Two articles this week from Mind/Shift, (an educational blog from California's public radio/tv station KQED) discuss how a few easy-to-prepare questions can improve lesson effectiveness.
Something as simple as: "what do you think the answer will be?", "what makes you think that?", or "what will you do to remember today's key ideas?" can make a difference, particularly for lower-ability students.
The first article reports on research using student predictions in intermediate maths classes. The second looks at metacognition for successful learning and provides a list of questions that can be simply dropped in to your pre-existing lessons at appropriate times.
Below is a synopsis of each article so you can decide if you want to have a further look.
What’s Your Best Guess? Predicting Answers Leads to Deeper Learning
http://mindshift.kqed.org/2012/02/whats-your-best-guess-predicting-answers-leads-to-deeper-learning
The Idea:
The act of making predictions prompts students to understand the material more deeply as they engaged in reasoning and sense-making instead of mere memorization.
The Method:
Pupils wrote down a prediction, along with explanations supporting their guess, and then discussed their responses. After telling the students that it was their reasoning that was important, not the correctness of their predictions, the teacher went on to teach them. Students then revisited their initial predictions.
The Theory of Why It Works:
In venturing a guess, we discover what we know and don’t yet know about the subject. We activate our prior knowledge on the topic, readying ourselves to make connections to new knowledge. We create a hypothesis that can then be tested, generating curiosity and motivation to find out the answer. Most of all, making predictions leads us to think deeply, to “explore the ‘why’ that underlies challenging problems.” Students who only memorize facts are often unsure of when or how to apply what they have learned. Making predictions requires students to actively grapple with new concepts instead of passively receiving them.
Do Students Know Enough Smart Learning Strategies?
http://mindshift.kqed.org/2012/03/do-students-know-enough-smart-learning-strategies/
The Idea:
Low-achieving students show “substantial deficits” in their awareness of the cognitive and metacognitive strategies that lead to effective learning—suggesting that these students’ struggles may be due in part to a gap in their knowledge about how learning works.
The Method:
Teachers drop proactive questions into the lesson on a “just-in-time” basis—at the moments when students need promping to use the metacognitive strategies. This helps to ensure that children know not just what is to be learned, but how.
Some proactive questions:
- What is the topic for today’s lesson?
- What will be important ideas in today’s lesson?
- What do you already know about this topic?
- What can you relate this to?
- What will you do to remember the key ideas?
- Is there anything about this topic you don’t understand, or are not clear about?
Children can also be surveyed for awareness and encouraged to use metacognition strategies with a questionnaire similar to:
- I draw pictures or diagrams to help me understand this subject.
- I make up questions that I try to answer about this subject.
- When I am learning something new in this subject, I think back to what I already know about it.
- I discuss what I am doing in this subject with others.
- I practice things over and over until I know them well in this subject,
- I think about my thinking, to check if I understand the ideas in this subject.
- When I don’t understand something in this subject I go back over it again.
- I make a note of things that I don’t understand very well in this subject, so that I can follow them up.
- When I have finished an activity in this subject I look back to see how well I did.
- I organize my time to manage my learning in this subject.
- I make plans for how to do the activities in this subject.
The Theory of Why It Works:
The article didn't say much in this regard but both articles do have links to research papers they are based on.
Here is a link to a nice lay-person's overview of metacognition and how to teach it.
Metacognition Introduction:
http://imaginationsoup.net/2012/01/teach-kids-to-think-about-their-thinking-metacognition/
For a very thorough read on metacognition and the teaching structures that support it one of the best resources I've come across is Harvard's Visible Thinking page:
http://pzweb.harvard.edu/vt/VisibleThinking_html_files/02_GettingStarted/02a_GettingStarted.html
Happy questioning everyone!
Friday, March 23, 2012
Thursday, March 15, 2012
Term 1 Week 7: Never Work Harder Than Your Students
Never Work Harder Than Your
Students & Other Principles of
Great Teaching
Jackson, Robyn R. (2009). Never Work Harder Than Your Students &
Other Principles of Great Teaching. Alexandria, VA: ASCD.
Principle 7: Never Work Harder Than
Your Students
(Chapter 7 – pp. 170-191) – This
chapter is well worth reading in full.
-
We need to be clear about what is our work and
what is the students’ work, and make sure that we do our work and they do
theirs. See this web link for a list which divides the classroom work.
-
Our responsibility is to teach and support.
Their responsibility is to learn. We must not solve problems for them but help
them acquire the tools they need to solve the problems on their own.
-
Set up systems so that students are able to do
more on their own. E.g. If we want students to keep organised notes, then we
need to set up a routine for note-making and the way to organise them.
-
Students must be held accountable for doing
their work by having logical consequences.
Try this idea:
We need to be clear about what is our work and
what is the students’ work, and make sure that we do our work and they do
theirs. See this web link for a list which divides the classroom work.
