Effective Teaching and Student Engagement

According to materials presented in the workshop I attended Friday, Dr. Bishop stated the following attributed to Madeline Hunter and Barak Rosenshine:

When effective teachers teach concepts and skills explicitly, they use the following to increase the probability of student success:

• Begin the lesson with an anticipatory set, activator, or hook. 
• State the objective or identify the Essential Question. 
• Provide an appropriate model and check for understanding. 
• Provide systematic feedback and appropriate correctives. 

We need to ‘engage the mind of the learner with active involvement. This can be accomplished using a variety of techniques that may or may not require student movement. Below are a listing of several common techniques that promote engagement. Please peruse the list and set a goal to try and incorporate at least one new method per day. If you are not familiar with some that are listed, drop me an email and I will go over the particulars with you—as well as things to watch for in the implementation…

• Silent Discussion 
• Free Write 
• Frayer Diagram 
• Jig Saw 
• Mix Freeze Group 
• Museum/Gallery Walk 
• Carousel Brainstorm 
• Give 1 Get 1 
• Human Organizer 
• Four Corners/Physical Barometer 
• Numbered Heads Together 
• Round Table 
• Open Outline 
• Tell A Neighbor 
• Target (Bulls Eye) 
• 3—2—1

and a bit more on Anchor Activities...

Students in the differentiated mixed ability classroom must be taught strategies to self-manage and self-regulate behaviors and materials and to reflect on their learning. Taking the time to teach the upfront expectations:

Start by teaching the whole class to work independently on the anchor activity, (Teaming/Assisting Whole Class).

Move towards 1/2 the class working on the anchor activity and the other 1/2 works on a different activity (Teaming with small groups/ Assisting small group);

Work towards 1/3 works on the anchor activity, 1/3 works with teacher under direct instruction; 1/3 works with teacher under direct instruction (Station Teaching/ Leading Small Group).

Remember...an Anchor Activities are ongoing assignments that students can work on independently throughout a unit or grading period. An Anchor Activity should be Meaningful—have a purpose and are goal oriented; Focused—on the standards; Independent—students can manage the activity with minimum teacher support.

Nerd Review: Catching Up or Leading the Way: American Education in the Age of Globalization & Gen BuY: How Tweens, Teens, and Twenty-Somethings have revolutionized Retail

If I don’t harp on student engagement—then I am harping on technology and globalization, which are actually very related.


Two books have been recently released that deal with this—One is Yong Zhao’s book on what is actually ‘right’ with our education system and how we are determined to screw it up (Catching Up or Leading the Way: American Education in the Age of Globalization). Those of you who are no fans of standardized testing will be very rewarded! The other is Gen BuY: How Tweens and Twenty-somethings are Revolutionizing Retail by Kit Yarrow and Jane O’Donnell.

In Zhao’s book, a retired teacher describes his own high school daughter’s engagement in school—straight A’s, respectful, never gets into trouble—HATES school—bored out of her mind. “Schools can no longer ignore the importance of digital competencies or what our children are already doing in the virtual world, with or (/and mostly) without the involvement of educators” (pg. 195). In an issue first addressed by Thomas Friedman (The World is Flat: A Brief History of the 21st Century), Yarrow, O’Donnell, and Zhao, are quick to point out—a lot of the knowledge that we want to share as well as the way we share it—has no interest or relevance to the students that we teach either now or for their future.

So why these two books? Learning in general what makes our students tick as researched by Yarrow and O’Donnell, can help us understand how our students think, react, and engage. While Zhao’s book brings insight into how the concepts of globalization, the virtual world, and the ‘death of distance’ are transforming the economic and social landscape of our world. Both provide critical insight into how to create those ‘authentic performance tasks’ that will add relevance and engagement to our students.

Did you know that they are trying to bring Internet 2 to Darien through Grey’s Reef and Sapelo Island? Do you even know what Internet 2 is or how it can impact your class?  Our students are not impressed with our Power Points, but they may be able to impress as well as teach us something if we give them the opportunity.

It really doesn’t matter whether or not you change how you use technology in your home—however, we are doing our students a disservice if we limit their opportunities and create barriers they will have to overcome outside of where we live.

Fundamental Skills and Working Smart - from 9/25

I was fortunate to be able to visit 8 classes as I began walkthroughs. During the day, I was reminded of the importance of fundamental skill acquisition.


As a teacher, I lamented at the inability of my students to do the simplest fundamental skills. The use of calculators and the ability to punch in numbers in the correct order does not negate the need for students to understand ‘why’ the answer that appears in the window is correct.

The same principle applies to us as educators—we have to know, understand, and do the fundamental skills of effective teaching. Just having an essential question posted on your board might get you through a focus walk, however if it doesn’t reflect what you are doing in class, is never referred to during instruction, is not related to the standards… it is just one more example of busy work.

