Ongoing Strategies

Active listening requires several interconnected skills: demonstrating careful attention to both verbal and nonverbal communications; clarifying a speaker’s message by asking questions or paraphrasing; giving thoughtful, empathetic feedback; and sharing. It is an essential element of productive group work and a foundational building block for students as they work together to engage in inquiry. The following advice can be used to coach students to improve their active listening skills:

 • Use “I” statements to demonstrate understanding (e.g., “Let me see if I understand. I heard you say . . .”). 

• Ask questions to gather additional information, refine ideas, resolve misperceptions, and/or extend the conversation. 

• Restate or reframe ideas to affirm understanding, avoid wrong assumptions, and foster dialogue. 

• Provide feedback using a tone that demonstrates openness, empathy, and support (e.g., answer the speaker’s questions; make nonjudgmental comments like “That’s an interesting point”).

 • Recognize your own values and biases, and understand how they may interfere with listening. • Know how to conclude a conversation (e.g., be reflective, indicate appreciation, apply information to a new situation). 

• Prepare for listening (e.g., review what you already know about the topic).

• Use your body to demonstrate attention or support (e.g., face the speaker; make eye contact; use appropriate facial expressions, body movements, and posture). Instructional Strategies 9 

• Use silence or lulls in the conversation to think through points made and/or to encourage more disclosure. 

Active listening is a skill that requires ongoing practice. Whether students are listening to a lecture, working in pairs, or sharing ideas in a group, they should continually work on this skill. 

Purposes 

• Anchor charts build a culture of literacy in the classroom, as teachers and students make thinking visible by recording content, strategies, processes, cues, and guidelines during the learning process.

 • Posting anchor charts keeps relevant and current learning accessible to students to remind them of prior learning and to enable them to make connections as new learning happens. 

• Students refer to the charts and use them as tools as they answer questions, expand ideas, or contribute to discussions and problem-solving in class. 

Building Anchor Charts

 • Teachers model building anchor charts as they work with students to debrief strategies modeled in a mini-lesson. 

• Students add ideas to an anchor chart as they apply new learning, discover interesting ideas, or develop useful strategies for problem-solving or skill application. 

• Teachers and students add to anchor charts as they debrief student work time, recording important facts, useful strategies, steps in a process, or quality criteria. 

• Students create anchor charts during small group and independent work to share with the rest of the class.   

A Note on Quality

• Anchor charts contain only the most relevant or important information so as not to confuse students. 

• Post only those charts that reflect current learning and avoid distracting clutter—hang charts on clotheslines or set-up in distinct places of the room; rotate charts that are displayed to reflect most useful content. Engage NY 

Lampert (2001) writes that there is a balancing act in managing “the tension between working with individuals and working with the whole class” and “the conflict between leaving students alone to see what they can do on their own and guiding their activity to make it productive” (p. 121). Taking anecdotal notes about students’ work during class can help create that balance. Bomer (1995) recommends taking notes on a clipboard, keeping a record of students’ strengths and struggles throughout each class period. Notes should be reviewed frequently and used as a guide for adjusting instruction. The notes will always be imperfect and incomplete, but over time they will construct a running history of students’ effort, classroom experiences, and learning. 

Anecdotal notes may also be used to communicate information to parents. The teacher may choose to send a note home describing a student’s accomplishment, or notes may be used in a more formal setting to describe a student’s overall progress (Helm, Beneke, & Steinheimer, 1998). 

Asking questions is essential to every effective classroom discussion, whether class-wide or in small groups. As Brualdi (1998) says, questions • promote active student involvement; 

• invite students to express their thoughts and ideas, giving voice to multiple perspectives on a given topic; and 

• help to clarify students’ questions or possible misunderstandings. 

Questions exist on a range from lower to higher order (Gayle, Preiss, & Allen, 2006). Lowerorder questions prompt group members to recall what they have already learned, while higher-order questions encourage them to move beyond rote knowledge to apply, analyze, evaluate, and ultimately create knowledge. The following guidelines, suggested by Brualdi (1998), can help teachers model how to ask questions and respond to answers effectively: 

• Use clear language, and ask questions that are primarily academic in nature. 

