I Put on Clothes for This?

Here I go again, sounding like an old person. . .

Back in the days before the Internet, curious scholars who wanted to learn from a wise expert enrolled in classes to listen to lecturers pontificate about their areas of knowledge. I have fond memories of many of my college professors (and some of my high school teachers) regaling  (mostly) eager students with lectures while we furiously took notes to capture as many brilliant ideas as we could.

In today’s world, we can find lectures in many places. A simple Google search will yield numerous videos, podcasts, and presentations on nearly any topic featuring eminent scholars from around the globe. Students can now receive a better-than-average traditional education for free with only a smartphone and a pair of earbuds.

It would be vain for any of us to believe that our lecturing abilities surpass those of everyone who has ever made a TED Talk or YouTube video, so if we are relying on the one-way transmission of information during our classes as our sole mode of instruction, we are replicating (probably less effectively) an experience students can get elsewhere. Similarly, if we spend class time showing videos or movies, we are asking students to come to school to do something they could do just as effectively at home without having to change out of their jammies.

The advent of learning management systems, such as Google Classroom, and the trend toward 1-to-1 access to technology have made it all too easy for instructors to post an assignment and sit back while the students work quietly on it on their Chromebooks, laptops, or tablets. In many cases, these online assignments are the electronic equivalent of worksheets, with students filling in blanks and boxes as they answer teacher-created questions or complete online charts and tables. Many students come to school and spend most of their day sitting silently in front of screens, providing the information asked for, with little to no interaction with their instructor or peers. It’s really no different than if they had stayed at home taking an online course, except, of course, they had to put on clothes to come to school.   

If physical schools and colleges are going to remain viable in the present and future, they must provide an education that is different and better from what students can receive at home online. Real school has to be different from e-school.* There has to be substantial value in making the effort to get dressed and come to class beyond just hanging out with friends in the halls and cafeteria.

Additionally, if teachers want to remain in actual classrooms with students and to push back on politicians who try to increase class sizes, we have to show that our physical presence in proximity to our learners makes a difference. We can’t follow the example of “Ditto,” the character from the 1984 movie Teachers, whose students are so accustomed to filling in worksheets without any interaction that no one notices the teacher has dropped dead at his desk until  they run out of mimeographed worksheets to complete. We must put into practice the things that distinguish live instruction from e-learning.

One benefit to being a student in a classroom with an actual, living teacher is the opportunity to receive live, in-person, in-the-moment verbal feedback from the instructor. We know that the most effective feedback is the kind that occurs when learners actually need it, at the point when they can improve what they are working on. Telling students what they should have done after the fact doesn’t have the same impact as coaching students along the way. As students are reading, writing, or creating, teachers could hold quick check-in conferences with individuals or small groups to clear up confusion, redirect those who are heading off track, offer suggestions for growth, ask questions to promote self-reflection, or nudge students to the next level.

The teacher isn’t the only source of valuable feedback in a face-to-face classroom. Some of the most transformative feedback comes from peers. When we teach students to give and receive feedback from one another, everyone becomes more skilled and accomplished. Establishing structures and procedures for providing feedback in class on one another’s work is a worthwhile step toward making the most of the learning options available in traditional classroom settings.

Differentiation is another opportunity that is seized more easily in an in-person teaching situation. A savvy teacher figures out where each student is and offers next steps that are responsive to each student’s needs. If we are marching all our students in unison through a one-size-fits-all series of experiences, we are missing out on the opportunity to grow all our students to their fullest capacity. Teachers who make the biggest differences with students have a sequence of clear goals in mind and are able to put each student at the right point on the continuum to move them closer to the target. They also have an idea of how to challenge at a deeper level any student who has reached mastery.

Perhaps the most significant bonus of coming to school and learning in classrooms is the chance to have conversations in real time about what we are learning. The art of verbal discourse is limping along in our emoji-driven society. When the only communication students have with other humans is through Snapchat pics and abbreviated text messages, they don’t get better at speaking. Yet those who can effectively express themselves verbally get what they want in life. What better place is there to practice speaking than in a classroom where there are others with whom to converse and a teacher to offer feedback for improvement? Classroom conversations—whether in informal pair-share situations, structured discussions (such as Socratic Seminars or Philosophical Chairs debates), collaborative study groups, or small work groups—bring the learning to life. Students aren’t just sitting there slack-jawed in front of screens; they are engaged with one another, defending positions, trying out new ideas, clarifying their thinking, and questioning themselves and each other. This is where the learning happens. This is when the effort of coming to class becomes worth it.

As we plan for instruction, it’s not a bad idea to look critically at how we are teaching. If every day of class involves something students could do just as effectively at home in isolation, it’s time to change it up. We need to rethink the role of the teacher and the role of the student in schools. When we see the teacher as a valuable source of feedback, individualized coaching, and inspiration and the students as active participants in a community of learners, school will once again become something worth putting on clothes for.

* I mean no disparagement to those who are doing important work developing online courses and electronic learning experiences for students. There’s a growing demand for e-school classes, and I’m impressed by the efforts to make online learning increasingly interactive, open-ended, and responsive to student needs. I wonder whether the demand for e-school classes is partly due to the fact that so many traditional schools are still teaching like it’s 1985.  

