Happy Little Moments
The student I spoke to a few weeks ago about the debate team was congratulated on the announcements today. Apparently, he won last week’s debate! It’s great to be able to see how he’s progressed in that club, because I remember when he was saying how nervous he was to be in a new, unfamiliar school. I talked to him about his accomplishment today and he seemed really happy, which was awesome. Little things like that make me glad: seeing a student grow from week to week, and using what I know about him or her to be able to say “congratulations.” It’s one thing to hear over the announcements that a student won an award, but it’s another thing altogether to remember the time when that student first began working toward that goal, and knowing the stress, time, excitement, and effort that went into achieving it.
A Lesson From The Best
One of the most interesting lessons I have seen over the past few months was taught by Philip Beadle, 2004’s “Secondary School Teacher of the Year” in Britain. Teaching 9th grade English, Beadle uses innovative strategies to get his students feeling enthusiastic about potentially dreary subject matter. The video clip (the link can be found above) begins with Beadle explaining the day’s activities, which included a few rounds of “argument tennis.” Beadle explains that this particular lesson would feature two rows of chairs facing each other, where students would sit and debate in pairs about whether Macbeth willingly chose to kill the king to gain the throne. I could feel my eyes glazing over on the students’ behalf when I heard the word “Shakespeare,” because I feel like his plays have been a rather sore subject for many kids. From a teacher’s perspective, it can be hard to get students to absorb the antiquated words in Shakespeare’s work, let alone get them to understand what is going on. Because of that, I half-expected Beadle’s students to groan at the suggestion of sitting and talking about Macbeth for an entire class period. However, Beadle is the teacher of the year. Once the “tennis” commenced, I watched and listened as the students filled up the room with noise. To my amazement, they were all talking about the play, just as Beadle had instructed.
The biggest question that initially came up while I watched this clip was, “how does he get them to really care about this subject matter?” During my observation in the high school, I have seen a lot of kids who just roll their eyes when they are asked to have meaningful discussions about the books they’re reading. It seems like many 9th graders abhor the idea of being asked to do anything related to persuasive, text-based arguments in class: without even really listening to the assignment, the words “critical thinking” will often trigger the response “I don’t get it” from many freshmen. However, Beadle’s students were passionate about their opinions and it was clear they had put a lot of thought into the preparation for their debates.
Using Writing to Check For Understanding
When trying to assess how much a student understand about a particular topic, teachers can be easily misled by multiple-choice or short-answer test results. Some students are good at memorizing facts or stating general knowledge about a subject, but without some sort of comprehensive writing piece, it’s hard for teachers to know whether a student has a deeper understanding of that subject. Using writing to check for understanding is effective because it helps students dip into that deeper understanding. According to the authors of Checking for Understanding, “Writing is an excellent pathway for brainstorming, clarifying, questioning” (Fisher 57). In other words, writing clarifies thinking, and because of that, it helps teachers analyze what their students know. There has been evidence that student performance increases when writing is used as a tool for thinking, which goes to show how much power writing really has.
In the same way that hearing is different from listening, it can be said that knowing is different fromunderstanding. Students can hear something and be able to repeat what was said, but actually listening to information implies that the students are thinking about it, making connections, and internalizing it. Similarly, students can memorize enough information and know that something is true, but that is very different from being able to reflect, think critically, and understand that knowledge. This is why writing is so important for students- it allows them to sort out their thoughts and let their understanding of a subject flow out through a pencil. Writing about something in class also requires memory recall, because in order to formulate thoughts on paper, the student needs to think back to what they have learned and internalized. This is very different from asking a student to answer a yes or no question, because the student must be able to fill a space big enough to spark deeper thinking. When students use narrative writing, they are telling a story and using their imagination. When students use informative writing, students provide the reader with information and hard knowledge. When students use persuasive writing, the students are expressing their opinions in ways that will hopefully bring about change. These kinds of writing are very important because when students show their ability to narrate, inform, or persuade, they are showcasing the ways that they truly understand the content. On this subject, the author of Checking For Understanding writes, “Writing as checking for understanding means looking at how the form and the content interact. Since writing is thinking, the message and the way the message is conveyed are interrelated” (60).
