This week's readings discussed various ways to both show and
support students' changes in thinking. While they offered many great
suggestions for different norms to set and models to use there were three
techniques that I am planning to implement as we return from spring break. The
first is the idea of the “back pocket questions.” I continually circulate while
my students are doing labs or activities but, too often, I am focused on
keeping them on task and monitoring their progress rather than monitoring their
thinking. Pre-writing a few questions beforehand will allow me to form
higher-level questions that will push them past “what” to “why” and “how.”
The second idea I look forward to
trying is to have each student in a group work with a different color marker.
Many of my students are initially reluctant to volunteer ideas especially if
they are not certain of the answer. To encourage their thinking and bolster
their confidence, I often use a lot of small group work in my classes. These
groups allow them to bounce ideas off each other in a lower risk environment
before sharing them with the class. However, I have consistently had trouble
with ensuring that all members of the group are contributing equally. I have
played around with individual vs. group grades for group projects but, for
formative activities like an initial model, I have struggled with individual
accountability. For this reason, I really like the idea of having a way to
clearly see what each student has contributed to the model. These separate
colors enable the students, as well as the teacher, to see who has contributed
and who has yet to do so, enabling them to take responsibility for themselves
and their group.
Finally, I intend to implement the
“summary charts” described in the reading. Much like the author, I have also
seen my students struggle to recall what activities we’ve done earlier in the
unit and their larger significance. As I enter the next unit I am going to work
to build in 5-10min at the end of each class to recap both what we have done
and what it means. For legibility’s sake, I am thinking that I will be the one
to add new ideas to the chart at the recommendation of the students. However,
longer-term, I would like to be able to pass more of the ownership to the
students.
I like the idea of back pocket questions. I often find myself wrapped up in either keeping some students on task, or I find myself wrapped up in doing the lab with them. I’d even go as far as saying write these questions on index cards and pull them out when you find the time. That way if nothing else you can give the group the question to work on while you circulate. Another idea for having students revisit old activities is to have them keep a folder. This has been useful for me especially when it comes time to review. They have at their hands everything we’ve done for the semester.
ReplyDeleteI totally agree with you that I feel like I am constantly spending all of my time redirecting, rather than tracking their thinking, during activities. Questioning is the hardest part for me, and I also found that I loved the article's idea of "back pocket" questions. I need to make sure I am spending more time on the front end coming up with these questions that actually challenge their thinking, where they cannot just repeat what I told the entire class 5 minutes before.
ReplyDeleteI struggle with bringing everything back together and I like your idea of eventually having students lead this. Doing these 5-10 mins recap would help students know the main takeaways from the class and tie back in the objectives and standards.
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