Are You Doing More Work Than Your Students?

Alternate Title: Those Who Do the Work Do the Learning.

My alternative title may sound a little bumper sticker-ish to you, but I believe it rings true. If you are doing more work during a given class than your students, guess who's also learning more? You are. Actually, since you already know the material you're teaching, the more important way to think about this is as follows: if you're doing more work, your students are doing less learning. 

I've seen this happen pretty often, and I've fallen victim to it myself. Sometimes it just seems so much easier to keep rattling off example after example of the concept you're teaching; it can seem quicker, and more efficient, to do so rather than give some of that example-generation over to the students. For instance, let's say you're an English teacher (always an easy go-to example for me since I used to be one!). You're up at the board, where you've just defined (or reviewed) figurative language. You then proceed to give your students eight different examples of figurative language from the reading they have recently completed. My question to you is this: why not provide your students with one example (in order to model), and then release them to find the subsequent examples on their own? It may be a little more time-consuming, but the students will be doing the work. And they'll be doing the learning. AND you'll have a chance to check for understanding!

The more and more you do this, with topics ever-increasing in complexity, you may start to notice something: your students may not be enjoying this. Some of them may have grown accustomed to sitting back, taking notes, and generally letting you do all the work. Some of them may even think you are slacking off! Story time: A few years ago, when I was teaching 11th grade English, it was time for my students to study good ol' Henry David Thoreau. In the interest of differentiating based on student interest, I did some small talks on several of his essays from Walden, then allowed my students to choose which essay they wanted to explore in-depth. Once the choices were made, groups were formed, and the assignment was given -- study your essay closely as a group and, following some provided guidelines and specifics, prepare to present this essay to the rest of the class. By the second day of work on this assignment, one of my groups of students starting delivering humorous smirks my way. As I made my way over to their location, they told me they had my number. One of them said, "We figured out why you're doing this this way, Ms. B. You're taking the easy way out because you don't want to read this book, so you're making all of us do it." 

I realized I had not built a culture in my classroom where students were consistently expected to take on ownership of tasks, of content, of areas of study. So, step one is to plan lessons so that you are not doing all the work (and, subsequently, all the learning). But step two must not be ignored, either. Students need to be brought into the loop. Explain to them, discuss with them, why you'll be handing over more tasks to them. Be sure they understand the teaching philosophy behind it. Make them your partners in this process called education.

Giving Thanks

      I typically post on Fridays. It’s the end of the week, and I love taking the opportunity to reflect on everything I’ve read and researched about instruction and assessment and everything I’ve seen in classrooms over the course of the week. It’s a nice chance to synthesize the ideas that have been flooding my brain all week, as well as to stop and remind myself of the big picture.

     Well, today is Tuesday, but it’s fake Friday for all of us who are fortunate enough to have the rest of the week off to celebrate Thanksgiving. So, I thought I’d post not about everything I’ve learned and thought about this week (it’s been a two-day work week, people!) and instead share with you some things I am grateful for.

I give thanks for:

·      My new job as an instructional coach. This position has reinvigorated my passion for education by allowing me to stretch my muscles and try out a new way to be an educator. Having the chance to work with teachers from grade K all the way to grade 12, in science classes, in art classes, in ELA and in history has been challenging, exciting, interesting, and definitely NOT boring!

·      All the teachers in my new district who have volunteered to work with me so far. In my first two and a half months in this position, I have worked with 36 teachers (many of whom I continue to work with). These teachers give up their free time during prep periods, before and after school to meet with me, all because of their dedication to their craft. It’s inspiring and motivating, to say the least.

·      My soon-to-husband (the big day, 2/2/13, feels right around the corner!). He ceaselessly believes in me, and is the best partner this girl could ever ask for.

·      Friendships. I have a few friends who have known me for so long, I cannot even picture my life without them. Being known so well by someone (or in my case, a few someones) is priceless.

·      Family. I don’t think mine always understand everything I do or believe in – in many ways, we can be polar opposites of each other. But I am blessed to have a nuclear family that, regardless of differences, offers me unconditional love. Especially thankful for my little nephew, who just turned one! He has taught me that I actually CAN get along with a baby – who knew?!?

