Walk into Mrs. Tabbert's classroom and you will see student work all over her walls. The work is fun, creative, and shows authentic connections to the real world. Mrs. Tabbert is all about helping her students make connections to their learning in order to develop a deeper understanding of new concepts. She carefully plans her lessons to incorporate strategic methods that will help the learning "stick" with her students. These methods include movement, gestures, songs, visuals, analogies, and more. Mrs. Tabbert says that setting up a safe and inviting classroom culture was the most important strategy of all - "To me this is the most important thing I could do as an educator because without such a space the deep learning will truly never happen. I want my kids to walk into my classroom and feel comfortable enough to share their thoughts and not worry about if they are right or wrong. One thing you will hear me say often inside the classroom is, "Bravery counts!" which simply means I don't necessarily care what your answer is, I am just proud of you for having the courage to share your thoughts." 

Now that her classroom culture is set, students feel comfortable sharing their thoughts, being creative, and making amazing growth in their learning. When I had the chance to observe Mrs. Tabbert's lesson on inferencing for Reading class, she and the students were using an analogy to make a connection between inferencing and Oreo cookies. Yum. Yes, of course she brought in cookies to start off the unit. The connection between the cookie and the concept was that it takes "schema" (top of cookie) and "text clues" (bottom of cookie)  to make an inference (creme filling). She had the students go even further to remember this concept with a simple handshake and catchy phrase with their partner: "schema + text evidence = inference, BOOM!". The kids loved it. 

"The hand signals and movement for inferencing naturally came about. I always try to incorporate hand gestures and/or some type of movement because I feel by having the students make a physical connection to the material/content it will be more easily recalled later. We often talk as a class that the cheesier the practice with content the more we remember it. Playing the you tube song "Prepositions" over and over while studying them may seem goofy, but again it is in the end the "stuff" that sticks with us. Simply put, the inferencing hand motions were a fun way to help the skill stick with the kiddos. (Not to mention they thought it was pretty cool to make up their own personalized gestures too;)"

After the class practiced as a large group together, Mrs. Tabbert sent them off to practice with their partners by creating a paper Oreo cookie. They had to identify schema, text evidence, and the inference from their text using three circles that then came together to create a cookie. Mrs. Tabbet's selection of partners was also strategic. "I now set partner groups up so students are required to leave their seat and walk to a different area of the room in order to have conversation with a peer. It still only takes a few minutes and I can tell a difference the getting up and moving about has on the level of engagement my students have when discussing with their partner." 

Mrs. Tabbert is always looking for ways to help her students engage in learning that is outside of the box, will help new concepts stick, and apply to learning that goes beyond the classroom. Her favorite resources are Reading Rockets, Keys to Literacy (website), Teachers Pay Teachers,  and her coworkers. She says she "really enjoys getting technology incorporated into lessons and of course so do the kids." 

If you are looking for new strategies to engage your learners through hand movements, gestures, analogies, and/or technology, Mrs. Tabbert is full of ideas. I walked away from one classroom visit with lots of new ideas for incorporating movement, new ways to partner students, and great ideas for analogies to deepen my students' learning. Mrs. Tabbert is an outstanding teacher. Thanks for letting me visit, Mrs. Tabbert!

Check out the links for more research and ideas on making connections in the classroom.