate with one another, and would delve back into their notes or their text in order to provide support for which answer they felt was correct. They really had to get good at justifying their claims with evidence. (This doesn't happen overnight -- I was sure to teach and discuss collaborative skills with my students, and also teach and discuss how best to debate, to justify your answers, etc.)

The final step, once each small group had reached consensus, was to open the debate up to the entire class. Now, their job was for each group to share their answers and to eventually reach consensus as a whole class. Once again, those skills of being able to justify their claims with evidence started to come in handy.

[Often, I'd stipulate that they could not stop until the entire class had reached consensus on every single answer -- this is the only way they'd earn a grade on the assignment. Sometimes, though, certain answers would be debated seemingly endlessly, and I'd have to table the discussion on those items and accept individual answers.]

What was great about this exercise was the development of collaborative skills and critical thinking skills. But, as a teacher, it was also a fantastic opportunity for me to assess students' current understandings and skill levels, leading to my own informed instruction. (Plus, it's a nice way to jazz up the use of multiple choice questions -- they really don't have to be boring!)

Put a Frame Around That Learning!

If you’ve been reading my blog, you know I am currently obsessed with my latest academic crush, Mr. Kelly Gallagher. This week, I want to share with you some tips from his 2004 book, Deeper Reading: Comprehending Challenging Texts 4-12, that address how to effectively frame reading for students in order to ensure comprehension and engagement.

Although Gallagher’s book and suggestions zero in on reading, I’m going to take it one step further – while the following ideas can frame reading for students, they can also frame lessons or even whole units of study. 

Let’s get into it!

Framing a lesson (or a unit, or a reading) means that you’re putting some scaffolds and supports in place right at the beginning, usually to build necessary background knowledge and/or provide students with a purpose for learning/for reading. If we just dive into a piece of reading, or the core of a lesson, we might lose a bunch of our students who were not ready; their brains were not primed for these tasks. These students will most likely end up “checking out” of the lesson or of the reading pretty early on, giving up because they don’t have enough background knowledge to help them understand the reading/the lesson, or they don’t know what their purpose for learning is.

Here are some framing ideas from Gallagher (2004):

·      Assign a web search at the beginning of a unit or before students read a text. Specify for them what key ideas/terms/concepts/words/pictures/videos they should be looking for. Determine how students should synthesize what they find, and how they will share with others.

·      Use anticipation guides as a way to frame major ideas/themes in an upcoming unit or text. Provide students with a list of statements to either agree or disagree with (when I taught the Ray Bradbury novel Fahrenheit 451, I came up with statements that would connect to themes or big ideas in the book, such as “Ignorance is bliss” or “Modern technology drastically reduces our ability to communicate with one another”). Students use a Likert scale (strongly disagree, somewhat disagree, somewhat agree, strongly agree) to rate their disagreement or agreement with each statement. This can spark some interesting discussions, especially if there’s no real “right” or “wrong” – the statements should fall into that lovely gray area. What I MOST love about anticipation guides is that you can give students the same statements at the end of the reading/lesson/unit and have them once again rate their agreements and disagreements. It’s interesting to see whether their minds were changed over the recent course of study, and why.

·      Try out a spin on an old classic, the KWL chart. Gallagher recommends a KWLR chart. At the beginning of the unit/lesson/reading, students list what they already know about a given topic under K, and then list everything they want to know or have questions about under W. It’s a great idea to fill in this chart as a whole class and to post the chart somewhere in the classroom so that it can continue to be filled in over the course of the unit/lesson/reading (if posted, it also serves as a constant reminder of a purpose for learning – to get those questions under W answered!). As students learn answers to their questions in the W column, they list these under L. And finally, at the end of the reading/lesson/unit, students look to see which questions in the W column are still left unanswered; they also add any new questions that have arisen for them during the recent course of study. With this list of questions (those that are still unanswered and those that are new), students are ready for some further research. These newly discovered research topics are listed under R and serve as great extension activities that engage students – they are, after all, based on the students’ own questions!

There are a bunch of other ways you can frame a reading/lesson/unit for your students, and also a bunch of ways you can frame during a reading/lesson/unit (instead of only at the beginning). If you’re interested in incorporating framing into your lessons and units and want help getting started, send me an email and we’ll frame together!

TEACH!

