Embedded Files
Problem
Navigating through a year of remote learning during the pandemic, and a year of readjusting to the classroom has surfaced and perpetuated challenges in student engagement across Maker. Since returning to in-person learning, teacher-driven instruction has been prevalent and both students and staff have voiced a need for regrounding core Maker practices of CBE, PBL, and design learning. Student behaviors such as lateness and daily / period attendance are additional areas of growth that have been identified based on student engagement and rigorous expectations. We don’t want students who are merely compliant; we want them to be learning, we want them to be challenged, and we want them to feel that their presence matters. We want the learning that happens in our classrooms to support them in their experiences outside of our classroom as well.
Hypothesis
If students are provided a more structured protocol for small group discussion, then every student will be more actively engaged and make more substantive contributions.
If students are strategically grouped, heterogeneously, my hope is that one student in each pair can support their peers, which will then be evident in writing tasks that follow discussion.
Target group
I have selected my 9th grade students because I have struggled in ensuring that all students are actively engaged and participating. I also want to do a better job with heterogeneous grouping so that students with a stronger grasp on certain skills can support other students. This is organically happening in my 11th grade class, but I need to be more intentional about it in 9th grade.
Planning & resources
There are two different protocols that I have tried out.
Descriptions, planning resources, and teacher-made materials are linked below!
Teacher Made Materials
Role Play Discussion
The first was a role play discussion, which I learned about from the Zinn Education Project resource. In pairs, students each took on a different character’s perspective and had one minute to launch into a monologue. As one student engaged in the role play, the other would jot down any lines or emotions that come up during the monologue. At the end, the listener would reflect on the specific words/phrases that resonated with them from the monologue.
Planning resource: https://www.zinnedproject.org/news/how-to-teach-role-plays/
Hand-Out: Role Play Brainstorm
Stop Bank - Small Group Reading
I got this second idea based on the small group reading intervention that the school is rolling out. Students were in groups of three or four and alternated reading a podcast transcript out loud. As they read, they each had to stop three different times and respond to the text using the Stop bank that I created - there were four different types of Stops - defining an unknown word, summarizing the text, connecting to the text, and reacting to the text.
Planning resource: Collaborative Reading Protocol
Hand-Out: Stop Bank
Data collection
Data collection
Baseline data
We collected quantitative data around the number of students that participated whenever we would ask for a “turn and talk response.” We had 8 out of 17 kids actively sharing when using a simple turn and talk.
We also collected qualitative data around the depth of the comments. During a turn and talk question in which students had to discuss whether Troy was an honorable character, we heard many general responses. One example was: “He is not honorable because he is mean to his family.”
Measuring success
We then counted the number of students who were actively engaging after introducing an intentional protocol. During the role play we had 14 out of 16 students engage and during the Stop Read protocol, 12 out of 16 students engaged for the first stop and 13/16 engaged for the second stop.
During the Role Play activity, students were able to delve deeper. One student, acting as the protagonist Troy expressed, “I feel that I am just repeating my father’s mistakes. The one thing I tried to avoid is what I become.” During the Stop Bank Activity, we heard some really thoughtful connections: “Desiree’s relationship with Stella reminds me of my relationship with my sibling because we feel as if we are made from the same clay.”
I also measured the success of these protocols by looking at the writing products that students produced after engaging in the discussion. After the role play, students who have struggled in the past with generating ideas crafted extremely detailed diary entries from the perspective of a character, demonstrating that the heterogenous pairings for the role play supported students in the writing process.
Overall findings & impact
Overall, I definitely think I was successful in increasing engagement. Through these different protocols, the number of students actively participating has increased as well as the quality of their contributions. However, I am still struggling with solving the problem of sustained, organic conversation. They have also supported students in writing tasks that have followed discussion.
While these protocols have guided students in sharing their ideas, they have been less successful in supporting them with responding to their peers’ ideas. This is something I want to continue to work on. Later this week, Jordan and I plan to specifically model how the Stop Bank leads to a sustained discussion over a particular text.
Student Work Examples
The discussions during the role play led to extremely detailed writing tasks that I have attached below. These are diary entries from two students that have struggled in the past:
Actionable steps
If you want to use this strategy in your classroom, I recommend …
Using the Role Play as a brainstorm for a writing activity, particularly one in which students are writing from a specific point of view.
For the Stop Bank, definitely model it first with a paragraph of text. Also, use stickers so students can keep track of which stops that they make. It also greatly increases engagement - kids love stickers!
Lindsey Benjamin | lindsey.benjamin@uamaker.nyc
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