I am always ready to learn although I do not always like being taught.
- Winston Churchill
Very few people like to be told what to do. I count myself among the majority on this matter, and I imagine most of our students do to. That is why periodically offering a menu of homework choices is a great idea. Kids love choices and often go up and above the assignment requirements because they are more engaged.
There is no need to have the menu create any additional work for you. I usually give two choices. Here are two easy ways to create choice: vary the content or vary the product.
Vary the Content Students can select the topic that the homework will be about. Perhaps, they are studying parts of speech. A student could focus the assignment on one part of speech. Everyone does the same assignment, but people have a different part of speech that they focus on.
Vary the Product
Here are a few quick things that I sometimes have my students do.
Create a Mini-poster
Mini-posters are done on 8 1/2 x 11 paper. I usually have them as a one-night assignment. If I expect more, I tell them that it’s a double assignment. Be specific in your expectations.
For example, tomorrow my students’ assignment is to make a mini-poster explaining how to calculate the circumference and area of a circle. Two original examples of each type of problem must be included. All calculations and appropriate units are required. Include a title. Color poster.
Quiz for a Classmate Student can create a quiz that a classmate will take. The quiz has to have original problems and an attached answer key.
For example, the alternative assignment for my students tomorrow is to make a mini-quiz with 6 questions: 3 circumference and 3 area of a circle. One problem needs to be a multiple choice question. An answer key must be attached.
Create a Warm-up Have the students create 2 warm-ups or bellringers about the concept that you are studying or a review concept. I have a specific format for my warm-ups that needs to be followed: 18 point, bold, comic sans font. Answers need to be attached. Problems from the Book or a Handout Some students prefer the traditional structure. You can have a set of problems or a handout as one of the menu choices.
I usually have kids share out their posters and get a classmate to grade it using a generic rubric. While this is happening, the students who made a mini-quiz get a classmate to take their quiz.
A menu is a fun alternative to traditional homework. Play with the different choices. Expand upon the possibilities. Enjoy!
When students work in groups they often need support in how to help each other. So today we spent about 6 minutes reflecting on the cooperative learning roles and what the different people in the group might say or do.
Since the roles rotate each week, everyone will be all things at one point or another. As I like to think about it, “Everyone will be The Compassionate One at sometime.” This is a short activity to start building team rapport and support the students in their different cooperative learning roles.
Circular Silent Reflection 1. Each student wrote his or her role on the top of a scratch piece of paper.
2. Students had about a minute to write what are things that a person in that role would say or do in the group. I suggested that they may want to write quotes. For example, The Organizer could be heard saying, “I’ll go get the materials.”
3. After a minute, I asked students to pass the papers clockwise and read what was written.
4. Each student had about a minute to add additional comments.
5. Then I told them to pass the papers again and read what was written and add comments. This was repeated until the person received his original paper.
6. After that, the rotation cycle was about 30 seconds to read the last comments on each paper. So the papers cycle through to each person again.
I wanted to provide more support to the groups and their members because I know that kids have great intentions but sometimes lack the ways to appropriately express their thoughts. This activity is a quick way to give them additional ways of positively engaging with their table mates.
A friend of mine from 5 Rhythms dance, Erica Priggen, told me about this hilarious video that she worked on with the folks at Free Range Graphics called “The Mouth Revolution.” You’ll understand the unusual title when you see it. He!He!
Share the video with a friend. Free Range Graphics only works with socially responsible groups who are promoting an important message. They rely on word of mouth to spread the “Mouth Revolution.” Viva la Moutholution!
If you like this video, you’ll love some of Free Range Graphics other videos, such as “Store Wars” and “The Meatrix.” I have a few of them posted on my Ecological Footprint Education Site.
Watch this YouTube video to learn Think-Pair-Share learn hand signals to make this activities even more fun and easy to manage. Read my post on Think-Pair-Share-Write activities for more information on creating and using them in your classroom.
Every time that January rolls around, I start to think about the standardized tests that my students will be taking in a few months. Regardless of my opinion about the value and validity of standardized tests, they are still a part of the current educational paradigm. So what’s a teacher to do? Well, fortunately there are some easy things you can do that will help prepare your students while sharpening their critical thinking skills. For this post, I’m going to focus on things you can do for bell ringers or warm-ups.
