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.

The Power of Stories

Stories stick. We remember them. Stories in the classroom can be powerful learning tools.

I still recall Mrs. Marshall, my elementary school music teacher, telling us the tale of Mr. Do and Mr. Mi, who lived on the same street with an empty lot between their houses.

I remember a terrible and lengthy joke/story Mr. Holpp, my seventh-grade Life Science teacher, told us when we were learning about parasites. It involved a curious cure for a patient’s tapeworm and had the punchline, spoken by the tapeworm itself, “Where’s the pickle?” More importantly, it helped me learn understand and remember the concept of operant conditioning.

I’ll never forget my grandma’s story of her first date with my grandpa, a memorable blind date that ended with my grandfather, wearing a white suit stained with watermelon juice, sitting on the steps in front of Grandma’s house and ripping up the photo he had been carrying in his wallet of his now-ex girlfriend. Though this story was not told in a classroom, it was clearly a part of the curriculum of life as my grandma taught me about the love, humor,  and dedication that characterized their life together through much of the 20th century.

When teachers learn to harness the power of effective storytelling, they unleash a mighty instructional tool. For several reasons, a story judiciously used can pack an educational wallop.

As I stated earlier, stories are memorable. They can be used to make a complex abstract concept come to life. I once watched Ashley Ogal at Carpenter Middle School describe to her students two weddings in which she served as a bridesmaid. One was a fancy affair with a plated dinner and a deejay at a swanky hotel; the other was a more casual backyard celebration with a picnic buffet and music from an homemade iPod playlist blaring from home stereo speakers. Ashley described each wedding reception to her seventh graders and concluded her story by saying that both events, though different, were wonderful in their own ways. She then connected the story to the concept of voice in writing. While it’s okay in some situations, she explained, to write in a style akin to “Y’all get up and dance now,” sometimes it’s more appropriate to adopt the voice of the deejay: “Ladies and gentlemen, please direct your attention to the dance floor as the newlywed couple shares their first dance.” I feel reasonably certain that her students will understand the difference between formal and informal voice forevermore after hearing this memorable story.

Not only is storytelling an excellent way to make a point stick, stories also build community in your classroom. When teachers share a story from their own lives, they share a piece of themselves. A story of a lesson learned, a past struggle, or an embarrassing gaffe can not only provide some guidance to students, but it can also make the storyteller a little more human in the eyes of the listeners. When my students embarked on online research, I liked to tell them about “the old days” when you had to get your mom to take you to the Richardson Public Library (they had more magazines than Plano), where you had to use the paperback Readers’ Guide to Periodical Literature to identify articles of interest, fill out a piece of paper to request the magazine, wait by the window while some librarian fetched it, pray that no one before you had ripped the pages out of the magazine, read the article, and determine whether it was worth spending your precious dime-a-page to copy at the Xerox machine. The point of my story was that the Internet now practically delivers the text of millions of magazines and newspapers to them; however, the researcher now has to work that much harder to make sure that what is delivered is worth using. Sharing the hardships of my past life as a high school researcher amused my students while helping them understand why I feel so strongly about the importance of vigilance in online research.

Perhaps the most powerful use of stories in the classroom is to build up the number of stories your students have in their own libraries of experience. When I share my story with you, my story becomes your story. And the more stories you have to tell, the more you understand about the world. I may not have been alive during the Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s, but because I attended the school district’s annual tribute event in January honoring the legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and heard the stories of struggles and triumphs that took place in our own city told by people who were there, I have stories to tell about the courage of those who paved the way for others. When a college classmate who has transitioned from female to male told me at Homecoming several years ago about his difficulties with airport security screenings, access to public restrooms, and rejection by his family, I gained some stories to help me understand and appreciate the struggles of transgender people in our society today. His stories put a personal face on something that had previously been only a news headline to me. This was someone I have known for over 20 years, and when he smiled while telling me that he can now, for the first time ever, stand to have a mirror in his house because it finally reflects back who he really is, his story changed me. And because he shared his story with me, I can now share it with others.