Of the 8 walkthroughs I was able to complete—

3 classes had the essential question posted (38%) and of the 3, 2 were working on an assignment related to the posted question.

50% of the classes were involved in whole group direct instruction; in 33% of the classes, students were engaged in independent work; and 17% of the classes had some type of small group activities.

I observed 151 students, 49 who were off task (32%).

While 70% of the classes were using an identified Co teaching instructional strategy; 30% did not have evidence of co teaching.

Continue to focus on the fundamental skills of effective teaching— knowing where you want to go before you start, how you are going to get there, and let the kids in on the secret! Are we planning our way to success?

Importance of Vocabulary Instruction : Original 9/18/09

Research has clearly shown the relationship between a student’s vocabulary and his or her crystallized intelligence as well as the direct correlation between vocabulary development and socio economic status (Robert Marzano What Works in Schools: Translating Research into Action, 2003). Is there a way to provide direct vocabulary instruction that is effective and can add to the instructional strategies we already employ as effective teachers?


Well, yes… there actually is a lot of research that says we can impact our students achievement gains by 33%  IF we will forgo rote memorization of definitions and allow our students to expand on the information that may be initially presented. In other words, not looking at words as words in isolation, but words specifically related to the academic content and in context.

Marzano found that research implies a process that is best for learning academic terms:

Students are presented with a brief, informal explanation, description, or demonstration, and asked to describe the information in their own words.

Students are presented with or asked to add an imagery based representation of the new term (a picture, diagram, etc. a non linguistic representation).

Students are asked to elaborate on the term by making connections with other words.

Over time, students continue to add information or alter erroneous information as their understanding of the term expands.

HOWEVER I should note - that using a "student understood" definition, does not supplant the need for teacher and students to be able to correctly use the "language of the standard" - Example - Definition of Volume: - The amount of cubits that an object occupies. The FULL understanding of the term does require the full understanding of the 'hard' words too.

Nerd Review: Becoming a Classroom of Readers

My favorite article so far in the latest EL centers on making students want to read.


“No matter what instructional methods we employ, students must spend substantial time applying the reading skills and strategies we teach before they develop reading proficiency.”

Basic reading instruction ends in the 4th grade and who wants to be 10 or 11 and still reading Junie B Jones (350L; 2.4 AR)? So of course by the time they are in high school most of them can’t read the text book— and if the math and science teachers can’t pick themselves off the floor from laughing at my previous dissertation—we are stuck…

That is why I loved, I mean Loved this article...it hits two of my favorite subjects… reading and relationships!

My nephews think I’m cool —when I taught the oldest in the 6th grade, I turned him on to Harry Potter and then Lord of the Rings.  Then last winter—the oldest 2 gave me Twilight and in the summer, Percy Jackson. I in turn am contributing The 39 Clues (they are complete National Treasure freaks) and Super Freakonomics.

Many of the relationships that I still have with students were formed over the basis of books. “What are you reading? ...Well if you like that, you may want to try….” and then they come back and tell me all about it. My children are completely amazed when strange kids come up to me in the Piggly Wiggly to tell me about their latest favorite book...which is astounding since I never actually ‘taught’ any of these children—I just met them on breakfast duty or while administering AIMS benchmarks.

Do you read what your kids are reading? Do you model the behaviors that we expect to see in our students? Do you have conversations with your students about what they are reading with an expectation that they are actually reading something? Do they know you read? Do you keep books on hand for your students to check out? Do you order from Scholastic too, just for your room? Did you know that the classics like Lord of the Rings, Little Women, The Old Man and the Sea are available in the middle school scholastic monthly order thing… CHEAP? Do you think that reading is play?

Another article, Literacy Starts with the Teachers, assures me that more than 1 or 2 strategies will overwhelm the middle and high school teachers…. So here are the two strategies—read something (not related to your subject) and talk about it to your students; and use cooperative discussion to scaffold your students into reading both literary and informational text on grade level in your classroom. Let’s open our eyes to the possibilities.

Cooperative Discussion as a Differentiated Activity: Part II

As soon as I posted my last dissertation, my Education Leadership (March, 2010) was in the mailbox and low and behold the WHOLE thing is related to reading and integrating more reading strategies into the curriculum—So… —here are some additional ideas:


The Case for Slow Reading by Thomas Newkirk. “To be quick is smart; to be slow is to be stupid.” However take this on for size—”The term taste applies to both literacy and eating. And to taste, we have to slow down...because in the folktale, the turtle always wins.” Have you had the pleasure of reading and re-reading the same book over and over. My husband read at least 1 book in the If you give a …. Series by Laura Nurmerof every night for a year to our daughter Ashley. I have read the final book in Harry Potter 5 times and Breaking Dawn 4. (But I am also caught up in the Sieg Larsson trilogy - so please don't kill me)Let’s look at the possibility of allowing our students to learn something ‘by heart,’ and introduce them to the pleasure of reading a passage aloud with inflection, savoring passages….