Sketchy Teaching

Are sketchy things going on in your classroom? I’m talking about paper-and-pen-or-pencil or even stylus-and-tablet kind of sketching. That doodling that got us in trouble when we were in school can be channeled to produce some powerful instructional outcomes.

In Classroom Instruction That Works, Marzano, Pickering, and Pollock identify the use of nonlinguistic representations as a powerful, research-based strategies for increasing student achievement. Marzano expands on the topic in The New Art and Science of Teaching, where he discusses the importance of “providing students with opportunities to record and represent the content that has been the focus of the lesson” (32) linguistically and nonlinguistically.

It’s important to make a distinction between academic sketching and art projects. The point of having students sketch during lessons is to enhance learning by engaging the nonlinguistic parts of their brains, not to produce a masterpiece. Much like so many “projects” and “creative” activities we have subjected students to in school, the important part of the project—the actual thinking—occurs during the gestation period and planning, not in the extended execution. Once the thinking ends, the coloring, shading, detailing, and prettying up is wasted time if your goals are enhanced learning, increased retention, and expanded understanding.  

Scholastic sketching should be quick, nongraded, and, in most cases, explained to someone else. De-emphasize the importance of artistic quality by keeping the time for sketching brief, so brief that even the skilled artists create less-than-perfect products. Teachers can introduce the task by saying something like, “I’m going to time you for two [or some other small number of] minutes only. During that time, I’d like you to sketch [whatever it is you want them to sketch] using pictures, numbers, symbols, and words.“ When the time is up, ask students to explain the sketch to a partner, timing each member of the pair to ensure that everyone has equal opportunity to explain. Allowing students the chance to explain their drawing has three benefits: First, it  connects the nonlinguistic to the linguistic parts of the brain. Second, it provides one more chance for the student to review and reiterate the information, increasing the likelihood of long-term recall. Finally, it allows the partner to hear how another student processed the content, which offers additional perspectives and insights on the subject.     

The purposes for sketching in a content-area classroom are varied. Here is just a sampling of ideas teachers might want to consider:  

Sketch to clarify: When I encounter a difficult piece of text or a complex, multifaceted idea, I find it helpful to clarify by sketching. Kylene Beers and Bob Probst, in their book Reading Nonfiction, call this reading strategy “Sketch to Stretch.” Whether it’s a series of events in a history book, a complicated set of familial relationships in a novel, a plot-packed narrative, or something rather abstract that I need to make concrete, drawing a picture or diagram can help me solidify my understanding. When I notice I’m lost while reading, watching, or listening to something, I often think it’s time for a clarifying sketch. Explaining my drawing to someone else helps me make sure it all makes sense. Sometimes, my explanation sounds like this: “So, this guy wanted to marry this girl, but she was in love with this other guy, whose father owned the company this girl’s father worked for. Another guy, this one here (I put a bowtie on him because he’s wealthy), who worked for the girl’s father, too, was the one the father wanted the girl to marry so that he could take over the business, so. . . .” Other times, it’s more detailed, with actual names and more previse details. If I can explain it using my visuals and my explanation is in sync with my partner’s understanding, I feel more confident that I know what is going on.    

Sketch to summarize: If the goal is not about comprehension of complex material or difficult text but instead to reinforce overall understanding, sketching can be used to summarize content. At the end of a chapter or lecture, at the close of a novel, at the conclusion of a lesson, teachers can ask students to sketch to summarize. “Create a quick drawing that captures the most important points of the story/lecture/concept/lesson.” Explaining the sketch to a partner is an outstanding way to review main points, and because each sketch is personally created, it’s more likely to stick in the mind of the creator.

Sketch to notice: Say you’re studying something that’s visual and you’d like your students to pay more attention to it, focus on some details,  and to commit the image to memory. Asking them to sketch the image in their notes in as much detail as possible in the brief time allotted encourages learners to give the image more than a cursory glance. Students who sketch the layout of the front page of the New York Times, David’s painting Oath of the Horatii, an onion cell they are observing through a microscope, the Taj Mahal, or a diagram from a football playbook are sharpening their visual skills, noticing details they might otherwise have ignored, gathering ideas to discuss or analyze, and making the image more memorable.

Sketch to synthesize: Pulling everything together at the end of a unit is a challenge, but what we know about learning is that the more connections learners make, the better the outcome. Consider asking students to brainstorm—perhaps as a class or in small groups—the key concepts or components of a text, a unit, or a series of lessons and then create a sketch that shows how those elements are related. Explaining the sketches to others in small groups provides an effective review as students listen to the ways others have connected all the dots.  

Sketch to create: While writing a story, authors might need to sketch the layout of a building or map out a neighborhood. When planning a project, teammates might sketch out a blueprint of the final product, map out the workflow to accomplish the task, or brainstorm several prototypes to pitch ideas to others. When considering how to reorganize a room, to organize a presentation, or to lay out a PowerPoint slide, a quick sketch can help make ideas tangible so the creator can consider pros and cons of various approaches. Sketching is a great idea generator. Show students how it can work for them.

Making your classroom a sketchy place will not only increase student learning but also their enjoyment. After all, sketching is fun and freeing. It exercises often-untapped parts of the brain. And we can all use a little exercise, right?