Our responsibility is to teach and support.
Their responsibility is to learn. We must not solve problems for them but help
them acquire the tools they need to solve the problems on their own.
Set up systems so that students are able to do
more on their own. E.g. If we want students to keep organised notes, then we
need to set up a routine for note-making and the way to organise them.
Students must be held accountable for doing
their work by having logical consequences.
Rewards: What really works?
How do you balance your use of rewards and sanctions, and are the rewards you’re using really having a positive effect on student behaviour? Dave Stott provides some practical tips.
Educational Leadership Magazine
The February 2012 edition For Each to Excel is now in the library. The following articles focus on differentiation:
- Teaching to What Students Have in Common by Daniel Willingham and David Daniel. Why effective teachers pay attention to the ways in which all students are the same.
- Preparing Students to Learn Without Us by Will Richardson. Technology leverages students' curiosity to learn whatever whenever.
- Teach Up for Excellence by Carol Ann Tomlinson and Edwin Lou Javius. Seven principles for creating classrooms that give students equal access to excellence.
- Helping Gifted Learners Soar by Susan Rakow. How to optimize the potential of those students who master material quickly.
- Clustered for Success by Dina Brulles and Susan Winebrenner. Cluster groups allow students to work with peers as well as contribute to the whole class.
- All Students Are Artists by Linda Nathan. Arts education provides a model for continual pursuit of improvement.
- Planning for Personalization by William Powell and Ochan Kusuma-Powell. Here's how to shift from teaching facts to teaching concepts in a standards-based curriculum.
- Data, Our GPS by Rich Smith, Marcus Johnson and Karen D. Thompson. A district needed to find out where their students were before it could get somewhere.
- "Just How I Need to Learn It" by Cheryl Becker Dobbertin. Differentiating how students learn is easier when they know their learning targets.
- The Right Fit for Henry by J. Christine Gould, Linda K. Staff and Heather M. Theiss. Did Henry belong in the gifted class even if he had a learning disability?
- Special Topic / Senseless Extravagance, Shocking Gaps by Richard Weissbourd and Trevor Dodge. A race to opulence characterizes affluent schools even as other schools scramble to provide basic supplies.
Wednesday, March 7, 2012
Term 1 Week 6: Quality not Quantity
Never Work Harder Than
Your Students & Other Principles
of Great Teaching
Jackson, Robyn R. (2009). Never Work Harder Than Your Students &
Other Principles of Great Teaching. Alexandria, VA: ASCD.
Principle 6: Focus on Quality Not Quantity
(Chapter 6 – pp. 152-169)
·
Rather than trying to cover as much as
possible, we need to be strategic about what we teach and how we teach it.
·
Homework should be for practice, not for
acquiring new information.
·
We need to make sure that we are not in
coverage mode when we are teaching. In coverage mode, we focus students’
attention on completion rather than understanding. We check off the material
that we have covered often without checking to see if students have learned it.
·
In order to focus on quality, look at the end
goals of the unit and choose learning experiences that will most quickly help
students achieve the goals of the course. We don’t have to do every activity
suggested in a unit of work.
·
Focus on
Distributed Practice Versus Full-length Performance Every Time. Divide
learning activities into smaller parts so that students can learn one part at a
time. E.g. if you are teaching students how to write an effective thesis
statement, get them to write an introduction and then outline the rest of the
essay, rather than having them write the full essay.
Literacy and Thinking Readings/ Strategies:
What’s Your Best Guess? Predicting Answers Leads to Deeper Learning - Predictions pique our interest. Once we wager that our favorite sports team will win, we want to know the final score. Once we guess the identity of the murderer in a mystery novel, we keep reading to find out if we were right. This reading especially focuses on predicting in Mathematics.
How Knowledge Helps (2006) - The author, a professor of cognitive psychology, notes, "it's true that knowledge gives students something to think about, but… knowledge does much more than just help students hone their thinking skills, it actually makes learning easier." Factual knowledge enhances cognitive processes like problem solving and reasoning, and once you have some knowledge, the brain finds it easier to get more and more knowledge. This article covers aspects such as, how knowledge brings more knowledge and how knowledge improves thinking.
Use Easy Nonfiction to Build Background Knowledge (2007) - A Texas librarian shares his strategy of using nonfiction picture books to introduce new concepts to struggling adolescent readers and to build their background knowledge. Once students have been exposed to academic content in easy reading material, they are more confident in making the transition to textbooks.
Accessing Students' Background Knowledge in the ELL Classroom (2008).As you teach content areas to ELLs (English Language Learners) of diverse backgrounds, you may find that they struggle to grasp the content, and that they approach the content from very different perspectives. Drawing on your students' background knowledge and experiences can be an effective way to bridge those gaps and make content more accessible. This article offers a number of suggestions to classroom teachers as they find ways to tap into the background knowledge that students bring with them.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)