Facilitating+Classroom+Involvement

Facilitating Classroom Involvement

Getting students involved in your lesson is an essential part of your teaching process. I have found that many of the best teachers are constantly asking the question "What are the students doing?"

This question does not necessarily mean that lecturing is bad. I believe that lecturing has a time and a place, and has taken an unfair beating over the last few years. However, there is a right way and a wrong way to do "lecturing." Effective lecturers are constantly getting their students involved in the material, even if it is only through drawing comparisons to prior knowledge through examples and analogies. While basic, this type of involvement by the students (cognitively) is essential to ensure student learning.

Classroom involvement is also tied heavily to classroom discipline. Keeping your students meaningfully engaged in your lesson is one of the best things you can do to ensure that you have little problems with misbehavior.

This week, pay specific attention to the following video clips: they have a variety of excellent ideas that you see put into practice.

media type="youtube" key="nvZyE02EZ8U" height="315" width="420" Classroom Management (Secondary)

media type="youtube" key="7bIQ4-3XSxU" height="315" width="420" ABCNews - What Makes Great Teachers - 2/26/2010

media type="youtube" key="EC0ltKOwF_A" height="315" width="420" Teach Like a Champion: Getting Everyone's Attention in Class

media type="youtube" key="PARfIwF215k" height="315" width="420" Teach Like A Champion: Cold Call Technique

media type="youtube" key="UwnGusgqDEc" height="315" width="420" Teach Like A Champion: No Opt Out

Strategies


 * Think-Pair-Share** - Students are presented with a scenario, question or topic by the teacher. The students are asked to individually think about a topic. This could involve simply thinking or free-writing related to the topic. After a time of thinking on their own, the students are instructed to discuss the concept with the person next to them. After a time of talking with the person next to them, the instructor will call on individual students to answer the question, state their opinion, etc...


 * Write Around -** Students will have journals in notebooks. They are given a scenario to write about silently. After writing for a time, they pass their notebook to another student, who then continues to write in a different notebook. This can be used to facilitate debate, think creatively, review, an so on. Theoretically, this could be modified to work with a variety of classroom activities. For example, students could be given maps in teams and silently have to fill in the information. They would trade maps after a brief period of time. First team to get all of the information filled in correctly wins.


 * Classroom Likert Scale -** Students are presented with an issue that has two opposing positions. The middle of the room is presented as a "neutral" or "undecided" position. One far side of the room is presented as the "strongly agree with" position, while the other side of the room is presented as the "strongly disagree with" position. Students are instructed to move to where they would believe they would fall on the scale. So, if a student is slightly in favor of a position, they could move slightly from the middle to that side.


 * Magnetic Corners** - Students are presented with options (often 4, but I have used this before with 3-6 options) that are matched with certain areas of the room (if you use 4 options, you simply put one option in each corner). After the instructor presents the scenarios, students are instructed to move to the section of the room that matches their opinion.

For example, if you were teaching a unit on WWII, you could present a question asking the students which country they believed was the most powerful overall at their peak during WWII: Great Britain, The Soviet Union, Germany, or the United States? You then ask the students to defend their position.


 * Fist to Five** - You present the students with a scenario or positional statement and then ask them to show you how much they agree with that position by hold up a certain number of fingers. Then you call on students randomly to ask them to defend their position.

For example, in Psychology class as an introduction to a lesson on the "Nature/Nurture" debate, you give the students a quote by B.F. Skinner which heavily supports the Nurture position and the role the environment plays in shaping behavior. You have them do a "fist-to-five," holding all 4 fingers and their thumb up if they completely agree with the quote, if they mostly agree with the quote 4 fingers, slightly agree = 3 fingers ... holding a fist up = totally disagree with the quote. Then you have the students discuss the issue.


 * Cascade Thinking -** I discovered this technique at a history teaching conference at Fargo North a few summers ago from Carl Oberholtzer (I apologize to him in advance, I probably horribly misspelled his last name). This technique involves having student write on a piece of paper or the white board regarding a "what-if" scenario in history/government/etc... (for example, what if the unemployment rate in the United States rises to 15% by August). Students write that scenario in the center of a piece of paper and circle it, then they draw lines off of that circle and write consequences/effects in new circles, and then draw lines to new consequences/effects in new circles. You can then have a class discussion analyzing those predictions. This is a great way to facilitate classroom involvement and critical thinking.


 * Show Me Your Thumbs -** As you are teaching any topic, you ask the students to "Show You Their Thumbs" based on how well they are understanding a concept. Thumbs up is no problem, thumbs to the side is they kind of get it, thumbs down is they are totally lost. This is a simple way to get feedback from students as you are progressing through a lesson. This strategy will help you to identify problems before moving on to a new topc.


 * Class Norms Setting -** Typically done on the first day of school, this strategy involves seeking student involvment in setting the norms and expectations for behavior in the class. This can be done in a variety of ways: polls, writing on the board, invidiual reflection and writing, etc... The logic here, that I have found effective most of the time, is that by getting students involved in setting the standards of behavior and consequences, there will be less resistance to consequences, since the students decided upon them. The weakness in this approach is that some students may protest on the first day, or if you have a class dominated by challenging students on the first day, they may reject any consequences.

Links

Poll Everywhere - Allows you to get student feedback through using texting on cell phones. Douglas Reeves Video Library - While a lot of what Reeves states is controversially and a little "out there," he does have a variety of good ideas. Watch the clip on Classroom Management and Engagement under the "Instruction" section. Marzano Research Marzano's "Classroom Instruction that Works" is probably the most discussed work in education today. He has many great ideas. UBD - Grant Wiggins - Understanding by Design is also a modern buzz topic which has a lot of influence in educational practice and thinking.