An additional note: I wrote this blog last night and happened to visit some seventh grade English classes this morning that were reading an account of the creation of the world according to the Greeks. The text was dense, with a new character or an important event (and sometimes both) in every sentence. The teacher asked the students to sketch out what happened in the story and gave them 8 minutes to do so. While the students were creating the sketches, the teacher asked students to explain the story using their diagram, which was an effective tool for formatively assessing student understanding and identifying gaps or points of confusion. Students also shared their sketches with the others at their table and were able to retell the narrative for one another and listen to others’ explanations. Students benefited from seeing the approaches of their classmates and were able to add missing information to clarify their own sketches. This serendipitous visit reinforced my belief that sketching is a valuable and engaging comprehension tool, one worth adding to every student’s toolbox.

What If Every Student Wrote in Every Class Every Day?

Sometimes I like to dream big dreams. I revel in “What if?” scenarios. What if everyone on the planet got along? What if teachers got paid according to how difficult their job actually is? What if I had a dollar for every time a kid asked to borrow a pencil and then didn’t return it?

Lately, I’ve been thinking about what might happen in schools if every student wrote every day in every class. I know. It’s a crazy idea. But, as I said, I like to dream big dreams. If teachers in all subject areas—math, science, social studies, English, fine arts, LOTE, physical education, career and technical education—made it their mission to insert just a little bit of writing into their daily lesson plans, the results would be astonishing.

If every student wrote every day in every class, here’s what might happen:

Students would become more confident writers. Writing— like most things that are worth doing well—takes practice, and the more you do it, the better you get. Students don’t have to write formal papers (which, let’s face it, should be special-occasion experiences) in order to improve as writers. Quickwrites, short answers, explanatory paragraphs, summaries, and letters to the teacher (or other students) are all ways of practicing writing within academic disciplines. The simple act of stringing words together to make sentences and adding additional sentences until something emerges that makes sense builds confidence and self-efficacy.

Teachers would have a better idea of what students know and don’t know. Asking students to explain something in writing gives a glimpse into their understanding in a way that is more complete and nuanced than a multiple choice question or thumbs-up/thumbs-down or fist-to-five physical response. Writing is an easy-to-implement formative assessment tool at any point in the lesson cycle. Having students write what they already know about a topic prior to instruction can give teachers an idea of where to begin teaching the entire class or which students will need differentiation, either enrichment or remediation. Pausing mid-lesson to allow students to explain how they reached a solution or solved a problem can provide insight into their thought processes and help the teacher diagnose gaps in understanding. An exit ticket summarizing the day’s essential question on a notecard provides instantaneous feedback about whether students “got it” so teachers will know whether to move on or revisit the concept tomorrow.

Blank pages and blank stares would become things of the past. Like a car that’s been sitting undriven for a few months, many student writers have trouble getting started when they are asked to write. Once students start writing every day in every class, their batteries remain fully charged, and the ideas emerge much more readily. This is especially true when frequent writing activities are low-stakes, ones in which getting ideas down on paper doesn’t come with the “gotcha” of a grade attached. Writing in a fearful state is paralyzing. Writing (sans pressure) to explore what you think about a topic is freeing. Not every idea that comes out of your pen (or shows up on your screen) is going to be brilliant, but putting ideas into the world every day increases the odds that you’ll produce something worth saying.

Classroom conversations would be better. Writing before talking helps us generate ideas and clarify our thinking. How often, before a difficult conversation, do we write out and rehearse what we have to say to increase the chances of it coming out as intended? Similarly, allowing students to write a response to a question before a classroom discussion has several advantages. First, it provides every student a chance to wrestle with the thinking instead of sitting back and waiting for the loudmouth in the room to answer the question orally, freeing them from any obligation to think for themselves. Second, it gives students a chance to try out their ideas, to have some “think time,” and to organize their response before being asked to share it aloud. Whether or not the student is called on to respond, the student has done some thinking, and that’s what’s most important in an educational setting.

The quality of student writing would improve, which means, among other things, that writing test scores would increase. The more you write, the better you write. If you write every day, throughout the day, you’re bound to get better. Instead of complaining that “these kids can’t write” and focusing on inadequacies, teachers should consider providing numerous opportunities for writing and offering encouragement to reinforce what’s good. Praise-hungry students will latch onto the traits that receive positive feedback, and, eventually, their writing will get better. When the quality and quantity of student writing improves and anxiety about writing withers, the writing they’re asked to produce on-demand for standardized tests will seem less daunting. It’s just another thing we’re asked to write, right? No big deal. What will be a big deal is the amount of time educators can spend focusing on exploring meaningful content rather than tedious test preparation.  

The school will develop a culture of literacy. Where the written word is valued, learning thrives. When students see that all teachers—not just the English teachers—care about writing, they’ll care more, too. Soon, you’ll hear discussions about what writing looks like in various content areas, how writing in science looks different than writing in social studies or English. Disciplinary literacy will shape students to become more thoughtful, purposeful writers and more curious readers. Students will write for real-world audiences and will be eager to let their powerful voices be heard. Building a culture of literacy sets all students up for real-world success in whatever the future holds for them because those who can read perceptively and write with precision have the power to influence others, to get what they want, and to achieve whatever they dream.   