English teachers have long known what research has now confirmed: reading literary fiction improves people’s empathy. Whether we read them or have them told to us, the stories and experiences of others make us better people. We owe it to our students to expose them to many stories so they can choose which ones will shape their own understandings of the world around them.

All of this talk about stories comes with one caveat: teachers must be purposeful about how and when they insert stories into their instruction. Stories without a purpose are a waste of time. Stories with too much detail or with meandering plotlines confuse students. Overly complicated stories lose students’ focus and interest. Stories without an introduction and summative explanation often cause students to miss the point.

I invite you to take a moment to think about the stories from your own life or the ones you’ve collected over your life that you can add to your personal library of stories to use in the classroom. Be on the lookout always for new stories to enhance your collection. Choose wisely, though. As the Witch in Stephen Sondheim’s Into the Woods pointed out, “Careful before you say, ‘Listen to me.’ Children will listen.”  

Teaching is a Sales Job

Last month I bought a new car and made a new best friend. Or at least that’s what it felt like. Ethan was his name, and he was my buddy just seconds after I walked onto the car lot. Ethan was interested in me. He asked questions and talked about things we had in common. He gave me undivided attention, making me believe I was the most important person in his life. He called. He sent e-mails. He took the time to show me each car and explained the key features of every model. Ethan was patient and happy to answer and re-answer each question I asked. He didn’t make me feel pressured about shopping for a new car; he had my best interests in mind and wanted me to make the decision that was right for me, even if it meant that I had to come back several times to test drive as I narrowed down my final choices.

On the day I bought the car, Ethan seemed as excited as I was. He met me at the front door when I arrived and had my car waiting for me for one last test drive just to make sure it was what I wanted. He brought me water, made sure I was comfortable, and introduced me to his helpful colleagues, who also seemed to want to be my friends. I was so popular. Ethan helped me set up my bluetooth, linked my phone to my car, and showed me how all the buttons and knobs worked before sending me on my way.

For the next few weeks, Ethan kept in close contact.  He called several days later to see how I was doing. At least once a week, he e-mailed me helpful pointers, videos, and website links so I could get to know my vehicle. Ethan was only a call or email away when a question popped up. Last week, I received the email that I knew was coming: it was Ethan’s goodbye. I had owned my car for a month and was now ready to be on my own. Of course, Ethan reassured me he could still be contacted if I had any questions or wanted to refer other people to be his friends, but he would be initiating no more messages.   

The things that made my car-buying experience a positive one are similar to the factors that make a positive educational experience for our students. Teaching, after all, is a sales job. What we have to sell, however, is often a lot harder to sell than what Ethan was peddling, and our customers are a little less eager to buy in.  (It’s also--dare I say it?--more important because you’ll get a lot more mileage from a good education than you will from even the best-made automobile). After all, I walked onto the car lot wanting to purchase a car and fairly certain of what kind I wanted. Students, on the other hand, don’t always enter the classroom convinced that what you’re offering them is something they actually need. That’s why you’re going to have to make a convincing sales pitch, appealing to students’ pathos, ethos, and logos (that’s emotions, sense of moral duty, and logic for those of you who’ve slept since--or who slept through--tenth grade English). Hook their hearts, their morals, and their minds. Even if you’ve taught this same lesson six periods a day for the past 44 years, you have to make the kids think it’s the best, most interesting, and most worthwhile thing you’ve ever seen. I had a teacher once who told me she hated The Once and Future King, the book we were just beginning to read in English class. Guess who decided to side with his teacher and mentally check out of that unit before even giving it a chance. I’ve made it a point to never let the students know I don’t love whatever I have to teach on any given day, and, following suit, the vast majority of my students have attempted to share my enthusiasm. I am certain that the safety features of the new car I bought were not the most exciting topic Ethan could think of to discuss, but he made me think they were something to marvel over.