 Last Friday night, CBS aired a special documentary called TEACH, following the classrooms of four teachers through some triumphs and through some struggles. There has been some controversy surrounding the film (it was made by some of the same people involved with Waiting for Superman, which has its own controversy surrounding it; some felt there should have been more of a variety of content areas and teacher ages represented in the film; some felt it was an advertisement for Khan Academy; etc.), but I won’t be delving into those areas. In fact, as a disclaimer to this post, I’ll let you know right now: I loved it. I thought it was a genuine depiction of the realities of teaching – the pressures we face, the obstacles we have to strive to overcome, however insurmountable. And this post details what I loved most about the piece: teacher reflection and growth.

[SPOILER ALERT: If you haven’t seen TEACH yet and you’re planning on it, you may want to postpone reading this post! TEACH just became available on iTunes, I believe, so you can check it out there.]

The four teachers depicted in the documentary were real teachers. And real teachers make mistakes. (Yes, let’s admit it. We do make mistakes from time to time.) And these teachers made mistakes. But the great, inspiring take-away was that these four teachers, often with the help of a mentor, reflected on their practices and on their mistakes, grew from the experience, changed some things around, and ended up with some great results for their students.

Keeping the Class Student-Centered

One of the teachers in the film was a high school AP history teacher. Much loved by his students, who seemingly clamored to enroll in his class, he learned the hard way (during a class that was being observed by his graduate school education professor, no less!) that his class was too teacher-centered. Numerous times throughout the lesson (which was largely lecture-based) he asked the class some variation of the question, “Does everyone get this?” Each time, he was met by crickets. And each time, he proceeded along with the content of his lesson, presumably taking his students’ silence for a “Yes, we get this.” It’s easy to fall into this trap, especially when we feel we have to keep moving on with our lesson. But we should never take a class’ silence for understanding (nor should we take one student’s “Yes” as the answer for “Does everyone get this?”). In working with his graduate school professor, this teacher realized his lessons needed to be more student-centered in order to get them more involved and to aid in checking for understanding. Soon, he was having his students work in groups to brainstorm, problem solve, and create. A plethora of voices filled the air of his classroom, and you could see the learning taking place.

The 360 Degree Classroom

A secondary math teacher shown in the film struggled with a range of student abilities present in her class. Even more so, she struggled with not being able to easily watch her students in action, to observe them doing math in the moment. Working with the assistant principal, she took on the challenge of trying out a 360 degree classroom. Whiteboards were installed across all four of the walls of the classroom. Students were handed a marker and an eraser as they entered the room. And, (presumably after a whole class mini-lesson) students left their desks behind as they each found a place at one of the four wall-length white boards. The teacher left the front of the room behind, and stood directly in the middle of the room, where she could pivot and turn, watching her students work through a math problem. This helped her identify to whom she needed to go first with support, and who was progressing along independently. Once again, the learning was visible and the students engaged.

Tapping Into High-Interest

A third teacher portrayed in the film was an elementary teacher struggling with reading instruction. Some of his students were grade levels behind where they needed to be. It was even harder to motivate some of these students not only due to their low reading skills, but because these difficulties had made them dislike reading so much. During a post-observation conference with his principal, she simply asked him, “When you were a kid, what would make you want to read?” In the next segment of the film, we hear this teacher asking his students what their hobbies are, what their lives are like, what they want to be when they grow up. And we then see him scouring through books in the library, later bringing a stack of books into the classroom. Standing amongst his students, holding up book after book and quickly describing it (“Who has trouble with their friends? Who wants to be a chef when they grow up?”), he is pelted with excited shrieks and raised hands. Everyone was thrilled to begin reading these high-interest books. It was certainly one huge step in the right direction.

The Flipped Classroom

The fourth teacher shown in TEACH was a math teacher (if memory serves, middle school or upper elementary) from Idaho, which is piloting the use of Khan Academy in some of its classrooms statewide. Khan Academy is a tool for flipping your classroom – instead of conducting the lesson in front of all your students, students access the material from the (free!) Khan Academy resources online. The class time is now freed up for small group work, intervention groups, etc. But it may not be as easy as it seems, as this teacher at first experienced. By the end of her first month with the program, she was ready to give up. She missed her place at the front of the room, she wasn’t sure what her role was now, and students were not improving their math skills. I wish she had had someone in her building or district who could have coached her through this (as we see in the above stories). But, luckily, she did reach out to a Khan Academy mentor, who helped her to look at her student data from the program the night before the next class, so she could see in advance who was struggling and she could plan to meet with certain groups of students to intervene. Her relief to understand the benefits of the program better was evident, and her class began to soar. Some students were even accessing Khan Academy when it wasn’t assigned, just to do some extra work on their own!