What are “Distractors?”
A helpful teaching strategy is to explain the concept of “distractors.” Distractors are problems that do exactly what they sound like, they distract kids from the correct answers. The best way to teach about distractors is to have kids identify them. There a number of fun ways to learn about them that deepen conceptual understanding.
Write Multiple Choice Answers
Take a traditional warm-up problem and turn it into a multiple choice problem. The important thing is that the kids create the answers to the problems. I always specify which letter will be correct so that I can quickly scan if kids understand.
Ex. 1
Directions: Write answers to the following question. Let “C” be the correct answer. Make the other answers reflect common mistakes.
Which of the following states was not one of the original 13 colonies?
A.
B.
*C.
D.
Ex. 2
Directions: Write answers to the following question. Let “D” be the correct answer. Make the other answers reflect common mistakes.
Evaluate 15 - 2(3 + 1).
A.
B.
C.
*D.
Write an Appropriate Question to a Multiple Choice Response
On a warm-up, give four responses and specify the correct answer. Have the students create a question that is appropriate to what they are learning that would generate that response. You could reverse the first example above by having the students write a question instead of the answers.
Ex.
Directions: Write a question where “B” would be the correct answer.
Question:
A. New York
*B. Kansas
C. Maryland
D. Virginia
Note: There may be multiple correct questions for some problems, which opens up the possibility for a rich discussion. How fabulous is that?
Reverse Roles: Error Analysis
Have a multiple choice problem on the board with an answer circled, perhaps the wrong one. The students have to analyze each possible response and state why that was the correct or incorrect response. They get to play the teacher, which is a role they often wish they could fill.
A great teaching technique for engaging students, supporting language develop and addressing multiple intelligences is doing a Think Pair Share activity.
It’s easy to take something that you already do and transform it into a Think-Pair-Share. Occasionally I do Think-Pair-Share-Write activities and lately we’ve been playing with it as a Think-Pair-Share-Blog. The students love Think-Pair-Share activities and it engages a wide range of learners in the discussion. It doesn’t take any additional time to make. Here’s how to do it.
Think-Pair-Share-Write
1. Show students one question. It can be from a textbook, handout or overhead.
2. Have them think about it quietly, providing adequate “wait time.” (This is often around 7 second, which can feel like eternity sometimes.)
3. Then have them pair up with someone to discuss the idea.
4. Let students share their responses with the class.
5. Students write their responses.
6. Repeat the process with another question.
Think-Pair-Share-Blog
I have one computer in the class.Before class, enter one of the questions on the class blog site. I do the exact same process as above, and have one student enter the response onto the blog.
Choosing who gets to blog:
1. Sometimes I just pick a student. Since they’ve thought about it, discussed it in pairs and heard from the class, the quality of the answer is usually fairly reliable.
2. Several students will “share” with the class and I write down their names and an abbreviated response. The class votes with their fingers on the response they prefer. One finger for the first response, 2 for the second and so on. I usually only have 2-3 students share out.
Check the video I made showing the Think-Pair-Share hand signals that the originator of the Think-Pair-Share method, Dr. Frank Lyman, uses. I actually knew Dr. Lyman when I was a student in high school county student government. He worked at the Howard County Office of Education in Maryland. 20 years later I met him again when he spoke at my master’s program at the University of Maryland at College Park. I didn’t know that he created both “Think-Pair-Share” and “wait time.” How cool is that!
My students love Think-Pair-Share activities. I’m not sure which they like more the activity or the hand signals. I know the hand signals are a big hit with them.
If you like this blog, please subscribe. The subscription button is in the top right. Your information will not be shared with others.
This week my friend Kathleen told me about “The Great Little Book of Afformations.” Many people are familiar with affirmations and haven’t had a lot of success using them. That’s because when you say, “I’m thin” and your body and mind say, “No you’re not”, there is a split and it’s hard to override the negative mental chatter.