RAFT is not my favorite approach to writing because the words “role” and “audience” might confuse students at first glance. If I were teaching I would obviously explain everything clearly, but by saying “what is the role of the writer?” instead of “who are you writing as?”, and “who is the writer’s audience?” instead of “who are you writing to?”, the prompt sounds more complicated than it really is. I think it’s an interesting writing approach, and I used it in my showcase lesson plan (see the first post on my blog homepage), but when I first saw it I was slightly intimidated because of the way things are phrased. Since it originally took me a little while to fully understand the concept, I worry that it might take students even longer. However, when I was first introduced to RAFT, it wasn’t explained very well, and Checking For Understanding makes it seem very simple (so maybe I’d have a better feeling about it if I had learned it for the first time from this book). The fact that the book seems to emphasize is that RAFT can be used in all different content areas (it uses examples from math and science classes), which I think is great. Most people think of writing as something that can only be fully utilized in Language Arts classes, but RAFT is a great example of the ways that writing can be used as a tool for checking understanding in all subjects.
Using Questions to Check for Understanding
Questioning strategies are extremely important in checking for understanding, and they are generally used the most. Questioning a student to find out if he or she understands the content is one of the most straightforward ways to keep tabs on that student’s progress, because every question requires an answer, and answers require thought processes. Socrates believed that truth could be found through the process of asking questions because they lead to reflection and discussion. Questions do not have to be posed verbally, either. The book says, “Simply thinking about questions while reading improves comprehension” (Fisher 53). However, although questions are a great way to improve learning and thinking, many teachers use them incorrectly. One of the most common mistakes is that a teacher will allow 6 or 7 students to dominate the class when questions are asked, which generally results in a misunderstanding of how much the students as a whole are learning. It can be easy to ask questions and assume that when the vocal students speak up, they are speaking for the whole class. However, kids who don’t “get” what’s going on can easily slip under the radar and let the outgoing student speak for them, which creates a problem because the students who need help may never speak up. Because of this common issue, using questions to check for understanding must be done very carefully and effectively.
When a teacher poses a question to the class, he or she must be very clear about what type of knowledge the question assesses. If it is merely a recognition or memory-recalling question, this factual knowledge will probably not lead to understanding. For example, it is easy for a student to know where a country is on a map, but that does not mean the student understands the rich history or cultural background of that country. Questions have a huge potential to ignite meaningful thoughts in students’ heads, but only when the teacher chooses the questions wisely and mixes up the ways that students can respond. Giving students “wait time” after asking a question also allows them to sit and process the question and formulate an answer after a period of reflection. Checking for understanding this way is good because rather than just telling students something, teachers are requesting that the students spend time thinking. It’s also an easy way to be sure that all students are following along with the content because it can take as little or as much time as needed. One way to find out who needs special guidance in a classroom is to ask simple questions and require that the kids use hand signals or response cards. Once the teacher identifies the students who aren’t quite up to speed, they can help them get caught up and then move on to deeper questions that get them thinking about the “whys” and “hows” of any subject.
A crucial part of using questions to check for understanding is providing feedback to the students who answer. Teachers should encourage kids to speak up, and feedback not only reinforces their behavior, but can redirect their thoughts so that they come to fully understand what they are being asked about. Teachers should use nonverbal cues to encourage participation in addition to verbal ones; they should listen respectfully to every answer; and they should pay attention to what is being said so that they can respond appropriately. One thing that some teachers are unclear about is what to say when students respond incorrectly. It may seem like an easy choice to simply tell a student he or she is wrong and move on or ask the question again, but by doing this, a teacher is just making a student feel bad about his or her decision to speak up. Additionally, the teacher will never be sure if the student fully learned the correct answer after being embarrassed or contradicted in front of the class. Because of this, a teacher must be sure that he or she responds effectively to an incorrect student. Some ways to do that are: 1) use cues to promote student recall, 2) use overt/obvious reminders (try to jog his or her memory; remind the student so that he or she may naturally come to the correct answer), 3) look for the student’s reasoning and acknowledge why he or she may have believed that answer was correct. It is bad to automatically call out a student for being wrong, because there is a reason and thought process behind every answer. 4) Rephrase the question, 5) or redirect the question to another student who may know. One thing that a teacher must not do is to ignore the fact that a student is incorrect, because if the misconception is not addressed, it will never be corrected. Questions can be extremely useful in checking for understanding because they prompt thought, discussion, and comprehension, but only when they are used in an effective and deliberate way.
