Strategy of the Week

10 EXIT SLIP PROMPTS THAT WILL WORK FOR ANY CLASS

Exit slips work at any grade level and any subject. They are a great way for all students to show learning from the day or subject. It also helps teachers to know how to adjust teaching based on that days learning. If you haven't tried exit slips, I highly suggest you try them.

Quick Checks

Take a look at these QuickChecks from Lead4ward. They are quick, easy ways to check for learning during or after a lesson.

Embrace The Shake

Take a few minutes to watch this amazing video.

How to Engage Students’ Memory Processes to Improve Learning

We have two types of memory: short term (working memory) and long term. When a student has trouble remembering the lesson or content it means the information has not been transferred to long term memory. How do we, as educators, instruct students so they move information from working memory to long term memory? You can read the whole article here is interested, but here are some main takeaways:

Activating background knowledge: Background knowledge is super-important for learning—there may already be a neural pathway in the brain for the new information to connect to and strengthen. We need to activate those connections before we begin teaching the new content or skill. Concept mapping, word webs, KWL charts, think/pair/share activities, and videos are all strategies that awaken previous knowledge and enhance the process of encoding new information.

If we can’t recall the information, we haven’t learned it. Students can utilize helpful retrieval practice strategies such as using flash cards, writing down a summary of the day’s learning, and reacting to the lesson by stating three main points and their importance. Try using entrance and exit tickets, giving frequent quizzes, and using programs like Kahoot and Quizlet.

Contextualizing learning: Make learning relevant and interactive. Mix up lessons so that your students don’t have to listen to you talk for more than 10 minutes at a time. They have to use their working memory, which has a very limited capacity, to follow a lecture, so stop and have them do the following:

• Turn and talk to a partner

• Do a demonstration

• Incorporate active learning or hands-on learning intermittently

• Summarize or draw a picture that encompasses the main points of the learning

• Use concept mapping or story mapping strategies throughout a lesson

Using interleaved practice: Make connections. When teachers use interleaved practice, they help students make connections to different topics while learning. For example, they may be learning about a particular historical event, but you then connect it to something else that was going on at the time that was also impacted. This term also describes mixed practice, so maybe your students are revisiting addition and subtraction facts when they practice new multiplication facts. Research shows that interleaving improves retention of new information and results in faster acquisition of the information.

Notices and Wonderings

Notices and Wonderings- a great way to engage students prior to learning and reaches kids at their own level, includes cooperative learning strategies too. Great for their brains and for student engagement. Can be done virtually or in person with little to no prep- simple ask "what do you notice?" and then "what do you wonder?" Read here for more easy ideas in different subjects for this strategy (this really is a great resource site).

Marigold

Remember to find your marigolds during this uniquely trying year. If you don't want to read the article, you can watch this video that explains it too. If you can't find a marigold, be a marigold.

Chat Stations

Discussion prompts that students visit just like stations, but instead of performing a complex task, they just have a quick discussion. Chat Stations are incredibly flexible: They can be used for test reviews, ethical debates, exploring new material, even analyzing literature.

On top of their flexibility as a cooperative learning tool, Chat Stations can also dramatically improve whole-class discussions. Because students have fully explored each issue in the less-threatening Chat Station setting, they will be better prepared to participate in a larger class discussion next. And as we explored in a previous post, we need to do more to engage our less talkative students. Chat Stations offer another way to get them more involved. (from cult of pedagogy)

Click here (it's a short, informative video) to learn more.

Turn and Talk

Turn and Talk is a structured discussion that invites students to turn and face a designated partner in order to discuss an idea or question to deepen understanding. Teachers should strategically pair students based on the lesson or activity with respect to students' strengths, preferences, and learning styles.

See a quick how to get started video here.

See the strategy in action here for younger grades and here for older grades.

Choice Boards and Playlists

Choice boards and Playlists are great ways to engage students in learning and to encourage choice and ownership of learning for students. If you have any questions or need help creating one of these, please let me know.

Here is an example of a choice board. You can set up your expectations for them (must complete 3 in a row or you need 4 of the 9 completed in a week, etc).