The Universe responds to feelings and questions. I’ve known this for years, and this week I really started to play with asking question. The question I was asking all week was “Why does money flow to me so easily?” In four days, I generated $470 of unexpected income, a teaching award and 4 gifts. I also received an email from the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics, which serves over 100,000 math teachers, that informed me that my integers website will be included in their March “News Bulletin.”
On Thursday I told my students about my manifesting experience and the power of questions. We talked about the type of questions that people normally ask. They tend to be negative questions and the Universe answers those - unwittingly.
You’ve probably heard some of these:
* Why am I so bad at math?
* Why do I always get in trouble and my little brother doesn’t?
* Why do you always pick on me?
* Why can’t I ever find my homework?
* Why am I so broke all of the time?
* Why can’t I loose weight?
We practiced asking some different questions:
* Why am I so organized?
* Why is it easy for me to concentrate in class?
* Why do I love school?
* Why do I get such great grades?
At the end of the period, one of my resource students who really struggles with math called me over and said, “Ms. Newburn, I totally get how to do this. I did it all by myself. I didn’t even need any help.” Then he threw his arms open wide and said, “Why does math come so easily to me?” with a huge grin on his face.
Yes, I made extra money this week by asking questions from “The Great Little Book of Afformations” and this ah-ha by my student was priceless!
Be mindful of the questions you ask.
For example, “Why do my students love my class?” may be because they have lots of friends to talk with. Whereas, asking “Why are students so engaged in the lesson?” would have the desired result of less classroom management and an increase in learning.
Questions you may want to use to transform your class:
Why are students so helpful?
Why do I love my job so much?
Why do I have such engaging lessons that require little prep?
Why do my students listen to and follow directions the first time?
And here are some to transform the teaching profession (and a lot of other jobs too):
Why do I get paid so well?
Why is my work appreciated and acknowledged?
Why am I so respected?
Why do I love my job?
Play with using afformations to change your life and transform your class. If you enjoyed this post, you would also like reading about The Secret. Resources You Can Use The Great Little Book of Afformations is a fun and easy way to transform your life and teaching. I’ve been amazed at the changes is just a week. You can purchase this book for $12.95 by clicking on the book link below.
If you find the information on this blog helpful and are interested in any of the resources I’ve highlighted here, I’d be grateful if you purchased them through the links on my blog as I earn a small percentage from each sale, which supports my writing. Thanks.
Our students are the Millennials, and they are a generation that value collaboration. Cooperative learning has been around for a while, yet few teachers have actually had it modeled for them or know the components of what make cooperative learning groups successful.
Most teachers mistakenly believe, as did I, that when kids work in groups this is cooperative learning. However, many of us wonder where the cooperative part is happening because kids may be sitting together but one person does everything. Cooperation is the essence of working in teams. This needs to be modeled and supported.
Do you know the five elements of cooperative learning? If not, chances are your group work may be hit or miss in its effectiveness. Here are some things to consider when using cooperative learning:
Positive Classroom Environment
It’s important to build a safe classroom environment. This can be done by:
setting classroom norms
doing class building activities (See “Tribes” for ideas)
explicitly teaching cooperative skills, such as how to disagree politely, and focusing on that skill for a few class periods
requiring the students to check in with each other before asking the teacher for help; all students in the group should know the question that is being asked. When you go to a group, if Maria is raising her hand, ask Josh, “What’s Maria’s question?”
Group Students Heterogeneously
Students learn cooperative skills better when they have to work with a wide range of people. There are times when homogeneous grouping is appropriate, but this tends to be the exception.
Positive Interdependence
Activities need to be structured so that what helps one group member helps everyone. The activities have to be structured to promote collaboration. Some activities that naturally do this are jigsaws and think-pair-share (See links above).
Individual Accountability
Every student has a role and is accountable for work. This can be accomplished by students labeling what part of the group project they contributed to or by having an individual assessment on the information after the group work.
Don’t give up!
Keep experimenting and reflecting on the activities you did with your students. What worked? What didn’t? Why? Starting to use cooperative learning strategies can be a bit unnerving at first because we give up the authoritarian teacher role, but the rewards are immense. Our kids deserve it, and we’re modeling perseverance too!