The amount of honest reflection, the help from a mentor, the willingness to try something new, the ability to grow as a professional: these are the qualities that most impressed me about the teachers in TEACH and the qualities that most impress me about all good teachers. I’m thrilled to be working as an instructional coach because it gives me the opportunity to help teachers do the hard work of the reflective practitioner.

Let's Discuss Discussions

     Let it be known: I love me a good class discussion. Here's some ways to make the most of them:

Let the Students Lead

     I know this can feel difficult. It can be scary and unfamiliar sometimes for us educators to take ourselves out of the driver's seat. But turning the ownership of the discussion over to students can be empowering for them. And it can lead to a more authentic flow of ideas. 

     The pattern of a class discussion need not be student > teacher > student > back to teacher, etc. It can be student to student, with the teacher jumping in occasionally to address a misunderstanding or to ask a guiding question. 

     The one protocol of a class discussion I've used over and over again to help achieve this dynamic is simple. The last person to speak calls on the next person to speak. So, if Toby was the last one to speak, and three of his peers are raising their hands, he'll call on one of them to speak next. The teacher can raise his or her hand as well, and the student can choose to call on the teacher, or not. (More times than not, the students tend to call on the teacher fairly quickly.)

     But what if no one is raising their hands when Toby has finished making his point? I encourage students to go ahead and call on someone anyway, preferably someone who hasn't had a chance to speak yet, or a chance to speak too often. I coach students to really invite this person into the discussion, not by asking, "Hey Jill, you wanna say something?," but by asking, "Jill, do you agree with me? Why or why not?" or "What do you think about _____?" 

Be Proud, Knock Loud

     Sometimes students will raise their hand during a lovely student-led discussion, get called on by a peer, and say, "Yup. I agree." And that's it. Nothing further. They may think this "counts" as participating, but I set up the expectation with students that it does not. Of course you may agree with one another, but if you're going to share that fact, you need to explain why and you also need to extend the point.

     But, with that being said, sometimes we just want to let one another know we agree. So, I ask students to knock on their desks (or they could snap their fingers if they are not sitting at desks) when they are in agreement with something that's just been said. This can be nice for several reasons:

1. It eliminates the situation described above -- no more jumping into the discussion to only say those two words -- "I agree" -- and leaving it at that. If you want to say you agree, simply knock on your desk.
2. It can help boost the confidence of the speaker.
3. It can snap some students out of daydreams and wandering thoughts ("Whoops. Ten people just knocked on their desks. I probably just missed something important. I need to pay more attention...").
4. It can help the teacher (and the students, for that matter) take the pulse of everyone's understanding.

     I'm not advocating, though, for a discussion that's all about agreement. I also reinforce to students that, of course, they may disagree with one another, but that this must be done respectfully and I'll model this for them if need be.

Play Your Cards

     Good discussions are typically ones that have a sense of balance. There are not three or four people who are monopolizing the dialogue; there are not some voices that are never once heard.

     To combat these discussion-busters, I hand out cards to students (usually I just use index cards). If I give each student three cards, that means, at a minimum, I expect every student to contribute verbally to the discussion three times. If students are sitting in a circle (which I highly recommend), they toss a card into the center of the circle each time they contribute. 

     I explain to students that this can help them know who to call on next. If Toby's done speaking, and four of his peers are raising their hands, he can quickly look to see who has the most cards still in his or her possession, and call on that student. 

     Most of the time, I tell students that, of course, they can go over their card limit -- they can continue to contribute to the discussion after having tossed all their cards into the circle. But, sometimes, I have encountered students who honestly find it hard not to monopolize the conversation. These students need to learn how to sometimes take a back seat. And so, if the situation merits it, I'll ask students to stop contributing after they have tossed all of their cards. This can help monopolizers to be more economical about the points they choose to share with the group. 