Here is an article about playlists. You can see examples here and here.

FlipGrid

Having student explain their thinking is a powerful skill. Sometimes, we don't have time to read or listen to all those explanations during class time. Sometimes, kids are too shy to speak or share everything that they really know. Others have a hard time putting thoughts on paper but can express their thoughts aloud much better than writing. Sometimes, kids need an authentic audience to produce better quality work. Flipgrid helps with all of this. Flipgrid allows students to record and share their thinking. They can retell a story, tell how they solved a math problem or science investigation, or create a book review to share with classmates. It is easy and fun to use. You can incorporate it into math or literacy stations/small groups to help with accountability or engagement. Flipgrid is just a great tool to use for so many things in all subjects and all grade levels.

Learn more here.

JigSaw

One strategy that has a very high effect size on student growth is the jigsaw teaching strategy. Here is a glimpse of what that might look like in a classroom.

JIgsaw strategy is:

-a cooperative learning strategy that enables each student to become an expert on a certain topic, through communication and discussion with others reading the same text, researching the same topic or unit, and then share their findings to their original “home” group. One student from each group has his/her own topic and then they meet with other students from other groups who have the same topic and they work together to decide the most important parts to share back with their original or home group to help them develop the same understanding.

Sketch Noting

One of Marzano's nine high yield strategies in non-linguistic representation- representing ideas without words. Another one of his high yield strategies is summarizing and note taking. Sketch-noting combines both of these to create an engaging way for students to interact with the lesson and create meaning of their learning. Sketch notes is one way of looking inside a students brain, just like reading their written work or listening to them explain an answer out loud in their own words. This very short video (less than 2 minutes) will show you more. I was fortunate enough to see her speak recently. If your team wants a quick mini lesson on this or if you want me to do a quick mini lesson with your students on this, please let me know. I'd love to come share with you all.

PS- no art skills required. :)

Classroom Screen

Tired of reminding kids what to do or how long until lunch or what voice level to have? Try classroom screen. You can display a timer, voice level, notes to class, etc. all in one place. Check it out at https://classroomscreen.com/

Formative Assessment (Assessment for Learning)

According to Black and William (1998), formative assessment is at the heart of teaching. They note that “teaching and learning must be interactive,” and that “assessment becomes formative assessment when the evidence is actually used to adapt the teaching to meet student needs”

Click here or here for ideas.

Brain Breaks

Under 2 minute video showing some quick brain breaks

https://www.teachingchannel.org/video/brain-break-classroom-transition-nea

Brain Breaks and Focused Attention Practices (who knew you could do rock, paper, scissor math?)

https://www.edutopia.org/blog/brain-breaks-focused-attention-practices-lori-desautels

Easy Ways to Incorporate Brain Breaks in the Day

http://www.allstudentscanshine.com/2014/09/easy-ways-to-make-brain-breaks.html

Digital Learning Day

#DLDay #engageLISD

Resources can be found here.

No Hand Raising

Yep, that's right! No hand raising. This allows for better student engagement. You can use popsicle sticks, or an online name generator to pick a student. If a child says "I don't know" then respond with "I'll come back to you" or have them repeat what a classmate said. Let them know that they won't get out of answering.

For more information on student engagement, look at the engagement ladder.

Cooperative Learning

This chart was created by another IC and features lots of different Kagan/cooperative learning strategies. This is a fast, friendly guide to know what to use when.

High Yield Strategies

Non Linguistic Representation

"Nonlinguistic representations enhance students' ability to use mental images to represent and elaborate on knowledge. To back up slightly, knowledge is stored in two forms: linguistic form (as language) and nonlinguistic form (as mental images and physical sensations). The more individuals use both types of representation, the better they are able to reflect on and recall knowledge. Teachers usually present new knowledge in linguistic form; that is, they either talk to students about new content or ask them to read about new content. When teachers branch out to help students use nonlinguistic representations as well, the effects on achievement are strong because they tap into students' natural tendency for visual image processing (Medina, 2008), helping them to construct meaning of content and skills being learned and to recall it better later.