Good salespeople know the importance of establishing rapport with each customer. That’s why Ethan became my BFF for a month and why teachers need to work doubly hard to make connections with their students, especially with the unruly or recalcitrant ones who do all they can to make themselves difficult to like. Every book I’ve read on classroom management or about working with at-risk populations emphasizes the importance of the relationship piece above all else. Even a simple hello at the door as students enter your room can begin to build that relationship. Make a point to find out something each student is interested in and something each is proud of and have a quick conversation about those things from time to time. Give students your full attention during class time; let them know they are what is most important to you at that moment.

Part of establishing rapport with students involves celebrating successes with students. Just as Ethan made my purchase feel like a partnership and seemed excited for me when I found the car I wanted, teachers should let students know that learning is a team effort. It’s not us versus them. We want them to succeed--maybe more than they do--and we will stick with them as they struggle and cheer them on when they get it right.

One of the questions I asked Ethan during my car shopping was why I should buy the make of car he was selling instead of the one I have owned previously. He was able to rattle off a list of reasons--some practical and some emotional--why his brand was the best. Teachers hoping to sell their subjects to students need to be ready with a compelling “why” for every lesson. And I recommend sharing that “why” even if students don’t ask for it.

Like Ethan and other excellent salespeople, a teacher has to be patient. I came back three times to test drive cars before I made my decision. I asked stupid questions about the GPS, how the “sport mode” worked, the type of fuel I should use, and more. Never once did Ethan act as if answering any of my queries was a burden or a chore. He did not roll his eyes. He did not sigh audibly. He did not tell me, “I have already answered that question.” Ethan created a safe environment for me to be curious, to learn at my own pace, and to ask the things I wanted to know more about without fear of ridicule or judgment. Wouldn’t it be great if all classrooms were similarly conducive spaces for learning?

Ethan offered me ample support and assistance during the car-buying process so that I wouldn’t get stressed out or overwhelmed. He continued to offer support afterward, while I still needed it, and he tapered off the support as he became convinced that I could operate the car on my own. This gradual release model works beautifully with students. Teachers offer the most support when students need it the most and slowly introduce resources and other outside assistance to the students to help them learn to handle their questions and think for themselves. Teachers are always there to swoop in when students need emergency roadside assistance, but the goal should be for the students to learn to drive away on their own. Just as Ethan can’t ride around forever in my passenger seat and answer every question as it pops up, teachers don’t want to have to follow our students to college and continue to check their homework when they become adults. We need to be able to say reassuringly, “I’ve given you all you need to be successful. Now you’re on your own.”

In so many other ways teaching is not like a sales job. We don’t make commissions on what we sell; we sometimes don’t even know whether we actually made the sale at all.  Our rewards and motivations are different. But we can find satisfaction in knowing that what we are selling is one of the most precious things on earth. In ways no material possessions will ever be able to, education has the power to positively transform the lives of our customers, our students.

 

Madeline Meets Curious George

In an old house in Paris

that was covered with vines

lived twelve little girls in two straight lines. . . .

The smallest one was Madeline.

So begins the story of Madeline, a beloved 1939 children’s book by Ludwig Bemelmans. Madeline lives in an orphanage and is watched over by her nurse and teacher, Miss Clavel (You thought Miss Clavel was a nun, didn’t you? It turns out she’s a nurse. Who knew?). In the first of her many adventures, Madeline and her fellow orphans follow a strict daily routine (“In two straight lines/ they broke their bread/ and brushed their teeth/ and went to bed.”), Madeline has an emergency appendectomy, and everyone cries a lot.

Two years later, H. A. Rey created the story of an equally popular character, Curious George:

This is George.

He lived in Africa.

He was a good little monkey

and always very curious.

In the initial book in the series, George is abducted from his homeland by the unnamed man with the yellow hat. True to the story’s title, George’s abundant curiosity gets him into trouble repeatedly, upsetting sailors, firemen, and a balloon man. Eventually, the man with the yellow hat realizes he is ill-equipped to take care of a monkey in urban America, so George finds himself happily residing in a zoo at the story’s end.

Which of the two would you rather have in your class: Madeline or Curious George?