• Provide three to five seconds of wait time before asking other group members to respond. 

• Give some sort of response to every question asked.

• Encourage both volunteers and nonvolunteers to respond. 

• Work toward deeper understanding by asking for responses to be clarified, positions to be supported, and/or ideas to be expanded upon. 

• Help students who answer incorrectly; use specific feedback and/or praise to acknowledge correct answers. 

• Avoid trick, vague, and overly abstract questions. Instructional Strategies 

Studies suggest that exposure to higher-order questions can improve students’ thinking capacity and overall academic achievement (Dornisch & Sperling, 2004; Gayle, Preiss, & Allen, 2006). As students learn to answer higher-order questions, they are able to think more critically about the content they are learning. Research suggests that students’ answers can match the cognitive level of questions they are asked (Gayle, Preiss, & Allen, 2006). 

The following verbs correlate with the six levels of thinking in the revised Bloom’s Taxonomy (Anderson & Krathwohl, 2001): 

• Remember: recognize, recall, identify, retrieve, define, memorize, repeat, label, tell 

• Understand: interpret, clarify, paraphrase, translate, give an example of, illustrate, classify, summarize, predict, infer, compare, contrast, map, match, explain, demonstrate, restate, rewrite, identify, locate 

• Apply: execute, carry out, implement, use, proceed, employ, solve, simulate, demonstrate, dramatize, calculate, experiment 

• Analyze: differentiate, discriminate, distinguish, select, organize, integrate, parse, structure, compare, contrast, deconstruct, classify, select, subdivide

• Evaluate: check, detect, monitor, test, critique, judge, defend 

• Create: generate, hypothesize, plan, design, produce, construct 

Posting these verbs in a prominent place in the classroom calls attention to the difference between lower- and higher-level tasks, and it helps raise the level of classroom discussion (Lindsay et al., 2006). Students can reference the verbs to determine what sorts of questions to ask to complete an assigned task, or they can use the verbs as a check to analyze the effectiveness or appropriateness of their questions. This supports students as they work to develop self-questioning skills and as they engage with each other in inquiry activities. 

A double-entry journal is a writing strategy that emphasizes reflection (Hughes, Kooy, & Kanevsky, 1997). As such, it helps students develop metacognitive monitoring skills. A doubleentry journal is typically used for exploring ideas presented through readings (Brewster & Klump, 2004), lectures, presentations, class discussions (Hughes et al., 1997), or anything that might be thought-provoking. 

An entry in a double-entry journal can take up facing notebook pages, halves of a sheet of paper divided vertically down the center, or even adjacent columns of a table (L’Allier & Elish-Piper, 2007). On the left, a student transcribes or summarizes an important, intriguing, or confusing point from the text. On the right, the student reflects upon what he or she transcribed or summarized. Taken together, the pair of entries forms a conversation between the source and the student. This is why the strategy is sometimes called a “dialogic” or “dialogue” journal: its form represents a kind of dialogue (Kuzma, 1994). 

When asking students to keep a double-entry journal in class, Hughes et al. (1997) recommend planning time after a reading, discussion, or lecture for students to write their reflections. To encourage students’ thinking and shared exploration, the journal entries can then be used as jumping-off points for small-group discussions (Hughes et al., 1997; L’Allier & Elish-Piper, 2007). 

Requiring students to write in journals has a long tradition in teaching English courses. Mathematics and science teachers have also observed several of the benefits of journals observed by English teachers such as Burke (2003). For example:

• Journals serve as a place where students can reflect upon and represent their learning in safety (Burke, 2003). DiPillo, Sovchik, and Moss (1997) found that using journals helped increase student interest in mathematics. Shepardson and Britsch (2000) showed that using journals promoted increased reflection on scientific concepts and increased understanding. Students become more engaged in science class and more responsible for their own learning. 