Teachers would spend more time grading. Wait! That’s not true. The kind of writing I’m talking about is mostly ungraded and doesn’t require out-of-class teacher feedback. When students write daily in school, they’re mostly engaging in writing to learn (also known as learning through writing), which is about acquiring the knowledge and skills, not being assessed as right or wrong. It’s more about doing the writing (and the associated thinking) rather than receiving a reward for correctness or compliance. And there’s a likelihood that students will write down some incorrect or misguided ideas on their pathways to mastery, which shouldn’t be penalized because making mistakes is a healthy part of learning. Students should be writing more than we could possibly read anyway. Shifting the audience away from the teacher gives students a more potent motivation for writing well and communicating clearly. When, and if, teachers grade and comment on writing, many other readers should have seen and provided constructive feedback on that piece previously. Content-area teachers who fear being unqualified to assess student writing should free themselves from some of that pressure. It’s not your job to be a copy editor and fix every grammatical error. Focus on what makes sense. Question what doesn’t. When you focus on meaning, any time you spend reading and responding to student writing will be more pleasurable; it will be a conversation between you and your students about what they think about their learning. And that is fascinating.

I realize that asking teachers to add a bit of writing to their lessons is encouraging risk-taking and stepping outside of comfort zones. I acknowledge that my dream isn’t likely to come true on most campuses. I know, however, that students don’t write enough in school, and I’ve seen how learning-through-writing strategies can transform classrooms into active, vibrant, student-centered communities of scholars. You probably don’t have the power to control what goes on in others’ classrooms, but you have control over what goes on in yours. Any bit of writing you add is more than your students would have done without you.  Help me make my big dream come true.

Teacher Tricks

When I was a classroom teacher, I knew a lot of great teacher tricks. 

I would show up to English class as the guest speaker, Evinrude the Poetry Dude. Dressed in a black turtleneck and beret and sporting beatnik sunglasses, I spoke entirely in rhyming couplets while I introduced our study of poetry to my freshmen. 

Another of my tricks involved spending hours transforming my room into Dante’s Inferno, with creepy lighting, diabolical music, and nine circles of hell. I was Virgil, the tour guide, who would explain the layout, share some background info about the author and the time period, and introduce my students to some of the medieval celebrities inhabiting this unpleasant version of the afterlife. 

Another of my teacher-trick disguises was the Irish satirist Jonathan Swift. I’d slip out of my humanities class while students were answering some boring questions and return in a powdered wig, spectacles, and 18th century clothing to read my latest work, “A Modest Proposal,” which—to my students’ horror—seemed to advocate the selling of small children to be used as food as a solution to the problem of overpopulation. 

Speaking of reading, that was definitely one of my better tricks. For years, I performed Great Expectations five times a day, trying to embody every character as I read nearly all of that dickens of a novel to aloud my English students who “couldn’t read it themselves.”  I also received rave reviews for my in-class performances as Iago in Othello, the title role in Tartuffe, and nearly every character in Romeo and Juliet. 

Over the years I stuffed fortune cookies and balloons with writing prompts, staged a full-out Renaissance festival, hosted the Academy Awards of Literature, recreated a medieval monastery, and led sing-along renditions of “Old MacDonald Had a Farm” in Latin. I created videos, PowerPoints, webpages, lectures, mnemonic songs, review sheets, and elaborate bulletin board displays.

My teacher tricks were numerous, and I received ample praise and recognition for performing them. 

I’m proud of some of my teacher tricks, but, in hindsight, I’m not proud of others. You see, I was working hard— entertaining, creating, emoting, performing, decorating, crafting, producing— while many times my students weren’t doing much at all. Many of my teacher tricks were about me, not about my students’ learning. I confused engagement with learning, and I failed to build capacity in my students to do the thinking, reading, performing, and creating themselves. 

It’s weird and a little awkward now when I run into former students who praise me for one of my teacher tricks but don’t mention anything about what they remember doing or learning in my class. I don’t dislike that they have fond memories of the time spent in my classroom; however, I do hope they can look back and say that they are better at learning, thinking, reading, writing, and communicating because of something they did, not something I did for them.           

I don’t want to put a damper on teacher enthusiasm and creativity. Not all teacher tricks are undesirable. A teacher who goes the extra mile to engage students and who puts forth effort to cultivate a memorable classroom experience sets the stage for some high-powered learning. Looking back, I missed some opportunities to shift more of the work to my students. At times I could have redirected my energy to facilitate more student thinking instead of focusing on how I could deliver my thinking to them. 

I wish teachers would receive less recognition for what they do and more for what their students are doing. Teacher tricks are great as long as they teach students to devise some tricks of their own. 

Stepping Up Your Note-Teaching Game

Taking notes is hard. It’s a skill that takes a lifetime to master. Unfortunately for students all over the world, note-taking is frequently expected but seldom taught.

Educators can play a key role in helping students become proficient, independent note-takers and studiers with some careful planning and instruction in the art of note-taking. We can’t just ask our students to take notes; we have to teach them how.

Here are a few simple strategies tips any teacher can employ to improve at teaching and using note-taking in the classroom.