I suspect that many teachers’ initial response is that Madeline would be a whole lot easier to teach and would thus be the more desirable student. Though we don’t see anything about Madeline’s behavior in school in the book, we observe all kinds of cooperative obedience in her daily routine. I’m sure Madeline would never turn in work late, forget to bring supplies to class, nor get in trouble for chatting with her neighbor during instructional time. Many teachers would view Madeline as the ideal student.

George, on the other hand, is a less predictable option. Aside from the fact that he’s a non-linguistic, non-human pupil, George could either be a delight or a terror in the classroom. The book tells us he’s “a good little monkey,” but, in the story at least, George’s curiosity leads him into some situations that would drive most teachers crazy. In some classroom environments, George would be off-task and non-compliant. With the right teacher, however, Curious George would be completely engaged in his learning.

Unfortunately, some teacher’s classes resemble a scene from Where the Wild Things Are. The “wild rumpus” prevents any learning from occurring, creating an environment that would be frustrating to compliant Madeline and that would encourage Curious George to jump into the middle of the mayhem.

If you’ve let your classes spiral out of control, you may have to become like Max in Maurice Sendak’s story:

And when he came to the place where the wild things are

they roared their terrible roars and gnashed their terrible teeth

and rolled their terrible eyes and showed their terrible claws

till Max said “BE STILL!”

and tamed them with the magic trick

of staring into all their yellow eyes without blinking once

and they were frightened and called him the most wild thing of all

and made him king of all wild things.

Whatever “magic trick” you have to employ to get your classes under control is a necessary first step to creating an environment conducive to learning.

Once you’ve maintained order, your students could be learning in one of two states:  compliant or engaged.

Compliant students are doing what they’re supposed to do. They’re behaving. They are following directions. They are completing their work. Compliant classrooms look a lot like Madeline’s orphanage with all the students in straight lines going through the motions without much excitement. The motivation for student compliance may be fear and coercion, a desire for an extrinsic outcome like a grade or reward, or simply a “cooperate and graduate” mentality. There’s rarely any passion or excitement in a compliant classroom, but there’s no chaos either. It’s preferable to the world of the wild things. It’s not, however, a place where Curious George is going to thrive. In fact, George will likely be pigeonholed as a troublemaker and will be singled out for his off-task behavior.

Engaged students are excited about what they’re learning. Their motivation is likely more intrinsic; they’re doing what they’re supposed to be doing because they are involved in learning that is interesting, worthwhile, authentic, and valuable. External rewards are not required because the students want to be doing what they are doing. There is an entirely different vibe from a compliant classroom. It’s probably a little noisier and more energetic than Miss Clavel’s roomful of dutiful girls, but the noise and energy are focused and purposeful. Curious George, whose curiosity would be a detriment in other classroom environments, would learn most successfully in this scenario. So would most students.

I invite you to take a moment to observe your students during class. Where do they fall on the continuum between compliant and engaged? What steps can you take to move them closer to a state of engagement? Here are a few suggestions:

• Open-ended rather than closed-ended questioning and learning tasks
• Authentic work about authentic content rather than “fake” activities that don’t transfer to the real world
• Structured collaboration rather than individual work or unstructured “group work”
• Student-driven inquiry rather than teacher-determined outcomes
• Creativity rather than rote learning
• Honoring student voices and opinions rather than rewarding students who do exactly what you’ve predetermined they’re supposed to do
• Opportunities to take risks safely rather than suffer the “gotcha” repercussions of being incorrect
• Emphasis on the intrinsic rewards of inquiry-based learning rather than insistence that everything be graded
• “Fun” activities that are directly linked to the learning outcomes rather than unrelated, fluffy fun and games
• A playful atmosphere rather than joyless conformity

By fostering George’s natural curiosity and making Madeline feel safe to be herself, take chances, explore, and immerse herself in authentic learning, teachers can win with every student.