For more ideas, strategies and resources on cooperative learning check out my Educating Millennials website.
Resources You Can Use
I also highly recommend Teacher’s Resource for Cooperative Learning: Practical Techniques, Basic Principles and Frequently Asked Questions by my former professor Dr. George Jacobs. It really helped me to identify what I needed to do to have more effective cooperative learning activities. Click on the book cover to purchase this helpful resource.
If you find the information on this blog helpful and are interested in any of the resources I’ve highlighted here, I’d be grateful if you purchased them through the links on my blog as I earn a small a percentage from each sale. Thanks.
Kids of today are used to working collaboratively. It’s a characteristic of the Millennial Generation. Yet how effective is your group work in class? Is it hit or miss? If so, here are some great ideas to get you and your kids back in the spirit of cooperation.
I was struggling with my students’ group work because they are grouped in tables, yet when they do homework some of the traditional roles that help define a group, such as reporter and recorder, didn’t make sense. They weren’t going to report out. They were doing their homework and everyone had to write so there wasn’t a need for a recorder. This week I came up with some new roles that reflect the new era and the new direction in the classroom. They are:
The Task Master
Makes sure that all people know the assignment.
Makes sure that all group members are working on the same problem.
What did everyone get for #4? – Ok. Now let’s go to #5.
Can someone explain to the group how to do problem #3?
The Understanding One
Makes sure that everyone is doing what s/he is supposed to be doing.
Makes sure that everyone is talking only with his/her group members.
Makes sure that everyone understands the problem.
When no one in the group understands, this is the person who communicates with the teacher.
Does everyone know how to do the problem?
The Organizer
Makes sure that the group has the necessary supplies to do the task.
Makes sure that all people take out the materials they need: toolkits, paper, etc.
Makes sure the desk and area around the table are neat at the end of the period and that materials are returned.
Does everyone have the materials they need? (If not, help the group members get what they need.)
Can you please check under your desk to make sure there is no trash?
The Compassionate One
Makes sure that everyone feels included in the discussion.
Acknowledges group members for what they did that made the group the work better.
We haven’t heard from you in a while, Jake. What do you think?
Thanks, Nick, for explaining how to solve the problem to the group.
Monday I introduced the new roles. They are already grouped in tables of 4 and by each seat is a colored star. I have an overhead transparency that I use that has the four colored stars on it. I explained before I showed them the roles, that we would rotate each week. It was absolutely precious to see the middle school students say, “I’m the Compassionate One” or “I get to be the Understanding One this week.”
A few minutes into the homework, I would check in with the class to see if the entire group was on the same problem. If so, I would either say “Give yourself a pat on the back”, “Give a high 5 to your group members” or “Thank your Task Master for doing such a great job.”
When the homework was on a different sheet then the classwork, I wrote on the board and told the class, that The Organizer would have to bring up all group members’ papers before I would give them the homework handout. This ensured that groups had more reason to help each other.
Overall this week, the groups worked much better together. There was much more inclusion of other people’s ideas and team members worked together to support each other. I also heard a lot of nice comments said to teammates, which made teaching even more pleasurable.
Sometimes we can get caught up in the drama of our lives, and even other people’s lives. That’s when it’s time to get a different perspective. Why not take a Universal one?
I was over at my friend Navyo’s house yesterday and he told me that he was journeying into Deep Space. As he said this, his screensaver activated and these magnificent pictures from the Hubble Space Telescope emerged from his computer. Heart opening! Spectacular. The vastness and breadth of beauty contained in these photos of the Universe are enough to help anyone put their troubles in perspective and remember the grandeur and elegance contained in the Universe from the Eagle Nebula to this galaxy to this planet and their own divinity.
I went home and changed my screen saver to the Eagle Nebula, which interestingly enough used to be the graphic on my last business card.
May we all be aware of our own divinity and that we are a part of this spectacularly beautiful and elegant Universe. May we connect with our delicious creativity. May we remember who we truly are as we teach children so that they become fully aware of their own inner wisdom and beauty.