The ultimate goal for using these strategies is to "produce nonlinguistic representations in the minds of students" so they are better able to process, organize, and retrieve information from memory (Marzano, Pickering, & Pollock, 2001, p. 73)."

information from: http://www.ascd.org/publications/books/112012/chapters/Nonlinguistic-Representations.aspx

Similarities and Differences

Children develop a deeper understanding of content when asked to find similarities and differences. You can use a Venn Diagram for this, but you could also use the Box and T strategy from Writing in Science (or any subject area really).

Summarizing and Note Taking

This may sound hard to achieve in elementary school but it's not. Quick writes, graphic organizers, journal summaries, lists, and outlines are all forms of note taking and summarizing. Summarize a book, a concept in math or science or take or fill in notes in a science, math or writing journal. This could be pictures, words, a sentence or paragraphs depending on the age and subject matter.

Cooperative Learning

Cooperative learning is an educational approach which aims to organize classroom activities into academic and social learning experiences. We know student engagement and student discourse are vital to student learning.

Here are a few you can try this week.

Don't forget to check out the Kagan site for lots of great ideas too.

Homework and Practice:

Teachers should vary the amount of homework based on student grade level (see district expectations here on page 5), keep parent involvement in homework to a minimum, state purpose, and when assigned, written feedback results in largest gain. Retell, recite, and review learning for the day at home, reflective journals are one example. Parents should be informed of the goals and objectives. Purpose should be to practice, review, and apply knowledge.

Growth Mindset- The Power of Yet

As we set up systems in our classroom, take time to let kids know it is okay to make mistakes. That's how we learn and grow. Setting a positive look on learning will help your students beyond the year in your classroom. Promoting growth mindset is a must for educators.

One powerful tool is teaching students the importance of the word "yet". Not all learning will be easy- it requires perseverance and effort. Just because they can't do something now, doesn't mean they won't be able to do it later.

Feel free to watch this video about developing a growth mindset by Carol Dweck or read this short article on 9 ways of teaching growth mindset.

Younger grades, you may like this music video on Yet or this one on not giving up (check out the superstar in this old video). Older grades, you may consider this one.

My Favorite No: Learning From Mistakes video

Talking Chips

When having small group discussions (talk with your table, etc.), give each student 2-3 talking chips (unifix cubes work too). They have to use all their talking chips, no more, no less. This allows for all students to contribute instead of one student dominating the conversation.

You can have different color talking chips to mean different things. For example: blue means a fact, red means a challenging point, yellow means supporting details, white is a questions, etc.

Writing!

Try using the "but line" this week when comparing and contrasting. The Box and T is used as an alternative to the Venn Diagram. Feel free to take a picture and share!

Here are 53 ways to check for understanding.

The weekly newsletters also have the strategies in them.

Comprehension: Summarizing through the Somebody-Wanted-But-So Strategy

The Somebody-Wanted-But-So strategy (Macon, Bewell & Vogt, 1991) can be used during and after reading to help students summarize a story or historical event. Students identify who wanted something (somebody), what they wanted (wanted), what conflict arose (but), and how the problem was solved (so).

Lower Grades: This can be done orally after a read aloud, shared reading, or after reading a book in guided reading.

Upper Grades: If there are characters or groups of people with competing points of view, students can do a SWBS paragraph for each character or group. Students can summarize longer texts by connecting a series of SWBS statements with "then."

Writing Connection: Great prompt (or sentence frame) to use for students to respond to their reading through writing.

Video: Click here for a short video demonstration of this strategy.

Why is Fluency important?

Fluency is integral to the reading process. It enables students to increase their level of comprehension, expand their vocabulary, and complete reading tasks more expediently. Students who are fluent readers are more proficient at complex literacy processes that require a deep level of comprehension, such as critical literacy activities. Students who are not fluent readers may have difficulty decoding words, recognizing words, and distinguishing meaningful chunks in text. In essence, they are often not able to derive meaning from the text because their focus is on deciphering the words, rather than the message conveyed by the text. Although the overarching goal of fluency is understanding and not speed, the rate of reading is a significant part of fluency. Slow readers have to spend more time and expend more cognitive energy to read than fluent readers. Because reading large quantities of complex text is required as students get older, reading can become an overwhelming task for students who are not fluent readers. As teachers, we want to emphasize fluency in reading so that language can power the reading process.