That's the Ticket

Tickets come in many types. There are the ones you don’t want to get from a police officer, the ones you hope you can score for the sold-out concert, the ones you have to sell an organ to afford so you can see Hamilton on Broadway, and the ones you hope will be picked out of the bucket so you can win a nifty raffle prize.  The type of ticket that is perhaps most useful in your life as a teacher, however, is an exit ticket.    

Exit tickets are a great way to formatively assess your students. They’re also easy to use. All you have to do is provide a quick assignment or question for students to complete during the final minutes of class. Their responses are their tickets to leave the room when the bell rings, and you can stand at the door and collect them as students depart. Flipping through the exit tickets helps you know how your class and individual students are doing.

Here are a few examples of the types of things you might ask your students to do on an exit ticket:  

Explain a key concept from the lesson.

List the three branches of the US government, and write one sentence explaining the function of each.

Explain in at least three sentences the effects of alcohol and tobacco use by a mother on the development of a fetus.   

Define a term or concept.

            Define “manifest destiny” in your own words.

Write a one-sentence definition for each of these terms: round character, flat character, static character, dynamic character.

Provide examples to show understanding.

Give an example of when you might need to be able to calculate the area of a quadrilateral in your life outside the classroom.

Thinking about the types of measurement we discussed today, provide an example of something that is best measured in each of these:  millimeters, centimeters, meters, kilometers.       

Give an opinion.

How are you liking the book you are reading? What are you enjoying most and least about it?

Which is more useful: fractions or percentages?  Why?

Make a comparison or contrast.

List ways that plant and animal cells are similar and different. Provide at least three similarities and three differences.  

Which character in the novel are you most like? Discuss at least three similarities.

Fill in a graphic organizer.

Create a Venn diagram to show similarities and differences between mitosis and meiosis.

Use a T-chart to list pros and cons for electing our President using the Electoral College.

Apply the learning.

Escribe dos oraciones en español sobre su familia.

Write three sentences using the same verb as a gerund, a participle, and an infinitive.

How might you use what you learned about primary and secondary colors to design a color scheme for a workplace? Explain your choices.

Solve a problem or work an example.

Copy a compound or complex sentence from the novel you are reading. Underline the nouns once, underline the verbs twice, and circle the adjectives.

Solve this equation on your exit ticket:

2x + ½(x +10) = 15

Evaluate their work.

Look back at your notes on the essay you revised today. How useful were your partner’s suggestions during your writing conference? What changes will you make on the next draft based on what you discussed? What could make your next writing conference more effective?

What did you do to prepare for your test? How, specifically, did you study? After going over your test results, what changes will you make next time to help you be more successful?

Reflect on today’s Socratic Seminar. What did the class do well? What did you do well? What should change next time to make the seminar better for you and for the class?

On a scale from 1-10, how would you rate your success in this class? Why did you give yourself that rating?

Pick out a main idea.

What was the most important thing you learned today?

Sum up the main ideas of today’s lesson in 20 words or fewer.

Draw a picture.  

Sketch a diagram of a plant cell and label as many parts as you can.

Draw a picture that summarizes the chapter you read today in the book. You may label your picture to clarify if your drawing skills are lacking.

Summarize the lesson or the content.

Write a 25-word gist statement about the TED Talk we watched today.

Write three sentences to explain what you learned today to someone who was absent for today’s class.

Choose a word.

Select one word that best describes the Cold War, and explain why you selected that word.

Choose two adjectives that describe the character of Lord Capulet, and use evidence from the play to support each choice.

Write a question. (These are great to incorporate into a follow-up activity later.)

What is one question you have after today’s lesson? If you have no questions, come up with a higher-level question to stimulate further discussion about the topic.  

            Write two questions about this topic that you’d like to discuss in class tomorrow.

Write one question at each of Costa’s Levels of Thinking about today’s lesson.

Ask for a response. (Teacher responds to these and hands them back the next day.)

What is going well for you in this class? What’s not?

What help do you need from me to complete your understanding of this subject?

Set a goal.

What grade do you hope to receive next grading period? What do you need to do to reach that goal?