Organization is Key
Over the past few weeks, the amount of work that teachers have to do has astonished me. This week, however, has been exceptionally staggering. It is finals week, and the students have unusual schedules: the classes come in on all different days, and they have tutorials during first and second period. I can’t remember what my finals were like during high school, but I don’t think they were this confusing. My mentor teacher has been more stressed than usual because of the amount of papers she needs to grade before next week (when final grades are due) and she is also busy preparing the final for our juniors. They will be taking a fairly difficult quiz on Kindred, writing a journal prompt in response to an article about life in the Antebellum south, and participating in a vocabulary game. This week has been full of photocopying, grade-entering, paper-sorting, and flailing around in general.
My teacher brought up the fact that not many people realize how much work is involved with being a teacher. She confessed that she often comes in to school on the weekends to grade and organize her things for the upcoming week, and it’s not unusual for the other teachers to do the same. She said that because of the amount of work she assigns, she constantly has completed assignments piling up faster than she can grade them, and she feels like organization is an uphill battle. She discussed this in front of the other teachers today as well, and they all agreed that this is the case. I laughed nervously when one teacher told me, “When you’re a teacher, people are going to scoff and think your life is easy because you have summers off, but in reality, you more than make up for that free time in the amount of after-school work you do every day.” It’s true, I never thought about the true difficulty of keeping track of roughly 150 students’ assignments. It involves sorting, grading, recording, passing back, filing, and lots of mental energy. The worst part seems to be that once a teacher gets done grading a whole day’s worth of assignments, the next day comes around and they have to do it all over again (on top of planning, teaching, and managing the classroom). My teacher pointed out that she has me, a special ed assistant, and a teacher’s aid helping her every day and she is still “barely keeping her head above water,” as she said. I suppose the trick is just to stay organized from the very beginning, plan carefully, and have a concrete grasp on time management skills. This week has been a big eye-opener for me, but I’m glad I’ll know what to expect when my time comes!
Attending a Basketball Game
Tonight I went to a basketball game at the high school. I have been meaning to go for quite some time, because I played a lot of sports in high school and I always miss the exciting sights, sounds and competitive energy that one can only find at a sports event. There was a pep rally at the end of the day in school today, where the cheerleaders, dance team, and men’s ensemble performed in the gym. It pumped me up for the game and made me reminisce about my high school days. One of the coolest parts of seeing all the sports teams and clubs make an appearance at the pep rally was that I got to see some of my students in their element. It’s one thing to see the way kids act and accomplish things in the classroom; it’s an entirely different experience to watch them perform in a cheer squad, pep band or a basketball team, where they’re doing what they love with their friends. When I went to the game I was amazed by the skills that some of the players have. It made me remember that a lot of these kids will probably go on to play college sports (a couple have already been recruited) and to many people, athletics are about much more than having fun…for some of these kids, sports may lead to a career or a life long passion. Going to the game (and the pep rally) opened my eyes to the fact that a lot of the students in my classes have amazing talents that I wouldn’t have even known about otherwise. When I get deeper into teaching next quarter I also have to remember to take into account the amount of extracurricular things students are spending time on outside of the classroom. That way, I can appreciate them for the other aspects of their lives and be sympathetic to the fact that they might have a lot going on. The best part of all this is that now I know more about some of the students’ interests and hobbies, and knowing those things will enable me to have more meaningful relationships with the students.