Have (and communicate) a purpose for note-taking. Taking notes is a worthwhile pursuit if the notes are going to be useful somewhere down the road. If you’re planning to give a review worksheet later that prepares kids for exactly what’s on the test, why should the students take notes at all? The same is true if you plan to give them a copy of the “real” notes later or (worse) if you are only making them take notes to keep them occupied so they don’t throw things and run amok. Before asking students to take notes, consider how those notes will be used and communicate that purpose. Better yet, provide students with an essential question that focuses their note-taking. By encapsulating in one question what you want them to take away from the lecture, reading, video, or whatever, you’re giving students some direction and encouraging them to become discerning learners who can sift through masses of details to figure out what’s important.

Teach your students a variety of note-taking forms and styles. Everyone learns a little differently, and good notes don’t necessarily look the same. The days of rigidly forcing every student to take Cornell Notes have come and gone. And copying teacher-written notes off a PowerPoint is so 1990s it might as well be flannel and grunge. Our students are learners, not medieval monks in the scriptorium. While students are developing note-taking proficiency, it’s not a bad idea to ask them to try out suggested formats or styles. Perhaps a particular type of two- or three-column notes is particularly suited one-day’s note-taking task while tomorrow’s note-taking purpose might lend itself to a mind map or sketchnotes. Filling the students’ toolboxes with a variety of ways to take notes gives them options to meet the purpose and their personal preferences.

Build into your lessons ways for students to interact with their notes. Brain research shows that in order for learning to stick, we have to engage with the content in a variety of ways over time. Assuming students will interact with their notes on their own is like believing that a full box of donuts left in the teacher’s lounge will still be there an hour later. Knowing that, wise teachers incorporate interaction opportunities into their lesson plans. They stop after 10 minutes of lecturing and ask their students to compare their notes side-by-side with a classmate, adding to and clarifying the information. They ask students to write questions about their notes for homework and begin class with an activity in which the questions are shared and discussed. They have students underline main ideas, circle key terms, and chunk their notes prior to a discussion or class activity where the notes are the key to success. On the day before the test, they ask students to mine their notes for key ideas and predict the test questions they will see on the test. As students become accustomed to interacting with their notes in class, they eventually realize the value of processing their thinking and returning to the content multiple times. Ideally, they will soon start practicing note-interaction on their own.

Model your own note-taking. Remember that old tv show where the guy paints a picture in 30 minutes right in front of your very eyes while you attempt to replicate it at home? Aspiring artists can learn techniques and develop skills by observing other artists working and explaining what they are doing. In the same way, teachers can model note-taking for their students while thinking aloud about what they are writing down and how they are doing it. Making the deliberate decisions underlying your note-taking visible to the students builds their capacity to make those decisions themselves. Students may not realize how much is going on inside the head of a proficient note-taker. If students are taking notes on a video or text, take your own notes. When you stop to process, display your notes and allow students to compare theirs with yours. Or project your notes onto a screen as you take them, explaining the thinking behind the note-taking.

Reflect on the notes. We don’t get better at doing something unless we think about what we did and how to improve. If we want our students to improve as note-takers, we have to give them time to reflect on their note-taking: What’s working? What’s not working? How do I plan to improve? My high school humanities freshmen had a notoriously difficult time taking notes on their reading in the college-level AP World History textbook used in the course. Part of my job as the teacher became helping these students—many of whom had never experienced difficulty doing school-related tasks—learn to take effective notes that aided their comprehension and helped them study the content for the class. I developed a note-taking self-quiz with 20 questions students could use to compare their own note-taking and study techniques with those of skilled note-takers. The quiz became a jumping-off point for discussions with the students about refining their practices and setting personal goals for improvement.

Consider what good notes look like in your discipline. The notes I take while reading a novel in English don’t look the same as the ones I take in the same class when I gather information during research. Useful math notes aren’t exactly like useful history notes. We often talk about the idea of standardizing practices across a campus, and that can be a good idea at times. What I think is more useful, however, is for educators to be overt in discussions of disciplinary literacy—to acknowledge that different disciplines have different expectations for reading, writing, and learning. As you are teaching students to read and write like mathematicians, historians, and scientists, also instruct them on how to become effective note-takers in each of those disciplines. Rather than trying to homogenize and streamline everything to make it easier for the students, coach them to become aware of the different learning demands across your campus. Becoming better at discerning what matters in each discipline will make your students more thoughtful readers, more confident and adaptable writers, and more successful independent learners.    

Use your available resources. For those of you who have an AVID account, the new book AVID Writing for Disciplinary Literacy has an entire chapter devoted to implementing Focused Note-Taking with your students, whether you teach at the elementary, secondary, or higher-ed level. It’s a free download on the curriculum page for a limited time. Get your free copy today if you haven’t already.

The time we spend teaching note-taking isn’t a waste. Note-taking is an essential skill for success in college and in the world beyond, and proficiency won’t happen overnight. The investment we make now in equipping our students with lifelong learning skills will pay off down the road as students are able to reach new destinations and steer themselves successfully around the curves and bumps life and learning will put in their way.

Thinking For or Thinking With?

We have all done it: thinking for our students.