     Using "play your cards" can also be helpful to the teacher participant in or monitor of the discussion. If we notice students who still have cards left towards the end of the time allotted for discussion, we can be sure to call on these students ourselves, or to ask them follow-up questions once the discussion has ended.

     In my current district and current role as instructional coach, I have used these methods with 5th graders, 6th graders, and 12th graders. It has been my experience that establishing just the right expectations and protocols for a student-led discussion enables us to sit back and listen to our students' ideas, to check for their understanding, and to often be wowed by their contributions.

     (If you teach in the same district as me, and want to give this a try, let me know. I'd love to help!)

Learning Contracts

     Some of the top questions raised when we think about differentiating in our classrooms are: “How do we meet with a small group of students while the rest of the class does…what…exactly?” “What do we do when some students inevitably finish a task before others?” There are lots of ways to answer these questions (shameless plug: you can hear about them all in my upcoming summer workshop on differentiated instruction!). This post is about one particular strategy I just discovered, thanks to Carol Ann Tomlinson and Caroline Cunningham Eidson, authors of Differentiation in Practice: A Resource Guide for Differentiating Curriculum (2013).

     Tomlinson and Eidson suggest the use of learning contracts (don’t you just love that phrasing?). I’ll go ahead and give you their exact definition:

“A learning contract is an agreement between a student and a teacher      regarding a task or project that a student will work on independently and with some freedom. Learning contracts often provide some degree of choice regarding specific tasks to be completed and the order in which they will be completed. This element of choice can help teachers address differences in students’ interests and learning profiles. Effective contracts focus on key understandings and skills that a student is to work with and provide information about the criteria for quality work. Learning contracts require teachers to match learning objectives with contract options so that students must practice and apply important skills” (p. 187)

What’s great about learning contracts is that, when introduced (as is recommended) at the start of a unit, they provide students with meaningful tasks to accomplish throughout the unit. These tasks are assignments students can work on when they finish other tasks early one day, or when you need to meet with a small group or one half of the class. The teacher and the student agree on the number of tasks the student will complete from the learning contract options (this works best when there’s lots to choose from, and lots of variety) and when the student will be done with each task. Students should fill out and sign a contract that includes items such as: the tasks they agree to work on, the dates due for each, and agreements to work on these selected tasks at various times during class without distracting peers. What I love about Tomlinson and Eidson’s definition is that it separates learning contract tasks from “busy work” by insisting that these tasks include “criteria for quality work” and that they “match [the] learning objectives” of the unit. And don’t even get me started on the element of student choice and student ownership implicit in learning contracts – how great is that? 

     Below, I’ve listed some ideas for learning contract tasks. Learning contracts are great for including assignments based on multiple intelligences and learning styles, so you’ll notice this reflected in this list. ***Please note: learning contracts should list specific criteria for each option presented. I have not included criteria in the list below as I simply want to share what types of tasks may be found on a learning contract. ***A second note: I’ve included examples from several content areas and from several grade levels, K-12. ***Ok, just one more note: Some teachers prefer to further differentiate learning contracts by typing up two different lists of tasks – one geared towards the advanced learners and one geared towards those who are novice learners of the particular subject.

     So, without further adieu, here are some ideas (many of which can be found in the 2003 Tomlinson & Eidson text):

·      Make an ABC list (or book) of plants. Use books in the classroom to find the names of plants that begin with each letter of the alphabet.

·      Draw and label the plants we cannot eat. Why can’t we eat these?

·      Measure the plants in the classroom, and make a graph showing their heights. Which is the tallest plant? Which is the shortest one? Do you think that will change? Why?

·      Write a song about plants, what you like about them, and why they are important.

·      Using information from resources provided in the classroom, as well as various travel brochures provided, create a travel brochure about our community. Your brochure should make people outside of our community want to come visit it…

·      RAFT writing tasks -- the possibilities for these are almost endless! (See my previous post about RAFTS: An Alternative to White Water RAFTing.) Seriously, I can't recommend these writing opportunities enough!

·      Invent a game to help teach children about lines, angles, polygons, circles, polyhedrons, congruence, and symmetry. Write a manual for parents and teachers that explains the rules and procedures for playing the game and discusses the benefits of playing the game…

·      Research geodesic dome buildings. Draw a picture or build a model of a dome building and write three or four paragraphs discussing dome buildings, answering the following questions…

·      Using pictures from magazines and newspapers, find and label objects that represent the different types of lines, angles, and shapes that we’ve studied…

·      Create a Private Investigator Poster about Macbeth. Draw his profile, police line-up style, and label him with “Checks Out” traits (his good points) and “Warning Signs” traits (his weaknesses).