After reviewing the peer and teacher feedback on your essay/project, what is the most important thing you’d like to focus on for the next one? Why?

Give the teacher feedback.

Write at least three sentences to me about what I can do to make this class a better experience for you.

Glows and Grows:  What is one thing I’m doing well as your teacher and one thing I can improve on?

If you could change one thing about this class, what would it be, and why?

Exit tickets can provide all sorts of useful information for us as teachers to clue us in to what our students know, what they need, and how we can help them. Whether you use old-fashioned pen-and-paper exit tickets or newfangled technology to get your feedback, exit tickets keep students engaged during the final minutes of class and provide meaningful closure to your lesson.

The Danger of Strategies

“We’re an AVID school, so we use AVID strategies.”

“My staff has been trained in Kagan strategies, so when I walk into a classroom, I want to see Kagan structures in use.”

“I want to make sure my principal sees that I’m doing Costa’s Levels of Thinking.”

“Our students are 21st century digital learners; therefore, our teachers implement technology in all their lessons.”

There's danger lurking within the above sentences you might hear at Anyschool, USA.

Teachers are bombarded with strategies in trainings. Principals introduce strategies as campus initiatives. Districts and campuses adopt programs that bring with them their own sets of strategies. Attending a workshop or convention provides teachers with a host of new strategies they can’t wait to try back in their classrooms.

I’m a huge fan of new teaching strategies. There’s nothing I find more professionally exciting than learning something new I can apply to help engage students and stretch them as learners.  New strategies can revitalize a classroom or a campus, but there’s something a little dangerous about working with strategies, old or new.

Sometimes, we get so mesmerised by employing new strategies--and so proud of ourselves for trying them--that we lose sight of the purpose behind the strategies. Using strategies for the sake of using strategies is like getting all dressed up in an elaborate trick-or-treat costume for Halloween and then staying home by yourself and watching Full House reruns on the sofa. It’s fun, but what was the point of going to all that trouble?

The purpose of using any educational strategy should be to achieve a student learning outcome.  If our purpose of using a strategy becomes to use the strategy, we’ve missed the point. Strategies without learning attached to them may be engaging, but they won’t push our kids any closer to where we want them to go.

Television is a childcare strategy familiar to many parents. There’s no doubt that plopping a child in front of a TV and letting her sit there slack-jawed is one way to keep her mesmerised for hours and out of your hair. If the parent has a learning goal for the child--to learn the alphabet, for instance--television can be an effective strategy if it’s employed correctly. A child watching hours of Sesame Street is likely to come away with greater alphabet mastery. There are, of course, other strategies a parent could use to achieve that goal, but there’s no denying that watching Sesame Street has a positive effect on childhood learning (at least it did for me). This is an example of a strategy successfully paired with a learning outcome.

In the classroom, teachers employ specific strategies to achieve specific goals. Sometimes, however, we lose sight of that goal (or never establish the goal in the first place), and the strategy becomes merely something to do.   

Let’s take technology as an example. In the last few years, technology professional development has been all the rage. “Twenty-First Century Learning” has become a buzzphrase in the world of education. Teachers have been bombarded with numerous apps, websites, and programs to “meet our students where they live.”  This technology has trickled out to campuses with varied results.

Here’s an example: Teacher A and Teacher B both attend a training on using technology to increase student engagement. Both teachers are excited to learn about a website called Kahoot that allows students to race one another to correctly answer multiple-choice questions in hopes of landing at the top of the leaderboard; the teachers hasten back to their classrooms eager to try this new technology miracle.

Teacher A uses Kahoot the next day in geography. Since they are learning about landforms, she searches Kahoot and finds a ready-made game to test vocabulary knowledge. She explains to her students how to log on and play the game, and the fun begins! The students are a little bit giddy as each question pops onto the screen. They guess the answers and wait until the results pop up to cheer their brilliance or hang their heads in defeat. Fifteen questions flash onto the screen in 8 minutes’ time, and the teacher feels delighted that her students are so elated to be learning geography. The principal pops her head in and is thrilled to see the students actively participating and using technology.

