This week I just wanted to share an overview of ideas that
were shared in the cisdedchat this last week.
It was very important for me to go back over this information,
especially as an instructional leader on the campus. All of the ideas that were shared there are
practices that need to implemented in the classrooms in order to meet one of
the goals for this year, increasing the quality of the responses of our
students.
These are the ideas that jumped out to me as I read through
everyone’s responses. First, trust needs
to be built so that students feel safe even trying to answer questions. Second, teachers need to learn to let go of
the control of the classroom. Third,
students need to be shown models and given tools that will help them answer
with more complete answers. Fourth, use
technology, a medium that students are very comfortable with, to help them
learn how to share their opinions and respond to other people’s opinions.
So, the question for us is, how do we go about accomplishing
all of this? I don’t have all the
answers, but I do have some ideas from my own experience and from what I have
seen teachers do in their classrooms that could get us going in the right
direction. So, here are some ideas to
ponder.
#1 – Building Trust – How do we go about building the trust
of students? We need to start here by
building their confidence. Educators can
take a huge step in the right direction of building the confidence of students
by being clear in what needs to be accomplished. Once students clearly understand what they
are supposed to be learning in the classroom they will be more confident and
trust teachers and each other more as they make attempts to answer
questions. Anchor charts, solid
introductions and reviews to lessons, and wise teachers leading discussions
that grasp even the smallest seed of understanding in a student and expanding
on it will help to build this confidence and trust.
#2 – Letting go of the control of the classroom – Long gone
is the stand deliver model of teaching. Here
to stay are the strategies of questioning, collaborating, and flipped
classrooms. One of the best lesson I have
recently seen had to do with a teacher wanting students to understand the idea
of multiplication. Instead of the
teacher telling the students what multiplication was, she lead the students in
a discussion that helped them discover what multiplication was. With each idea that was shared in small
groups and then with the class at large you could see more and more light bulbs
coming on over the heads of the children.
Teachers are more and more becoming facilitators of discussion.
#3 – Models for students to give more complete answers – As
we all know students love to give one word or two word answers. So the question is how do we help them
improve in this area? Two suggestions. First, as I saw beautifully done in a first
grade classroom I visited this last week, encourage the students to answer in
super sentences that include the word because.
Don’t let them answer with short answers, but teach them to answer more
completely. Second, put up anchor charts
around the classroom that will help the students answer with higher level
questions. Teach these sentence starters
to the students much like you would teaching them how to use math and reading
centers. Baby steps are key here. Don’t do everything at once.
#4 – Use technology – As we all know many students are very
comfortable with texting, blogging, and communicating very effectively with
technology. Obviously, we all need to
use this to our advantage. There are
many different ways that technology can be used to encourage students to share
their opinions. One way that the
district is giving to the older students in the district is gaggle. How can teachers use gaggle to their advantage
in helping the students. I would love to
hear examples to all of this. Please
share.
I hope this is helpful to people. I am just sharing ideas that I have been
learning and that I think can help us all improve our craft as educators. This blogging thing is really helping me to
begin to share my opinions, and as I think through the things I am writing
about I am questioning ideas, doing research to come up with more complete
ideas, and learning. I hope that I can
benefit others by passing on some of my simple observations. Have a great week everyone. TJJ
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