(Allington, 2006; National Reading Panel, 2000; Pressley, Gaskins & Fingeret, 2006; Rasinski, 2006; Vogt & Shearer, 2003)

Ways to Teach Fluency:

• Shared Reading

• Choral Reading

• Readers' Theater

• Poetry Sharing

• Listening to Audio Books

• Model, Teach, Prompt, & Reinforce Fluent Reading Behaviors (click HERE for a short, 2 minute VIDEO demonstrating a strategy to help students with fluency)

A Few Points to Consider Regarding Fluency on Running Records:

• If you are tracking fluency rate, please remember that we no longer hold students back by a specific fluency rate (wpm) as we did when we were using the DRA. You can use DRA wpm recommendations as a general guide, but we don't want to hold students on a level just because they are short a few words per minute. Questions - just ask your campus SRP teacher or instructional coach for more clarification!

• As mentioned above, fluency is an important piece of a child's reading growth. We want to observe students overall fluency, considering all aspects of fluency (phrasing, expression, reading punctuation, rate).

• When analyzing students fluency patterns, consider what is slowing down their rate. Is it that they are reading word by word? (work on phrasing) Is it that they are having to stop and problem solve multiple times? (work on phonics/decoding and/or consider backing down a level) Is it that their rate and phrasing are in place but they don't read with expression? (think about using Readers Theatre or books with lots of dialogue)

Want students to share their work or explain how they did their work with an authentic audience? Try using FlipGrid- it's a website and an app. You can get a free account and students can record and publish to an audience (you, their fellow classmates or parents even). It's easy to use and kids love it. This works great for a quick check for understanding. It's also great for kids who have trouble writing but are great at verbalizing their thoughts.

Remember that think-pair-share Kagan strategy? Well here is a twist on that. Pair- square-post. Instead of sharing with the class, share with the world! The post part means you post it on a website, twitter, blog (kidblog is a great site), padlet, flipgrid, etc. Make the activity meaningful by giving the students an authentic audience.

Four Corners

A quick and easy snapshot of student understanding, Four Corners provides an opportunity for student movement while permitting the teacher to monitor and assess understanding.

The teacher poses a question or makes a statement. Students then move to the appropriate corner of the classroom to indicate their response to the prompt. For example, the corner choices might include “I strongly agree,” “I strongly disagree,” “I agree somewhat,” and “I’m not sure.”

You can also have the corners be: answers to a math problem, rhyming words, places around the world, even silly ones for fun and team building (favorite part of spring break or if you could go anywhere, where would you go).

Bonus: make them talk to each other and explain why they picked that corner. If needed/wanted, allow them to move corners. Again, make them say why.

Lead4Ward App

Did you know you should stop talking/teaching every 5-8 minutes to allow students to process what they are learning? This app has a built in timer for teachers to help remember that. This app also has sentence stems, prompts, cooperative learning ideas, and more right at your finger tips. This is a must have for teachers to take their teaching up a notch.

INTRODUCING NEW VOCABULARY IN 4 EASY STEPS!

Why is it important to teach vocabulary?

Learning new words:

• boosts comprehension

• improves achievement

• enhances communication

• shapes thinking

Four easy steps for introducing new words:

1. Define the new word.

2. Connect the word to something familiar.

3. Relate the word to the book/text.

4. Have students turn and talk to each other about what the word means.

Here is a short, 1 minute VIDEO demonstrating how easily you can incorporate new word learning into your guided reading lesson or read aloud.

How do I know which words to focus on with students?

• Importance and Utility: Is it a word that students are likely to see/read often in other texts?

• Conceptual Understanding: Do my students have a conceptual understanding of this word? (Ex: understanding that a pool has a deep part and a part that isn't deep if you are introducing the word shallow) .

• Instructional Potential: Does this word offer a variety of contexts and uses? (Ex: words with multiple meanings)