5 Powerful Questions Teachers Can Ask Students My first year teaching a literacy coach came to observe my classroom. After the students left, she commented on how I asked the whole class a question, would wait just a few seconds, and then answer it myself. "It's cute," she added. So that day, I learned about wait/think time. Many would agree that for inquiry to be alive and well in a classroom that, amongst other things, the teacher needs to be expert at asking strategic questions, and not only asking well-designed ones, but ones that will also lead students to questions of their own. Keeping It Simple I also learned over the years that asking straightforward, simply-worded questions can be just as effective as those intricate ones. #1. This question interrupts us from telling too much. #2. After students share what they think, this follow-up question pushes them to provide reasoning for their thinking. #3. #4. This question can inspire students to extend their thinking and share further evidence for their ideas. #5.
0188B251ED626B0C9ED674387ADAE37D4F main article 6650 Ten Takeaway Tips for Teaching Critical Thinking Suggestions from educators at KIPP King Collegiate High School on how to help develop and assess critical-thinking skills in your students. Ideally, teaching kids how to think critically becomes an integral part of your approach, no matter what subject you teach. But if you're just getting started, here are some concrete ways you can begin leveraging your students' critical-thinking skills in the classroom and beyond. 1. Questions, questions, questions. Questioning is at the heart of critical thinking, so you want to create an environment where intellectual curiosity is fostered and questions are encouraged. In the beginning stages, you may be doing most of the asking to show your students the types of questions that will lead to higher-level thinking and understanding. 2. Pose a provocative question to build an argument around and help your students break it down. 3. 4. 5. Lively discussions usually involve some degree of differing perspectives. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10.
8 Strategies To Help Students Ask Great Questions 8 Strategies To Help Students Ask Great Questions by Terry Heick Questions can be extraordinary learning tools. A good question can open minds, shift paradigms, and force the uncomfortable but transformational cognitive dissonance that can help create thinkers. In education, we tend to value a student’s ability to answer our questions. The latter is a topic for another day, but the former is why we’re here. 1. The TeachThought Learning Taxonomy is a template for critical thinking that frames cognition across six categories. It imagines any learning product, goal, or objective as a “thing,” then suggests different ways to think about said “thing”–mitosis, a math formula, an historical figure, a poem, a poet, a computer coding language, a political concept, a literary device, etc. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. A literary device–a metaphor example, is usually studied in isolation. Function–Communicate the metaphor’s most ideal utility (how it can and should be used, and why). The upside? 2. 3. 4. 5. 6.
50+ Tools for Differentiating Instruction Through Social Media Imagine a world where resources were limited to what was found in the classroom or the school closet known as the "Curriculum Materials Room." Picture a world where students wrote letters with pen and paper to communicate with other students and adults outside of the building. Due to postage costs, the teacher either sent the letters in bulk or paid for stamps out of his or her own pocket. Can you recall a time when student interests like skateboarding or video were never used as part of learning curriculum because the tools needed were either too expensive or not yet conceptualized? If you experienced none of these scenarios, then you live in a world of possibility because you grew up with the many social media tools available to support all learners. Selecting the Right Tool For educators differentiating instruction, social media tools embrace collaboration and global access to people and other resources. The list of social media tools to differentiate for learning is increasing.
Helping Diverse Learners Succeed My career got off to a bad start when I was hired to teach in a Minneapolis Ojibwe Survival School. That was the year that Prince's Sign O the Times dropped -- the year most of my lesson plans failed. More terrifying was the fact that I had no backup plan. I'm embarrassed now to admit that I sent over 15 kids to in-school suspension in a single morning. A chair was thrown at my head and later a waterfowl-sized stone. The attempted assaults weren't fun, but I classified them as aberrations and moved on. It took a decade for me to figure out what I did wrong -- a lot of little things, but one big thing. Today we know more strategies for helping all kinds of students succeed. Research-Based Strategies for Working with Diverse Learners A review of the research (PDF, 119KB) on teaching diverse learners sorts the "best practices" into four categories, summarized below: 1. Teachers address beliefs that lead to lower expectations of diverse students and persistently teach challenging curriculum.