It happens all the time.  We hand out an assignment sheet and, as we go over it line-by-line with the students, we tell them what to highlight, underline, or place a star by.    

We read a poem or a passage of Shakespeare with our students and end up retelling it in our own words so the kids will understand it.

In the midst of a lecture, we stop to remind students, “Write this down.” Or, worse, we just give them a copy of the lecture notes so all they have to do is listen.

We ask leading questions in a class discussion: “Don’t you see how the writer is using harsh diction to convey the theme of man’s inhumanity to man?” “So you’d use the distributive property to make sure the numbers in the parenthesis can be added, right?” “Of course, this reminds you of what happened during the New Deal Era, doesn’t it?” “The thesis of the article is right here, isn’t it?”

We ask them to pay attention while we do things to model how it’s done without letting them try it on their own. Watch me dissect this earthworm. Watch as I paint an entire picture.  Lookee here as I annotate an entire article. Listen as I explain what the poem means. Follow along as I read aloud.

We make all kinds of personal connections with the content we teach so the kids will see how relevant it is to their lives.

Their lives? Wait a minute. Those examples are from our lives.

We do a lot of thinking for our students, but how much thinking do we do with them?

Thinking with students is not the same as thinking for them. Instead of bearing the entire cognitive load, we can shift some (or most, and eventually all) of it to them by teaching students how to do the thinking themselves.

Sometimes this can be done by modeling part of the process and letting them take ownership of the rest. I read a little to get you started, and then you take over. I show you what’s going on in my head as I read by doing a think-aloud for the first paragraph and then ask you to annotate your thinking on the next three before I check in with you. Watch me do a little; now let’s try it together. Next, try it on your own.

Another way to think with your students is to engage in strategy talks. Let’s consider the purpose for taking these notes. What might be a good format for notes, given that purpose? Why do you think so?

For students who need more note-taking scaffolding, consider recommending a few options for ways to set up the notes and explain why each format or organizational structure might be useful. Then, gradually release that responsibility to the students, asking them to recommend a format and explain their choice.

Instead of telling them what to highlight, ask students to highlight or underline the most important word or phrase in a paragraph of text and then explain their choice. In lieu of reading the instructions to them and explaining them, have them read a little, mark the key points, and explain their markings to a partner; then, ask a few students to explain to see if they have it.

Ask students to do a little thinking on their own, and provide them with feedback on their thinking instead of the right answers.  

Like a parent teaching a child how to do laundry or tie a shoe, we may have to be content with less-than-perfect attempts at the start. I’d rather have a student come up with a slightly-flawed paraphrase of a Shakespearean soliloquy on her own than spoon-feed her the “right” answer that I came up with. With time and practice, the white socks come out white, the shoes stay tied, and the students are able to comprehend Elizabethan English on their own.

Become a co-conspirator in your students’ missions for success. Guide them to make deliberate decisions as they learn. Offer encouragement and feedback. Be okay with imperfection. Celebrate successes as well as failures because it is through our struggles that we learn and improve.

It’s difficult to break the habit of thinking for other people. I work on it every day. The first step is realizing when you are doing it. Then, figure out a way to back off and let them do the work. You’ll know you’ve succeeded when they can do these things without your assistance, even without your presence, and when they can use those newly-developed thinking skills to figure out how to tackle fresh obstacles they encounter.

I could write several more paragraphs and provide you more examples of exactly how to do this, but I don’t want to do all the thinking for you. You understand the situation:  we think too much; we do all the work; we coddle and hand-hold without allowing time for them to practice independently; we teachersplain when we should leave the explaining to them; we provide the examples and connect the dots. When we catch ourselves doing this, how can we shift the thinking back to our students?

In Defense of Turn and Talk

Several weeks ago at a literacy conference in Waco, I heard an impressive set of speakers talk for three days about reading and writing. If you follow me on Twitter, you may have noticed a barrage of tweets detailing many of my takeaways from this rich learning experience. My tweets and retweets were digital-age “Amens” as these literacy gurus preached about the importance of student choice in reading, providing authentic reading and writing experiences, ways teachers can support and promote reading, and growing students to become more literate, discerning citizens.

One thing I didn’t tweet was an offhand comment made by one of the presenters. Just before he asked us to turn and talk with a neighbor about a question he posed, the speaker said, “Don’t you think we’ve kind of overdone ‘Turn and Talk’ in schools?” He said it as if the pair-share were some sort of plague spreading maliciously though classrooms, killing learning by forcing students to interact with one another. According to him, America’s teachers are Turn-and-Talking their students to death. Turn and Talk, he seemed to believe, is as passé as bottle flipping and fidget spinners.

As an educator who spends hours each week in classrooms, I have to respectfully disagree with the notion that we are asking students to talk with a neighbor too frequently or that the strategy is losing its power. The undisputed truth about classroom talk is that in most classrooms, teachers still do the majority of the talking. Full-class discussions usually involve only a fraction of the students and don’t give every kid the chance to work through the ideas on their own. The idea that we are asking our students to share too frequently seems absurd to me, but, having spent several days listening and agreeing with this particular literacy expert, I am trying to figure out where his opinion is coming from.