·      Create a metaphor for Macbeth: Macbeth is a __________ in these three ways…Give three text citations to back up your argument.

·      Discuss what you see as the most compelling or significant scene in Act I. Cite specific textual examples that support your claim (using diction, figurative language, motifs, scansion).

·      Translate a Shakespearean scene or soliloquy into contemporary English.

·      Draw a concept map showing the major hurdles le petit prince had to overcome in the novel and the major hurdles you (or adolescents in general) have to overcome during this time of your life.

·      Listen to excerpts from Gustave Holst’s The Planets. Create and record brief soundscapes of what at least three of the planets that le petit prince visited might sound like. Write a CD liner-note explanation of your soundscapes to make the link between the music and the stereotype represented by the planet’s inhabitant(s).

·      Design a map that illustrates le petit prince’s journey (physical, emotional, or spiritual) throughout the book. Annotate the map so we can see the importance of the “places” you chose to include.

·      Find and illustrate a set of quotes by le petit prince. Annotate the quotations, explaining their significance to the themes of the novel.

·      Design a cartoon that illustrates your journey as a water droplet. Include an appropriate caption(s).

·      Create a fictional story about the journey of a water droplet.

·      Draw an accurate version of the water cycle that includes all steps. Be sure to show the processes that get a water droplet from one step to another.

·      Create a local version of the water cycle. Be sure to include the names of local rivers, bays, oceans, mountains, and so on.

    

     Cool, right? I’ll wrap up with just one last shameless plug: if you like the above ideas, and want more, more, more (and if you teach in the same district as me!), then please sign up for the summer workshop I’m offering: A Practical Approach to Differentiation in the Classroom. Tell your friends! 

Double Dipping

     Normally I hate double dipping. You know, when you're at a cocktail party having a lovely, sophisticated time, and you sample the to-die-for hummus or salsa or buffalo chicken dip (whatever floats your boat, readers) and then someone comes along, dips their chip in, takes a bite, then goes in for more. The double dip. I believe there's a Seinfeld episode devoted to this travesty.
   
     Thankfully, I'm not about to commit that kind of double dip. No, no, no. I just want to share with you all a resource I typed up for a few teachers I'm working with as instructional coach. It's a bunch of tips for calling on students (especially those reluctant participators) that can help alleviate the anxiety many teachers have about calling on students who aren't raising their hands. After typing it up, I realized -- hey, I bet my blog readers might want to check this out, too. (Be warned, though...some of the items on the resource are also things I've already blogged about on here. Repeat alert!)

     So, I'm double dipping -- using a blog post to share something I had compiled for a different audience. (But, hey, at least I didn't totally cheat and post this as my only blog entry this week, right?)

     Enjoy!

    

Tips for Calling on Students

(especially those who aren’t raising their hands…)

Compiled by Elizabeth Bettencourt, Sharon Public Schools

·      Foster “accountable talk” in your classroom. Model for students what this looks like by using the following examples, and also expect your students to adhere to “accountable talk” when interacting with their peers in a class discussion:

o   Press for clarification & explanation: “Could you describe what you mean?”

o   Require justification of proposals & challenges: “Where did you find that information?”

o   Demand evidence for claims & arguments: “Can you give me an example?”

o   Interpret & use each other’s statements: “David suggested . . .” (Fisher & Frey, 2007, p. 23).

·      Use value lineups. Ask students to evaluate a statement (“I fully understood last night’s homework,” “I will use this tool in the ‘real world,’” “I think this battle was the most significant in WWI,” etc.) and to line up according to their degree of agreement or disagreement with the statement.

o   After forming a single line, you can ask students to “fold” the line in half so that the students who most strongly agreed and disagreed are now partners, ready to discuss the reasons for their positions with one another (Fisher & Frey, p.25).

o   You’ve given students a chance now to think through their ideas, thus building their confidence before “putting” them “on the spot.” Now’s the time to “cold call” on students to either share why they stood where they stood in the line, or to share what their partner’s ideas were.