• Journals provide a place where students can have private conversations with their teachers (Burke, 2003). Observing two mathematics classes, DiPillo et al. (1997) discovered that journals opened up a new platform for conversations between students and teachers. Teachers learned about their students’ understanding and frustrations more easily through the journals. They were able to conduct private conversations with students to correct misconceptions. 

• Journals help teachers learn more about their students’ progress (Burke, 2003). Jurdak and Zein (1998) found that mathematics teachers had a finer sense of students’ intellectual growth, questions, and abilities in class when their students kept journals. Journals helped the teachers assess their students’ work and change their instruction accordingly. 

The way that Burke (2003) uses journals can be a good model for introducing them in other classrooms. First, he has students write in their journals frequently. Sometimes he prompts students to write with focused, thought-provoking questions, quotations, or images. Focused prompts can help develop students’ interest in the material (DiPillo et al., 1997). At other times, Burke’s journal prompts are open-ended, such as when he asks students to write an immediate response to an in-class reading. Such open-ended prompts can promote reflection and develop understanding (Shepardson & Britsch, 2000). To promote openness and offer students a positive model to follow, Burke periodically reads his own journal entries aloud. Finally, Burke reads his students’ journal entries, but because he wants students to use their journals to explore new ideas, he never grades them. 

A learning log is a type of journal that documents learning with a series of brief entries. As such, it gives students an opportunity to reflect on what and how they are learning. Buehl (2008, p. 142) lists several reasons for keeping a learning log, including: 

• Preparing for exams 

• Predicting the results of an experiment 

• Describing the steps of a math problem 

• Raising and clarifying points of confusion 

• Comparing one’s understanding at certain points throughout the learning process
A learning log can be as simple as a series of lists. For example, one entry might list key concepts learned, a second might list points that need clarification, and a third might list questions that need answering.

Students should be given multiple opportunities to write in and review their logs. When entries are made on a regular basis and reviewed often, the learning log offers students a means to evaluate their educational progress as well as their strengths and weaknesses as learners (Angelo & Cross, 1993). 

A portfolio is a collection of work that a student compiles throughout an academic year that showcases what the student can do. Like a portfolio created by a photographer or an artist, students’ academic portfolios should include samples of students’ best work from a variety of assignments and projects. Portfolios should not be thought of as extra work; rather, they are compilations of what a student would typically complete over a given time period. 

A portfolio can be a valuable assessment. Choosing the assignments or projects to include in a portfolio requires self-assessment. At the same time, portfolios give teachers a long view of students’ progress, allowing them to gauge how individual students have improved throughout the year. Portfolios also provide a larger perspective on the class as a whole, helping the teacher evaluate which assignments were useful and which were not. This helps teachers make well-informed adjustments to their instruction. 

Because portfolios showcase the best of what students have created, teachers may consider hosting an event in which students display and present their work to families, administrators, fellow students, and/or community members. Such an event gives interested parties a more detailed understanding of what has happened in the classroom throughout the school year. An event like this also provides students with an op 

By allowing students the opportunity to record questions they might be reluctant to ask publicly, a classroom question box serves an important assessment function (Wiggins & McTighe, 2005). Especially in the face of awkward or sometimes sensitive questions, a question box allows the teacher to “troubleshoot before something arises” (Crawford, 2004, p. 102). 

Chadha (2008) suggests placing a question box in a special location in the room. After each day’s lesson, students should be given time to reflect on what they have learned and identify any remaining questions. As they leave for the day, they should drop their questions in the question box. Students do not need to put their names on their questions. Afterward, the teacher should review all of the questions, plan how to address them, and set aside class time to do so. Chadha points out that students may not submit many questions initially; however, this may change when students see the teacher addressing their questions meaningfully, either through providing the answer or guiding students to discover it themselves. 