·      This blog. I’ve never blogged about anything before, so starting a blog was a new challenge for me. I’ve grown to really appreciate the opportunity to sit back and quietly reflect on where my thoughts stand, where my questions lie, where my ideas are coming from. I am thankful to any readers who view my posts, and hopeful that they are learning from and reflecting on what I share.

·      And finally, today I am quite thankful that I was invited to a second grade Thanksgiving feast. Readers, I have never experienced something quite as cute. These are students I have been working with for a while now, and it was sweet to have them welcome me into their celebration. Every now and then with this new job, I really miss being a classroom teacher. Days like today make me still feel that I am part of classroom life, of students’ lives. It was a special gift.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Reunited . . . and It Feels So Good

     This week I had the good fortune of being reacquainted with a dear, old friend: the summarizer. I'm working (in my instructional coach capacity) with a lovely teacher who is currently looking into establishing some new routines for her classes, including expanding her end-of-class routines. What a great goal! Fun fact: Did you know that, according to most of the brain-based learning research out there, what students retain the most from a class is based on what they did during the first five minutes and the last five minutes? Bring on those activators and summarizers!

     So, in the hopes of helping out the afore-mentioned teacher I am working with, I went straight to my Research for Better Teaching handy-dandy little spiral-bound text of summarizing goodies, aptly named Summarizers: Activity Structures to Support Integration and Retention of New Learning.  What a lovely reunion we had, this book and I. I had forgotten how many great, easy, practical ideas were to be found within its pages. And so, in the spirit of giving, for this week's post I decided to share with you some of the book's best. Yes, readers, even though I just became reunited with this old flame, I am sharing it with you. Some things are so great, you just cannot keep them to yourself.

     You may also find that these ideas are a bit of a reunion for you as well. Sometimes what I love best about stumbling across an old resource (Shhh! Don't tell my Summarizers book I called it "old!") is not the fact that I am necessarily learning anything new, but the experience of thinking, "Oh yeah! I remember doing that (or something quite like it) with my students once and it worked really well. Now why the heck did I stop doing that?" So, I hope the following ideas from my newly-reunited-with-me book will either make you remember something you used to do with your classes and want to be reunited with, or present you with some new and helpful ideas.

     Here we go:

ABC

Easy as 123. Simple as do re mi. ABC. 123. Baby you and me girl. This easy-to-do summarizer might just have you and your students singing like The Jackson 5, too. Here's how it works (or one variation of it, anyway): Each student pulls a letter of the alphabet out of a fishbowl and then creates a summary sentence about the day's topic starting with the given letter (for example, if a student pulls a "B," then they must write a sentence summarizing the day's lesson that starts with the letter "B"). If you still have those pesky couple of minutes left before the bell rings that are starting to cause you to panic because you already started the summarizer and kids know class is over and they're done and they're going to start packing up -- aaaaaagggghh!, then you can always have students share their sentences in alphabetical order. OR, you could start class the next day by having students share, which would serve as a nice reminder before your new lesson begins.

Inside Outside Circle

Sorry. No song to go along with this one. Here, each student is asked to prepare one question (and corresponding answer) about some aspect of the day's lesson. Then, students form inner and outer circles, with the inner circle facing the outer circle, so that each student is paired up with someone. Pairs take turns asking their questions of one another and helping each other if necessary in answering the questions. When this exchange is over students exchange question cards. Then the inner or the outer circle moves three people to the right, students face off and begin a new round. Hey -- and you don't have to worry about that pesky last minute of class sneaking up on you.  Just keep the circles rotating as long as you need to!

Luck of the Draw

You feeling lucky, punk? (Whew! I'm glad I squeezed in a pop culture reference for this one after my failure to do so with the last strategy! Redemption is mine!) Okay, so Luck of the Draw is designed to ensure that each class period will begin with a quick summary of what happened in and was important from the previous class. All student names are on cards in a container. At the beginning of class, the teacher pulls out a name and announces who has won the Luck of the Draw. This student will begin tomorrow's class with a summary of today's class. This kills a few birds with one stone (I love using that expression, but it's just so gruesome!). First, it allows you to check an individual student's understanding of a lesson. And it also leads to a quick, prepared summary for the next day's lesson to begin with. In addition to reminding everyone of what was accomplished the day before, this ensures that any students who were absent the previous day are given a quick heads-up on what they missed. Some suggestions: Provide the Luck of the Draw winner with a summarizing sheet to fill out that asks for "what we did," "the most important things we learned and should remember," and a list of homework assignments. The student can also attach any handouts to be given to students who were absent that day. Also, the teacher I've been working with came up with the great idea to not return the student's name to the container, thereby ensuring that eventually every student in the room will have his or her name pulled.