I’ve identified several ways Turn and Talk might go bad; let’s call them Turn and Talk Traps. Perhaps this student talk naysayer has experienced these pitfalls and is objecting based on his observations.

Making Turn and Talk a Thing: There’s a danger when using any learning strategy that the strategy itself may become something bigger than it ought to be. We make it a “thing” rather than just providing a topic, question, or prompt and asking our kids to talk with one another about it. When this happens, we risk the danger of making our strategies bigger than the learning they are supposed to facilitate. We turn them into elaborate productions.  We say things like, “Okay, kids, we are about to do a Turn and Talk,” as if we are saying, “Now it’s time to do a triple axel followed by a double lutz and a quadruple salchow.” Students don’t necessarily need to know the terminology behind every teacher move we make. Turning to a neighbor and talking about your learning can (and probably should) be a seamless part of our daily lessons, a habit we get into because we know that all our students—not just a few—deserve the opportunity to talk through and test out their ideas so they can develop complex understandings of their own and the learning will stick. Instead of “doing a Turn and Talk,” simply ask students to turn to a neighbor and talk. It’s really simple and effective.      

Nebulous Talk:  Another misstep is asking students to turn and talk without giving them direction or parameters for their discussion. This leaves them with uncertainty: What am I supposed to talk about? How long? When am I supposed to talk, and when am I supposed to listen? Who talks first? I’ve been guilty of stopping my lesson at what seems to be an appropriate spot and asking my students to discuss the content with their table neighbor. A handful of students talk while the others visit about their weekend or simply stare at one another, unsure of exactly what they are expected to say. Sometimes I’ve provided way too much time for my nebulous classroom talk so there is no sense of urgency about getting to the discussion. Student talk should be focused, succinct, and accompanied by clear expectations. Carefully planned questions can provide a spark for meaningful talk. Sentence frames and stems offer some structure and help students develop more sophisticated academic language. Talk can be timed; roles of each partner can be clarified. When the teacher has a clear plan for what is supposed to happen during this talk time, students don’t see this as an arduous add-on to their day.    

Turn and Talk Without a Follow Up: Paired student talk probably shouldn’t be an end in itself, but it can be meaningful as a lead-in to something else. For instance, posing a question to the entire class and allowing students to discuss it with a partner before opening it up to the full class gives students confidence to respond because they’ve tried their ideas out on a partner. Turn and Talk can precede student writing, aid students in summarizing and clarifying information in the midst of a lecture or video, serve as closure to a lesson (followed by a share-out of key takeaways), allow students to refine their own notes through comparison with another student’s, assist students in figuring out how to approach a problem, or help students set a personal goal or objective for the day. The way to make student talk worthwhile is to show students that it’s an integral part to their learning process and will improve their chances of success in our classrooms.

I’m sticking to my original stance. We haven’t done Turn and Talk to death. Perhaps we’ve done it poorly from time to time. When it’s done well—which isn’t that difficult to pull off with a little planning—paired student talk can be one of the most powerful tools for empowering students to make their learning meaningful, grow in their understanding, and clarify and reinforce their thinking. We could do a whole lot worse than making Turn and Talk our go-to strategy in the classroom.

What are your thoughts about incorporating student talk in your classroom? Turn to someone nearby and discuss that question for a minute. Afterwards, you can put some of these ideas into practice.      

Three Things You Should Probably Know

Three Things You Probably Should Know at this Point in the Year About Every Student You Teach

or

Fun While Test Proctoring

Research tells us that teacher-student relationships are the key to teaching, especially for reaching those students who are guarded, distant, and prickly. At this point in the year, when you can count the weeks remaining on one hand, it’s useful to think about how well you know the students you are teaching. I’ve devised a little game that could be a fun* way to pass the time while you are actively monitoring during upcoming high-stakes testing.      

Here’s how to play:  

Use a copy of your seating charts or roll sheets to access the names of all your students. Go down the list, student-by-student, and ask yourself these three questions:

1. What is this student proud of?
2. How does this student struggle in my class, or what would be the most beneficial way this student could grow in my subject?
3. What is something outside of my class that is important to this young person?

The way to win is to be able to answer each of these questions for every student in your classes.

This is a game I would have had a hard time winning when I was a classroom teacher. I could have answered all of these questions without hesitation for some of my students, but for most, I would have had one or more blanks. There were students I didn’t get to know—the quiet ones who didn’t call attention to themselves and therefore didn’t receive much, the defensive ones who walked in on day one with a permanent chip on their shoulders, the compliant ones who came to school to “cooperate and graduate” but who didn’t earn extra attention from me because they were doing fine. In retrospect, I probably didn’t make all the breakthroughs possible for those students whom I didn’t get to know as people and as learners.

Most middle school teachers and high school elective teachers seem to have figured this whole relationship thing out. In high school content-area classes, however, I think high scores on the Relationship Game are more scarce.

There are a number of factors to explain this. As students get older, they become more guarded and private about whom they will allow access to their trusted circle. Also, high school classes are more difficult and more content-heavy, so teachers at that level may tend to favor the curriculum over the humans who are there to learn it. Let’s face it: some high school English teachers gravitate to teaching English because they love Gatsby, Holden, and Romeo. Nearly every seventh grade English teacher I know teaches seventh grade English because they love seventh graders. The same is probably true for math, science, and social studies.

