Menu of Activities

This strategy is frequently used to provide students with ownership of their own learning, as they get to pick which activities to complete within the timeframe.

The process is fairly straightforward: in your PLC, or as an individual, decide how you'd like students to present information. This can be at the end of a unit, or as a semester project.

Students have to complete various tasks to add up to the pre-determined required value. You will need to dedicate class time to it (one class week is common) as students work independently to complete the tasks they've chosen.

See the PDF example and customize as needed. 

Adaptation: you can have one large board that students sign up on, and after a certain number of students have signed up for one activity, no one else can do that one. 

Accommodation: This activity is built for differentiation; students self-select the tasks they want to accomplish, so it accommodates all learning levels and styles.

Modification: You can provide a shortened menu for students whose IEP indicates that they would benefit from a more narrow selection. You can also allow extra time to complete tasks. You might also consider re-working some of the tasks to allow for diverse learners to complete the tasks more successfully.

Here's the process:

Individually, or in your PLC, consider the following questions:

- Are the understanding goals worded in a way that is accessible to students? Are your We Will/I Will statements written in teacherese, or written as an afterthought?

- Can students explain what they’re learning from what they are doing? Can they say why that learning is important?

* This is important to do with the start of each unit and/or day; students need to know WHY they're doing something as much as they need to know WHAT they're doing.

- Do students seem genuinely curious about the topic and engaged in their work? Have you made it personally relevant to them in some way?

- Are students making connections between what they’re doing in the classroom and what they’re doing outside of school or in other classes? If not, how can you connect the unit/topic to ONE other course?

- Do both students and teachers refer to the understanding goals in the course of the lesson and connect their classroom activities to those goals? If the activities aren't directly tied to the goals, why not?

After considering the previous questions in structuring your plan, consider the next few questions as you create activities aimed at mastery:

- Are students being asked to use what they know in new ways?

- Are students working on SHOWING their understanding most of the time?

- Do you spend most of your time coaching, conferencing, leading, participating in discussions (and only occasionally lecturing)?

- Are there ongoing assessment processes are being used?

- Do the students and teacher share responsibility for assessing the work?

- Is work assessed according to criteria that are explicit, public, and closely related to the understanding goals?

So what does this look like? It can be as simple as starting class by explicitly having students read the objective and outcome (We Will/I Will) for the day; you can even have them keep a journal in which their entrance ticket/warm-up each day is writing the day's objective and outcome. 

Once you've begun class, tell students what they will be doing, and explain how it's connected to the goal for the day, and how the product will show they have achieved the goal.

As class progresses, begin every response to questions with something like, "Remember what the goal is today...how does this item/issue/question relate to the goal? Remember what you're supposed to be working towards creating..." [POWER ZONE]

As class wraps up, students show their mastery and you can remind them of the goal as they complete an exit ticket or turn in their work: did their final product achieve the goal, and is their product what they were supposed to create? [CRITICAL WRITING]

Adaptation: Give students the opportunity for bonus rewards (stickers, pencils, pieces of candy, etc) for quizzing each other on the goal and outcome for the day. If they can show that they asked and/or answered correctly, they get a little mini-celebration! [RECOGNIZE & REINFORCE]

Accommodation: Provide sentence stem handouts with the objective and outcome for the day to the students who need it; for ELL, they can be given a printed copy of the goals for the day, and can copy into their own journal.

Modification:  Connect this to the  lesson idea "The 3Ys." Encourage students to answer their own "why do we have to learn this" questions.

Quality Questioning

There is a book on this topic, and it provides a wealth of ideas for refocusing lecture time. Students consider and discuss an important concept before you give them the full explanation. This gets students thinking critically (and predicting), utilizing prior knowledge, and working with each other to uncover information (rather than you simply "covering" it). 

Here's the process:

1. Project an image, passage, or question for students to consider. See example below.

2. Students spend a few moments discussing in pairs and writing their thoughts, predicting or answering your question.

3. You call on people to share their thoughts, and encourage people to clarify by asking probing questions, like, "Why do you think that?" (This also gives them an opportunity to participate in a low pressure environment, since they come up with it in pairs or small groups).

4. Once you're satisfied they've reached the limit of what they think the explanation is, reveal the answer and move to the next item.

This process can be used in any setting or content; purposefully plan in your PLC for what content is essential for students to gain, and come up with quality questions as the process. Instead of lecturing to give them the information, have them think and guess and discus first, then clarify and correct errors. The idea is to convert questions away from yes/no closed-answers and allow students flexibility to think and talk through possibilities first. 

Adaptation: Have students write their own questions before the content exploration starts. Have them predict what questions they think you might ask (and, after you review their submissions, ask some of those questions!). Show a solitary image and have them discuss what questions should be asked about it.

Accommodation: Give students who might need a little assistance some prior knowledge--tell them you will ask a question about <XYZ> and you aren't sure many people will know they answers, so "Could you say this when I ask that question?" You can also provide the questions to those students in advance (since you will have developed them in your PLC) and tell them you'd love to have their input in a few days when you start the content discussion.

Modification: Create a Google Slides presentation that you share on Classroom, and ask the questions in class and have students digitally converse about the possible answers. Or, post the passages/images/questions around the room and have students walk around with sticky notes and write at least one question and one response for each posting.