Are Teachers of Tomorrow Prepared to Use Innovative Tech? Getty Images With a new generation of teachers coming into the work force, there’s a discrepancy between what principals expect of teachers-in-training and what they’re actually learning in school. A new Project Tomorrow report surveying principals concluded that they want to hire new teachers with creative ideas about how technology can be leveraged to create authentic and differentiated learning experiences. But student-teachers report that their tech training focuses only on simple management tools. Only half of current working teachers believe they can use technology to motivate students to learn, compared to 75 percent of incoming teachers. Teachers-in-training say coursework focuses on technologies that help a teacher stay organized, rather than ways to engage students. Incoming teachers use tech fluidly in their own lives, but they’re learning to teach within a system that lags behind the times. These incoming teachers appear to be caught between generations. Related
A Teacher's Guide to Differentiating Instruction Introduction Does effectively teaching 30 students in one classroom require teachers to develop 30 lessons, one tailor-made for each student? Or should teachers “aim for the middle” and hope to reach most students in a given lesson? The answer is not simple. What is Differentiation? Simply stated, differentiation is modified instruction that helps students with diverse academic needs and learning styles master the same challenging academic content. How to Start Four planning steps set the stage for effective differentiated instruction. Vary Materials Author Joyce Van Tassel-Baska (2003) suggests that the selection of materials for use in the classroom is a crucial next step to effective differentiated instruction. Nonfiction and fiction, written at a variety of reading levels. The use of varied materials will encourage these students to understand the concept of “main idea” not only within language arts but in other settings as well. Vary Process Vary Assessment Conclusion References Good, M.
Students Tell All: What It’s Like to Be Trusted Partners in Learning Inquiry-based learning is not a new pedagogy, but it has come back into fashion in progressive education circles recently because of new emphasis on the power of students’ innate curiosity to drive learning. Inquiry-based learning asks students to discover knowledge on their own with guidance from their teachers. Rather than receiving information up front through lectures, students research guiding questions, ask their own follow-ups and get help along the way. Learning through inquiry requires more student agency and demands that teachers and administrators trust that students will ask when they need help. Science Leadership Academy students spoke about their learning experience at the school. Nomi Martin-Brouilette said she appreciates the trust SLA’s teachers place in students to be partners in their learning. Listen to students describe the good parts and the hard parts of learning through inquiry. *These interviews were done in January, 2014 and some students have graduated.
Empowering Student Relationships With Media Debates over children and media use are nothing new, but the technologies by which children primarily interact with media have changed significantly. Most guidelines related to "screen time" were developed when television was the dominant media, but new technologies are making us question the value of older research. In its most recent report on the subject, the American Academy of Pediatrics makes reference to "important positive and prosocial effects of media use," and a call for expanding media education programs in schools. While more dedicated media education in schools would be great, it is little more than a pipe dream in the current climate of low budgets and high-stake tests. It is therefore incumbent on individual educators to help students interact with media in ways that are critical and empowering. We cannot limit this work to media that we have selected for quality or educational value. A New Taxonomy Image Credit: Josh Weisgrau Consume Curate Create Critique Publish
A Classroom Management Strategy For The First Days Of School At the start of a new school year, it’s common for teachers to send home a packet of information for parents. This packet typically consists of school policies and procedures, daily schedules, papers to be signed, and hopefully a classroom management plan. This is all fine and good. But by throwing all this information together in a single packet, you’re missing an opportunity to get classroom management started with a bang. The beginning of the school year is the perfect time to send a pleasant behavioral shock wave through your new class of students and their parents. After all, they’re ripe for a change. The students who have had behavior problems in the past are either hopeful to turn over a new leaf or chomping at the bit to wrest control of the class from you as quickly as they can. Either way, the strategy I’m going to share with you sets the tone for the upcoming school year and is an important first step to creating the class you really want. The Classroom Management Packet 1. 2.