I’m not trying to say that high school teachers don’t love the students they teach; I am admitting, though, that our attention to content and our unwavering focus on preparing our students for college and “the real world” sometimes takes priority over getting to really know our students as human beings.  

The purpose of my little game isn’t to make you feel like a failure if you don’t have answers for all the questions. Instead, it’s a reality check.

At this point in the year, you likely know most of your students as well as you are going to know them this year. If you aren’t happy with your score, what will you do next year to change that?   

___________________________

* If you know me well at all, you know that the word “fun” was written with a great deal of sarcasm accompanying it because I’d be foolish to try to describe anything done during active monitoring as at all enjoyable. 

Are You Watching?

Have you ever taken a moment during a class to watch your students? I mean, really watch them? Kids don’t have great poker faces during school hours, and observing their faces and body language can provide you with plenty of feedback about how well your students are being hooked by your lesson.

It’s one thing to watch students while you are the one doing the talking. Depending on how charismatic an orator you are, you may see a dutiful few who are making eye contact and nodding along with you, a roomful of eager listeners waiting to be filled up with your brilliance, or a bunch of catatonic teens fighting off slumber (and, likely, some who have given up the fight and have succumbed to a nap at their desks). Regardless of how they look, if you’re the one doing the talking in your room, you’re also the one doing most or all of the thinking. That’s not the goal.

In an ideal classroom, we limit teacher talk and shift the cognitive load to our students. Asking students to talk about the content definitely increases student engagement, but it still offers educators plenty of opportunity to look at their students to assess the degree of engagement. Sometimes, students who are supposed to be engaged in partner or small-group classroom conversation actually look like this: 

Staring blankly at the paper in front of them. Slack-jawed. Ignoring one another entirely. Yawning. Expressionless faces. Flat, lifeless conversation.

The mere act of giving students something to talk about doesn’t mean they will eagerly talk about it. I’m guilty—and perhaps you are, too—of providing students something to talk about without giving them a reason to talk about it. Talking about a worksheet doesn’t remove the fact that there’s a worksheet in front of them. Pair-sharing an answer to a dull question only makes it slightly less dull.

When I give students a conversational task, I want to see faces like these:

Smiling. Maybe laughing, Bright-eyed. Animated. Showing visible signs of thinking. Leaning forward. Lively conversation.   

When we give students something provocative, worthwhile, challenging, and intriguing to think about, we pique their curiosity, ignite their interests, and spark their inquiry. If your students don’t appear joyful about their learning, why not? I hope it bothers you and spurs you to think: What can I do to change that?

Here are a few questions to consider if you want to ramp up the engagement level of the student talk in your classroom:

• Am I asking students to talk about something they care about?
• If the topic is not intrinsically interesting, what can I do to build their curiosity?
• Did I tap into their need to express opinions, connect to their experiences, and have fun?
• Does the task have an element of playfulness, or is it a drudgery?
• Did I provide an accessible entry point for students to begin the conversation or learning, or have I provided insufficient scaffolding to allow them to approach the learning without intimidation?
• Is the task clear? Do they know what they are supposed to be doing?
• Is the task complex and open-ended rather than simplistic? In other words, does the activity warrant conversation and exploration, or is it a one-and-done, quickly answerable question?
• Did I do everything I can do sell the learning to my students so they have maximum buy-in?
• If the assignment is not one I designed myself, did I take ownership of the assignment or introduce it as something “they” want my students to do?
• Are you asking your students to talk about concepts at a level that is above their maturity or interest level?
• Are the students going to do something worthwhile and interesting with what they discuss?
• Do my students see the benefit of talking about this topic, believing that they get smarter through interaction with others?  

A good gauge for judging your students’ engagement in your observations is to compare what you observe when your students are interacting socially with friends to what you see when you ask them to talk in your classroom. The difference could look like this:

“Friend talk” is lively, joyful, playful, noisy, animated, casual, comfortable, and pleasurable. Sadly, some “school talk” is silent, dour, filled with pauses, lifeless, drab, uninspired, mechanical, and tedious.

“School talk” with probably never look exactly like “friend talk.” And it probably shouldn’t. It it does, your students probably aren’t really talking about what you’ve asked them to. They’ve abandoned the conversation topic and are now chatting about what they did last weekend. I’m not satisfied, however, with students in academic conversations looking like they are attending a funeral and are struggling to find something to say about the deceased. I want school talk to look more like friend talk than that. I can usually accomplish that by carefully considering what I have my learners talk about and what I ask them to do in their pairs, triads, or quads.

Not coincidentally,  different levels of engagement produce a perceptible noise-level shift, too. Disengaged classroom talk is very quiet. Engaged classroom talk is somewhat louder. Social talk rises to a significantly louder volume level. By simply listening, it’s easy to tell when students are “done” discussing.  

If you haven’t stopped teaching to look—really look—at your students lately, I invite you to quit working so hard, step back, and observe. If you like what you see, keep doing it. If the students’ “school talk” faces look like they’d rather be anywhere else but in your classroom, maybe you can tweak what you’re doing so that your students clamor to talk with one another about the exciting things they’re learning.