The activity that I was drawn to involves annotating a page. The value was further reinforced when my second grader sat down beside me to read a Junie B. Jones book and wanted to share passages on a page—reading aloud, she was so taken with the author’s humor—she just had to share—

“In this activity, students probe the craft of a favorite writer. They pick a page they really like, photocopy it, and tape the photocopy to a larger piece of paper so they have wide margins in which they can make notations. Their job is to give the page a close reading and mark word choices, sentence patterns, images, dialogue—anything they find effective” (pg. 10).

There are two applications—the first is to make this the Quote Finder assignment— and the other is to have each student find and share 1 favorite page of annotated notes from the assigned reading in addition to their assigned role.
Okay– so you aren’t into the warm fuzzy—


Texts That Matter by Gay Ivey pg. 18—23.

“As a university professor, I also think about the contrast between the literacy experiences students have in kindergarten through grade 12 and those they encounter in college, where they are often expected to access, evaluate, and critically analyze both print and non print texts...even students who enter the workplace right after high school need advanced literacy skills, including reading critically across various sources of information…”

One of the main reasons I get for math and science teachers not wanting to incorporate scientific readings into their lessons is that they fear their students can’t read it. (and they are probably right—)

So, we are going to have to scaffold and be picky about what we choose—that doesn’t mean they shouldn’t have a chance to read Aristotle, Newton, or original work by Einstein. Use the Cooperative Discussion strategies to provide support to the text.

Nerd Review: MindWare, Family Fun and 7 Habits

For those of you who have never received or seen a MindWare Catalogue—you are missing out! This company bills itself as providing ‘brainy toys for kids of all ages’ and they do! Inside are amazing games and activity sets that will allow you to build independent student centered learning anchor activities. Most of the product sets are designed for advanced, gifted, and enrichment in both language, science and math. You can receive a free catalogue by going online at www.mindware.com. Or you can come see mine at the office—I have sticky noted it all up with ideas! Teacher Appreciation Week is coming up soon—and for any of you who would like to ditch another coffee mug—gift certificates are available!


Family Fun must know that March and April are testing months! In the March issue there are some really great activities, crafts and projects that really resonate especially for teachers looking for that extra ‘edge’ and support for their students in this very stressful time.

How about Butterfly Bounty—using the smaller snack size Ziploc bags, glitter encrusted clothes pins, pipe cleaners, and a healthy dried fruit trail mix—your students can SOAR to the top, or how about Fly High with a special treat that is full of ‘brain’ food!

Or are you ready for some ‘Smarty Pants?’ - pant pairs cut from construction paper, stapled and filled with … you guessed it… Smarties!

There is even an article on helping students develop a ‘positive attitude. Something we could all practice about now!

I am also reading two Steven Covey books—Principled-Centered Leadership and 7Habits of Highly Effective People. The center of both books revolves around this premise…”Effective people lead their lives and manage their relationships around principles; ineffective people attempt to manage their time around priorities and their tasks around goals.”

While the books are very similar, here is a quote from Principled-Centered Leadership that I really like “No bypassing, no short-cutting, no pretending, or appearing, no making impressions, no amount of “dressing for success,” will compensate for lack of skill and judgment.” and how about “To improve, we must start from were we are, not where we should be, or where someone else is, or even from where others may think we are.”

I ordered SuperFreakonomics for my nephew for his birthday… what are you reading?

Cooperative Discussion as a Differentiated Activity: What are we going to do when "the test" is over?

I was able to attend Project CRISS training in November. The strategies presented were so aligned with the goals of a standards based classroom, differentiated instruction, and effective co teaching that I ordered the Presentation Materials CD-ROM.

For the next few weeks, I will try to focus on a different strategy that you can try after ‘the test.’ These strategies will allow us to experiment away from whole group, direct instruction activities toward more “Student Centered” Instruction as we prepare for the 2010—2011 school year.

Cooperative Discussion is a CRISS Strategy designed to provide an alternate method of reading and discussing text passages.

Groups can flex or be long term in nature and developed along homogeneous ability or heterogeneous groupings depending on the material or purpose of the activity.

Each group is composed of 5 members with specific roles and the activity covers 5 periods of instruction. These periods can be consecutive or developed over time, keeping in mind that each group should meet at least 5 times overall to enable each student to play each of the roles.

This strategy would be very effective in place of whole group instruction that involves reading sections of a text, article, or literary piece. Individual roles could be modified in a more specific setting for science such as to preview and review the instructions for an upcoming lab; or in math, to assist students in reading a series of complicated word problems before solving.