Using Oral Language to Check for Understanding
Students need to learn how to conduct meaningful conversations about an academic topic. Additionally, they need to learn what kinds of language are appropriate in different settings. On page 17 the author of Checking for Understanding writes that the development of oral language “[…]is not simply teaching students to speak. Oral language involves thinking, knowledge, and skills that develop across the life span” (Fisher 17). In other words, oral language development must focus on students’ ability to communicate effectively. The book talks about five different kinds of language registers: fixed, formal, consultative, and intimate. Any act of exercising different kinds of oral language in the classroom is good, so checking understanding by having the students speak and listen allows them to become more familiar with what type of speech matches up with each social setting. The book goes on to explain that teachers have become so caught up in routines and textbooks that they tend to overlook one of the most important parts of learning: thinking. I believe that thinking and talking go hand in hand- a person cannot talk without thinking first, yet listening and talking stimulate thought. This is why checking understanding through oral language is so important. It causes students to strengthen their ability to have meaningful conversations, to think deeply, and to listen intently.
To elaborate on the importance of meaningful conversations, I’ll begin by explaining one of the biggest problems in modern classrooms. Kids are so distracted by the outside world that it is often easy to hear what a teacher is saying, but it can be difficult for some students to actually listen in a way that is meaningful enough for them to comprehend the subject. The book says, “Active learning results not from a knowledge dump emanating from the teacher alone but from a deeper understanding of the nuances and shades of gray that elevate knowledge” (25). In other words, listening to a teacher explain something might not be the easiest or best way for students to absorb knowledge. By talking about the topic rather than listening to the teacher, they can form opinions and gage whether they truly understand what they are supposed to be discussing. Talking about something forces a student to articulate his or her feelings on a subject, which requires deep thinking. Additionally, listening to a peer talk about that same topic causes a student to re-think his or her opinion and consider the other side. By engaging in conversation, students are discovering, amending, and/or strengthening their own beliefs.
As I said above, it is important for students to learn not only how to explain their position on a topic, but also to learn how to listen to opinions that differ from their own. This is why the Think-Pair-Share approach is such a good teaching tool. It allows students to listen to each other and express their own opinions to one another, then share their combined thoughts with the class. This gets them thinking first by developing their statements individually, then listening to hear how their thoughts line up with their partners’, then ironing out their statements before sharing with the entire class.
The one drawback to the Think-Pair-Share approach is that some kids are shy, and begin to panic at the thought of pairing up with someone or getting in a group (no matter how small). For some students, pairing up is only going to make them anxious. I can think of some kids in my own classroom who never talk to anyone in the class because they have major social anxiety, but their writing and work is great. I think if I use the Think-Pair-Share approach, I’ll tell students that if they don’t want to find a partner, they can write their thoughts down and listen to some of the conversations around them. While writing, they can consider how the opinions of the students around them differ with or compliment their own. If I have a rowdy or socially – oriented class, I’ll use Think-Pair-Share on a more regular basis, but I would like to use it sparingly in classes that have many shy students. If used correctly, this teaching approach can stimulate a lot of thought and allow me (as a teacher) to reap the benefits of checking for understanding though oral language.
Learning Names and Leading Discussion
This week has started off well. I have already made some more big breakthroughs in terms of my own personal goals, and it’s only the first real day of the week. There was no school yesterday because it was Martin Luther King Jr. Day, so naturally the students and teachers were in good moods because of the long weekend. The extra free day also allowed my teachers and me to jump right into the curriculum. We are starting a new book with the juniors, which everyone is excited about: Kindred, by Octavia Butler. After finishing The Crucible, the students are ready for something a little more fast-paced, and this book is perfect. It is about an African-American woman in the 70’s who is sent back in time to meet her ancestors, who live in the Antebellum South. One of her ancestors is a white male slave owner and the other is a slave, and it makes for a really gripping story. Last week my teacher did a series of anticipatory activities with the students about the book. One activity included a worksheet with a bunch of scattered words pertaining to the story (“trauma,” “patriarchy,” “ancestry,” “slave narrative,” “loss,” etc.), where the students had to write a paragraph guessing what the book was about based on the random words. Another activity featured different “stations” at 5 different tables, and each station had a different activity (listening to songs sung by slaves, reading a paragraph about Harriet Jacobs, writing a response to Frederick Douglass’s poetry, and more). These activities got the students really interested in the upcoming novel and by today they were ready to get copies of the books.