     I hope you enjoyed these three ideas. (***Did you notice how none of them involved a lot of teacher prep?***) There's plenty more where that came from. Want to know more, and teach in the same district as me? Then, shoot me an email or call my office -- let's explore summarizers together!

In the interest of citing sources, here's the citation information of this fun book:

Saphier, J. & Haley, M.A. (1993). Summarizers: activity structures to support integration 

     and retention of new learning. Research for Better Teaching, Inc.: Acton, MA. 

Tic-Tac-T-Oh my Goodness, what a cool idea!

 

             Looking for a fun and effective way to individualize learning tasks for students (either based on different levels of readiness, interest, or learning style)? In her 2005 text, Differentiation in Action: A Complete Resource with Research-Supported Strategies to Help You Plan and Organize Differentiated Instruction – and Achieve Success with All Learners (Whew – what a title!), Judith Dodge recommends an often-cited approach: she calls it “choice boards,” I call it Tic Tac Toe. (You say potayto, and I say potahto.) The concept is, the teacher creates nine different assessments designed to assess student mastery of the same objective. Type those nine assessments up in boxes to resemble a Tic Tac Toe board (three rows of three columns each). If you’re mixing it up for different readiness levels, you make sure the range of levels is represented on the Tic Tac Toe board. Addressing various interests instead? Just make sure there’s a true variety in types of assessments. Learning styles? Refer to our friend Mr. Gardner, and try to address all or most of the types of learning styles in your nine assessments.

            Here’s what one may look like if the teacher is aiming to address preferences in learning style (Note: this is a quick example just to give you an idea of what I’m talking about – as you’ll see, these assessments are not fully fleshed out!):

         Auditory                                            Visual                                                    Tactile-Kinesthetic

Teach a Lesson	Create a Web Site	Gather an Artifact Box
Conduct an Interview	Create a PhotoJournal	Present a TV Newscast
Engage in a Debate	Design a Graphic Organizer	Role-Play with Props

            Now, hand out those beautifully-crafted Tic Tac Toe boards to your students. You can ask them to choose three different assessments from anywhere on the board, the only requirement being that they create a vertical, horizontal, or diagonal “tic tac toe” line connecting the assessments they’ve chosen. (Using the above example, a student might make a horizontal line, choosing “Engage in a Debate,” “Create a PhotoJournal,” and “Gather an Artifact Box.”) You can leave the choice completely up to the student, or you may want to engineer more student variety by requiring students to choose one assessment from each row or each column.

            Some may wonder about the use of this for different readiness levels. With this approach, each row would represent assessments for each of three readiness levels of students. Teachers may (understandably!) feel uncomfortable telling a student, “You need to do the three assessments on the middle row because that row matches your ability.” But, I think you can do this without needing to directly say something like this to your students. It’s been my experience that, with choice of assignments, most students will gravitate to the one that best matches their readiness level. You just need to be on the lookout for students who choose an assessment that is way beyond their readiness level, because they may get frustrated and give up. (But be cautious about this – if a student is choosing something that stretches them, this is not always a bad thing. Just monitor it, and jump in if the student is drowning! Let them know they can abandon ship in this case, and choose a different assessment from the board). You also need to be on the lookout for students who are choosing assessments that are at a lower readiness level than they are capable of. You can recommend/require that these particular students choose from one of the other rows on the board in order to challenge themselves.

            Using this strategy can be as complex or as simple as you want to make it. It can be used before, during, or after a unit of instruction for diagnostic, formative, or summative assessment purposes. Teach in my district, want to give it a try, but aren’t sure how? You know where to find me!

Making the Students the Teachers

     Readers, I watched some exciting education in progress yesterday that I simply must share with you. (**All identifying information will be kept anonymous, since, in my role as instructional coach, my relationships with teachers are confidential.)

     Yesterday, I looked on as a group of students became teachers. These particular students struggle with math, requiring extra support during the school day. But, their teacher doesn't see this as a limitation. Instead, she promotes their mastery of mathematical objectives through her use of the following activity:

     Once students have mastered a certain concept in math, having proven themselves on various assessments, it's time for them to become the teachers of this concept. They are provided with a sheet of problems, all based on this math concept they have recently mastered. They then work either individually or with a partner to choose which problems on the sheet would work best in teaching this concept to other students.