Self-questioning helps students to clarify, reflect on, and regulate what they are learning. In other words, self-questioning helps students analyze their own thinking to identify the precise concepts with which they struggle. Self-questioning is an ongoing academic behavior that helps to develop students’ self-knowledge. 

To introduce self-questioning to younger students, McLaughlin and Allen (2002) recommend exploring “I wonder” statements, as in the following steps:

 1. Model “I wonder” statements with a think-aloud in front of the class. For example, examine the cover of a book and ask, “I wonder what role the character shown here will play?”

 2. Have students practice self-questioning in small groups. As students survey a book, for example, they should look at the table of contents, skim the chapter headings, or read a few paragraphs. Periodically, they should ask themselves “I wonder” questions. This step can include students comparing their questions with their peers’. 

3. Direct students to use “I wonder” statements independently. Students should record their questions in their journals as they work. (The effectiveness with which students are using self-questioning can be assessed later by reviewing students’ journals.) 

For introducing self-questioning to older students, Buehl (2007) recommends steps built around the revised Bloom’s Taxonomy: 

1. Lead students through the six levels of the revised Bloom’s Taxonomy: Remember, Understand, Apply, Analyze, Evaluate, and Create (Anderson & Krathwohl, 2001). Conduct a think-aloud that models how the verbs at the different levels would direct your thinking. For example, note that “Remember” involves recalling information, while “Analyze” may involve trying to figure out a main point or underlying assumptions. 

2. Discuss how each level corresponds to a certain kind of comprehension statement. For example, “Understand” means that I can restate and explain an author’s message. 

3. Match each level with a focusing question. For example, the focusing question for “Understand” might be “What does the author want me to understand?” 

4. Encourage students to develop additional questions for their repertoires as they become comfortable asking themselves higher-order questions. Making sure students are comfortable asking higher-order questions before adding more questions ensures they do not remain at a lower level of thinking. For example, an additional “Understand” question might be “What facts or perspectives is the author trying to communicate?” 

Regardless of age, students should work continuously to develop a range of self-questions. 

Self-questioning helps students to clarify, reflect on, and regulate what they are learning. In other words, self-questioning helps students analyze their own thinking to identify the precise concepts with which they struggle. Self-questioning is an ongoing academic behavior that helps to develop students’ self-knowledge. 

To introduce self-questioning to younger students, McLaughlin and Allen (2002) recommend exploring “I wonder” statements, as in the following steps:

 1. Model “I wonder” statements with a think-aloud in front of the class. For example, examine the cover of a book and ask, “I wonder what role the character shown here will play?”

 2. Have students practice self-questioning in small groups. As students survey a book, for example, they should look at the table of contents, skim the chapter headings, or read a few paragraphs. Periodically, they should ask themselves “I wonder” questions. This step can include students comparing their questions with their peers’. 

3. Direct students to use “I wonder” statements independently. Students should record their questions in their journals as they work. (The effectiveness with which students are using self-questioning can be assessed later by reviewing students’ journals.) 

For introducing self-questioning to older students, Buehl (2007) recommends steps built around the revised Bloom’s Taxonomy: 

1. Lead students through the six levels of the revised Bloom’s Taxonomy: Remember, Understand, Apply, Analyze, Evaluate, and Create (Anderson & Krathwohl, 2001). Conduct a think-aloud that models how the verbs at the different levels would direct your thinking. For example, note that “Remember” involves recalling information, while “Analyze” may involve trying to figure out a main point or underlying assumptions. 

2. Discuss how each level corresponds to a certain kind of comprehension statement. For example, “Understand” means that I can restate and explain an author’s message. 

3. Match each level with a focusing question. For example, the focusing question for “Understand” might be “What does the author want me to understand?” 

4. Encourage students to develop additional questions for their repertoires as they become comfortable asking themselves higher-order questions. Making sure students are comfortable asking higher-order questions before adding more questions ensures they do not remain at a lower level of thinking. For example, an additional “Understand” question might be “What facts or perspectives is the author trying to communicate?” 

Regardless of age, students should work continuously to develop a range of self-questions.