Communicating With Students

Quality of questions; Discussion technique; student participation

Activities and assignments; student groups; instructional materials and resources; structure and pacing

In terms of “Thoughtful work,” students engaged with their peers to stretch their creativity in creating a cover of a song. The groups were student-generated and the songs were group-selected. This undoubtedly inspired the students to pursue self-discovery.

Then the students explored High-Level Questioning throughout the project. Students were not only actively engaged in developing rigorous questions to challenge the thinking of their peers, but also able to respond to rigorous questions generated by peers with little guidance from the teacher. As they worked, students had to make decisions through compromise and negotiation with each other. For example, what are the different notes of the melody? How will we make a harmony line? Who will play what parts? How long will the song be, and how will it start and end?

One area of improvement may be in the Academic Discussion portion of this rigorous project. The rubric describes well developed discussion as independent engagement in dialogue and “valuable academic content around the learning task.” While we had lofty aspirations for the project, it was too much too soon. For the next project, we will scaffold it more appropriately to the musical experiences of the students.

Using Assessment in Instruction

I am always ready to display the above slide about PAWS, but it may not be applicable to the most pressing issues that we are working on that day. So, having the slide prepared for when it is the moment means I can have a detailed lesson when the students are ready, not just when I am ready!