Teacher B sees the potential for using Kahoot as a learning tool, and she analyzes recent quizzes to identify the terms that appear to be causing her students the most difficulty. She pinpoints the places where confusion exists, and she creates her own Kahoot with questions about her students’ points of confusion. She deliberately includes incorrect answers she thinks some of her students are likely to choose based on what she’s seen from her formative assessments in class. As the students play the game and experience the same level of engagement answering the questions Teacher A’s students showed, the teacher pauses after each question to debrief. She asks students in pairs to discuss the answers they gave and why they gave them. Then, she solicits a few responses from her students to help clarify the trouble spots. She directly teaches the topics which remain unclear. The game becomes, then, a formative assessment that allows her to see what her students understand and where they still need some reinforcement.

Both Teacher A and Teacher B are achieving the aim of student engagement by using Kahoot. Teacher A’s students, however, are engaged in the way my little brother was enthralled with the game Space Invaders on his Atari. Though he played for hours with nary a break, he was responding to stimuli and not substantially learning. Teacher B, on the other hand, realizes the strengths and limitations of Kahoot. She knows that the type of learning Kahoot encourages is Level 1 of Costa’s Levels of Thinking: checking to see whether or not students know facts, definitions, terms, etc. While Level 1 thinking is important, it’s not the end goal of learning for her students, so she uses the game to check for understanding and clarify misconceptions. Through her discussions and questioning between rounds, Teacher B extends the learning beyond the literal level.She is also clear in her aim to use Kahoot as an informal assessment to guide future instruction. Teacher B gets it; Teacher A has a bit of growing to do in her implementation of technology as a tool for learning. Teacher A has student engagement; Teacher B has students engaged in learning.

As a  fan of AVID, I’m a champion of the WICOR strategies. But these, too are not foolproof. Just because students are writing on Cornell Note paper doesn’t necessarily mean they are using the notes as a tool to deepen and strengthen their understanding of the content they’re taking notes on. Students believing they’re using the AVID Critical Reading process may be  arbitrarily circling and underlining words in an article without growing as readers or even increasing their comprehension of a text. A One-Pager isn’t a learning tool if it’s little more than a pretty picture with some words written nearby. Socratic Seminars may not result in authentic dialogue and exploration of ideas if the teacher doesn’t understand and communicate the why and the how of the strategy. In other words, things that look like worthwhile AVID strategies may be masquerading as learning when in reality they’re simply tasks for students to complete. AVID strategies are powerful and transformational but only if they’re used with intentionality.

Teachers who set out to use strategies of whatever type without considering why they’re using them and how the strategies will result in a specific student learning outcome are missing opportunities to harness the intended power of these strategies.

You may be asking yourself, “How do I do this?” I think there are two best ways:

1. Start with the outcome and select the most appropriate strategy. This one is probably the better route. Think about what you want your students to be able to do, and then dig through your bag of tricks to choose the best strategy for the job. If you have a goal in mind but don’t have a strategy to make it happen, talk to your teacher friends or call upon an Instructional Specialist to help.
2. Begin with the strategy and determine how it best fits into your curriculum. This one is a little trickier, but it’s possible if you remain focused on your learning objectives. Consider what student outcomes are most likely to result from using the strategy, and identify a place in the curriculum where such an outcome would be desirable or appropriate. If you’ve just been to a training and are itching to apply what you learned,  this is the approach you may end up trying. Just don’t forget that behind every good strategy is a better student outcome.

This might be a great time to crowdsource some ideas to help you along in your increasingly effective use of teaching strategies. I’d love to get some ideas from you about how you use your favorite strategies to achieve specific learning outcomes. If you have a moment, visit this Google Form. It offers the opportunity for you to share a strategy and the student learning outcome you desire when you choose to use it. I’ll incorporate your responses in a future post so all can benefit from the collective experience of those who had the stamina to read all the way to the end of this lengthy diatribe.

In the meantime, I wish you all the best in your successful use of instructional strategies to help your students soar.