     Already, the metacognitive juices are flowing! I heard students explain their reasoning behind choosing certain problems over other ones, and debating the order in which they should model the solution to each problem, realizing that the sequence in which they model the problems would help in their teaching. Once students have had some practice with these problems, it's off to the classroom's smart board!

       At the smart board, students used ActivInspire to record screencasts that would visually display to viewers the students' (now teachers!) physical work on each problem, as well as allow viewers to listen to the step-by-step explanations of these mathematical understandings as said aloud and recorded by the students/teachers. I sat nearby, in awe, as I watched two students recording their instruction of a certain mathematical problem-solving technique. No longer were these mere children. No longer, especially, were these children who had been identified as math strugglers. The confidence they had in their own abilities was clear, as they solved problems while specifically explaining what they were doing with each step, and why they were doing it.

     What made the difference? These students had been scaffolded to this point, receiving formative and summative assessment that helped them master the concept. They were able to use interactive technology, usually a plus for 21st century students. But, I think the biggest motivator was their audience.

     Their audience was not their classroom teacher. She had, instead, assured them that these screencasts would be uploaded to Edline for other students to be able to use as math resources. If there is any doubt regarding the impact that having an authentic assignment that will be viewed by an authentic audience has on a student's performance, this doubt would be erased after five minutes of watching these students in action. They looked like teachers, up at that board, marking up their problem-solving in order to best demonstrate the how-to for their future "students." They sounded like teachers, using mature, thoughtful, and meaningful ways to explain their steps. Heck -- I totally understood what it was they were teaching via their screencast and, trust me, I am no math scholar.

     The moral of the story, then, is this: Let's find more ways for our students to have authentic audiences other than their teachers. Let's find more ways to give them voices that can be heard by others, that can make them feel they have a genuine way to share what they know and what they can do.

     The possibilities are endless! Readers, if you teach in my district and would like to explore this further, you know where to find me. . .     :)

Model Behavior

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     Looking for model behavior from your students? Then why not model the behavior?

Modeling has become (thankfully) a fairly common practice in today’s classrooms. Teachers model via think alouds what to do when encountering a challenging text. They model the writing process by projecting sample paragraphs and essays for the class to look at together. They model which steps to take and in which order to take them in order to solve an algebra problem.

     We do all these types of modeling as educators because we understand that, often, our students need to see what the process looks like, or need to see what an end product should be, or need to hear what an active reader’s thought process sounds like.

     So why not also use modeling when it comes to behavioral expectations in the classroom? Perhaps, sometimes, students’ inappropriate behaviors are a result of students needing to know what it looks like and feels like to behave appropriately.

     I’ve been doing some reading on muscle memory, thanks to the famous sister authors of The Daily 5 and CAFÉ books, written to promote classroom structures that enhance elementary students’ literacy independence. These are great reads, in my opinion, for both elementary and secondary educators alike, so don’t be surprised if they are the subjects for future blog posts.

     But, for now, I want to zoom in on what the sisters have to say about muscle memory and its connection to behavior in the classroom. Some students, particularly those who are kinesthetic learners, learn best by experiencing the same physical task over and over until it becomes an ingrained way of being because it has become a part of their muscle memory. We’ve all experienced this, actually. Take driving a car, for example. As adult drivers, we no longer have to concentrate on each physical aspect of driving a car; we don’t consciously think, “Now I put the car key in the ignition, now I turn the key clockwise until the car starts, etc.” But we probably did need to think through these steps much more consciously when we were first learning to drive. The difference now is that, through much repeated practice and experience, these tasks have been ingrained in our muscle memory.

     A student in our classroom who is learning a new behavioral expectation from us (how to behave during a mini-lesson, for example, or how to behave when the teacher is busy conferencing with a small group of students) may just well need two things: 1) he or she may need to experience a model of the behavior so he or she knows just what is expected, and 2) he or she may need to practice the appropriate behavior repeatedly until it is part of his or her muscle memories. Muscle memory does not happen overnight, or even after three practice runs (again, think of the driving analogy).