·      Ask students to share a partner’s idea. The above example is only one of many opportunities where you can help out a reluctant participator by asking him to share someone else’s ideas (this alleviates the concern some students may have about the accuracy of their own ideas, but doesn’t let them off the hook of participating in class). Using Think, Pair, Share is another easy-to-facilitate way to build students’ confidence about their ideas enough to share them, or to give them the opportunity to share a peer’s ideas. Here, students think and/or write a response to a question you’ve provided, then pair with a peer to discuss their ideas, and then share with the whole class. The teacher can circulate during the “Pair” portion of the activity, listening in to students’ conversations. If you hear a student – especially if he or she is a reluctant participator – share an idea you’d like the whole class to hear, you can give that student a “heads up” that you’ll call on them in a little bit to share that idea with the whole class. You’ve boosted their confidence to share because now they know their ideas are valid, and you’ve given them some time to get ready.

·      Try out the Whip Around. At the end of a period of instruction, the teacher poses a question or a task, asking students to make a list of at least three items (“List three things you struggled with today,” “List three traits of this character,” etc.). When students are done with their list, ask all students to stand. Then, randomly call on a student to share one of his or her ideas. Students should check off any items on their list that are shared by other students (this eliminates repetition) and sit down when all of their ideas have been shared, either by themselves or by a peer. Continue to call on students until all are seated (Fisher & Frey, p.34).

·      Determine the response format of a question and who will provide it before asking the question. “Will it be a choral answer, where all students respond together? Is it a partner discussion question? If so, the teacher should preface the question itself with information about the response format so that students know what they will do with the question before it is asked. If it is to be answered by an individual student, teachers should announce the student’s name before asking the question. This alerts the learner to the expected response. . .” (Fisher & Frey, p. 39).

·      Provide “wait time,” or as others call it, “think time.” Three to five seconds is commonly accepted as the amount of time students need to digest the question and to think of their answer.

·      If a student is unable to answer a question, stick with him or her! Use the following types of question scaffolding to help the student get to a response (Fisher & Frey, pp. 39-40):

o   Reception scaffolding – direct a student to the information necessary to answer the question (“Look at the graph on page 252 of your textbook”).

o   Transformation scaffolding – provide a way of structuring the information to help the student develop an answer (“How does the largest bar on the graph on page 252 of your textbook help you to find your answer?”).

o   Production scaffolding – provide the student with a way of producing an answer (“Use the largest and the smallest bars from the graph on page 252 of your textbook to compare the amounts used”).

o   Use a combination of all three types of scaffolds in succession if needed! Stick with that student!

·      Hold students accountable for participating in class. If a student responds to a question incorrectly or incompletely, check back with the student later to make sure he or she now has the correct answer. If students are “going around the room,” each sharing something (their thesis statement from a first draft, their opinion on last night’s assigned chapter, their idea for a marketing product, etc.), and a student does not share (this could be due to a lack of confidence, an incomplete homework assignment, etc.), ask that student to continue listening as his or her peers share. Let that student know that you will be coming back to them later to share something they heard a peer say that they liked or agreed with and why. Set the expectation that everyone’s voice in this class will be heard.

·      Use response cards. These can be pre-printed or write-on.

o   Pre-printed response cards already have responses written on them. These responses could be as simple as “yes” and “no,” that students hold up in response to questions from the teacher. Or they could be more specific, such as “potential energy” and “kinetic energy,” that students hold up in response to examples of energy provided by the teacher. In this format, all students respond, and the teacher can ask follow-up questions to a student based on his or her response. Again, the student’s confidence has been built prior to being called on, and he or she has had time to think through his or her answer.

o   Write-on response cards are blank (mini white boards work well), and students write a quick response on them to a teacher’s question. For example, a teacher could ask his third grade students to write three-letter words using a particular set of letters. As with the pre-printed response card examples above, the teacher can ask follow-up questions to a student based on his or her response (Fisher & Frey, pp. 46-48).

·      Use audience response systems. These new technologies can be utilized in the same ways response cards are used as questioning techniques (see above).

·      NOTE: All of the above tips for calling on students are not only great ways to set the expectation that every student’s voice should be heard, but they are also excellent tools to check for understanding with every student!

Reference

Fisher, D. & Frey, N. Checking for understanding: Formative assessment techniques for your    

     classroom. ASCD: Alexandria, VA.