     A great suggestion from the sister authors is to include the students in the behavior modeling. They suggest beginning by discussing with the whole class what student behavior should be during a particular activity, brainstorming a list of behavioral criteria. Then, the sisters ask for a student volunteer to model for the class what this behavior looks like. While the student models the correct behavior (which could include sitting correctly, listening, nodding along in agreement, taking notes, etc.), the teacher points out to the rest of the class how the model student is doing everything on the previously-created brainstormed list of expected behaviors.

     But – wait for it! – here’s my favorite part. The sisters don’t stop there. They then call on a student whom they know will find it challenging to display these appropriate behaviors. They ask this student to model for the class the incorrect way to behave. As they insist – and I’m sure most of us can relate to – “Remember, give that student an audience now, or he or she will certainly take it later!” (from The Daily 5, 2006, p. 88). Modeling incorrect behavior typically results in some laughs from the crowd, and this student has now received the attention he or she typically craves.

     But – wait for it! – here’s my actual favorite part!!! The sisters then have this same student model the correct way to behave. I tried this out just the other day in a classroom I’ve been working in as an instructional coach and I can testify to its effectiveness. After modeling the incorrect behavior and getting some laughs, the student was able to completely shift gears and model the correct behaviors, giving him a chance to further instill these behaviors in his muscle memory, and also proving to himself and to his teacher that he does, in fact, know how to behave correctly and is, in fact, capable of doing so. This modeling exercise provides the teacher with great evidence to bring up with this student should he slip away from the expected behavior later on.

     I do feel I’ve oversimplified the concept slightly. The sisters do get into a lot of stamina-building practices that are very conducive towards building muscle memory that I haven’t talked about here. But I hope, readers, you’ll walk away from this post thinking about one more thing that could – and should – be modeled for students. Even if they are secondary students, they are still in your classroom for the first time and may need to learn your expectations for behavior during certain activities.

     Modeling. If it works for writing assignments, algebra problems, and thought processes, then why not for behavior, too?

     Bye, readers! I’m off to the gym. Gotta work on that muscle memory!

Got a Bad Back? It Might Make You a Better Teacher.

     I read a blog this week that, in my opinion, really hits the nail on the head. Educators, you need to read this:

What My Bad Back Taught Me About Teaching

Go ahead. I'll wait.

Seriously. Click on the above link to the blog first, and read it. You'll need to register (which is free and super easy and quick!), which the site prompts you to do. Then we can discuss.

Thanks for doing that! Wasn't it a good post?

     What I love about Colucci's post is twofold: 1) I love that he finds himself reflecting on his life in terms of a metaphor for teaching, and 2) I love that he does something with this reflection, namely -- changes some of his practices to reflect his new understandings.

     As educators, sometimes we can forget what it may be like to be a student in our classrooms. When Colucci found himself in the position of needing help, he was able to introspectively realize what that experience is like for him. More so, he was able to think about whether or not he was providing an optimal environment and optimal strategies for his students to be able to learn and to be able to seek help.

     I've had some Colucci-like reflective experiences in my day. The more obvious ones are when I've taken a class or attended a workshop and found myself in the position of student once more. I took a course several years ago during which the instructor stepped way back and we the students were left to struggle with some pretty complicated tasks together. But as a group, we collaborated and eventually discovered some pretty insightful solutions to the problems with which we were grappling. I realized I had learned much more through this experience than I would have had my instructor simply delivered the information to us via a lecture. And I was forced to think: do I provide enough experiences like this for my students? So, I began to, more and more. Luckily, I had a great model to follow.

     But what's so great about Colucci's post is that these metacognitive opportunities need not only present themselves in a classroom. When was the last time you needed help, and what was that experience like for you? When was the last time you were really close to mastering something, and you experienced a final push in the right direction that helped you to do so? What did that push consist of? When was the last time you were in an environment that was getting in the way of your concentration or your learning or your thinking or your emotions? How can you avoid such an environment in your classroom?

     Be present. Take note when life is going to teach you a lesson about yourself as an educator. Put yourself in your students' shoes as often as possible (even -- especially -- the sweaty, grungy-looking shoes). Share your reflections with others.

     Thanks, Anthony Colucci!

Oh. And now that you've registered for free for Education Week, you can read all kinds of interesting education blogs about all kinds of interesting education-related topics.

But don't stop reading this one, please!  :)