My teacher began each class by having me hand out a book to each student, which was the first time I have really been able to show them that I do know most of their names. Last week I spent a fair amount of time checking out about 90 of these novels from the library, and assigning one book to each student with the student’s first name on a visible sticky note on the front. When I handed out the books, the kids looked at me with surprise as if to say “oh, you know who I am!” I had to discreetly consult the seating chart a couple of times, but handing out books allowed me to test myself and showed me (and the students) that I really do know more of their names than I thought. It was a small accomplishment, but I think of it as one baby step toward being an effective and caring teacher later in the quarter.
Near the end of 5th period with the juniors, I got to lead a discussion with the students about the work they did in the station activity last week. When I first got up in front of them they all looked at me with great interest, because they hadn’t heard me talk much at all until this point. They listened intently and I think they were a little shy to volunteer their opinions because they were not used to talking to me. They warmed up a little more as time went on though, and they were eventually reading their written responses out loud for the class and providing feedback for one another. Before I addressed them as a class I was really nervous and afraid I wouldn’t be able to say what I wanted, because I knew it was the first time they had heard me speak to all of them for more than a few minutes. I was pleasantly surprised to find, however, that I didn’t show any visible signs of stage fright, and I kept my composure. We had a really nice class discussion, and now I feel like one of the hardest parts of student teaching- making that first attempt to actually “teach” something to a new class- is over.
Seeing the Students as Individuals
It’s Friday, and I’m already getting to know the students pretty well. Just talking to them individually or in twos and threes for a couple minutes here and there is really helpful when it comes to learning about them as real people. I spoke to one student who said he transferred in from a private school and he’s trying to get involved here by joining the debate team. He is nervous because he’s entering into the school as a junior, but he has always been interested in debate, and he thinks he’ll be able to succeed and become more integrated with the school that way. I think that takes a lot of ambition and courage, especially at that age when there are so many social groups and invisible hierarchies established among the students. Another boy said he is in a heavy metal band, and he brought in a CD of his band’s music for me to listen to. After listening to the music I can recognize how it fits his personality, and since he’s smart but not academically ambitious, it’s great to see how much energy he puts into his activities outside the classroom. It shows how passionate he can be about certain things, which makes me think he could be a straight-A student if he got excited enough about the curriculum. I also had a great conversation with one girl about The Lovely Bones, which, as I just learned, is a book we both love. Learning these little things about the students reminds me that I’m dealing with fascinating individuals who all have different interests, goals, and hobbies. When I stand in front of the class it’s easy to think of the students as a whole, like an amoeba that moves and thinks as one. However, talking to them individually makes them seem less intimidating, and more interesting. Talking to a multi-faceted group of kids is a lot better than just giving directions to “the freshmen” or “the juniors”. I hope I can eventually look at each of them and think of something that makes each student unique. I also think if I show them that I care about their interests, they are more likely to see me as a “real” person and treat me with genuine respect.
Why Check For Understanding?
In Checking For Understanding: Formative Assessment Techniques For Your Classroom, by Douglas Fisher and Nancy Frey, the importance of assessment is stressed from the very first page. Without properly checking for understanding, the authors say, teachers might overlook students who are behind and too shy to speak up. Checking for understanding can range from simple interactions to formal assessments, but no matter how it is done, it should be done as frequently as possible.
Checking for understanding is a very important step in the teaching and learning process, and unfortunately, most of the assessment done in schools is ineffective. Many teachers think that students “get it” even if they do not, and once a teacher moves on to a new subject, the opportunity to correct those students’ lack of understanding of a particular topic may be lost. One fact that doesn’t help the situation is that even if students think they understand something, they may have mentally missed a lot of information that would enrich the way they think of that topic. When students don’t know what they don’t know, it not only complicates the teacher’s job later on but stunts the growth of knowledge in those students’ minds. By checking for understanding frequently and effectively, that problem is eliminated. Students become aware of all sides of a subject when they are prompted to think about what their teacher wants them to get out of each lesson.
When done in a timely manner, checking for understanding can correct misconceptions and improve learning. In this case, “timely manner” refers to checking for understanding almost all the time. It should be done during the lesson and directly after anything is taught, while the information is still fresh in the students’ minds. That way, any confusion can be nipped in the bud. Doing this frequently during class also gives the students a model for good study skills, because it teaches them how to process new information and constantly question what they are learning. When teachers check for understanding, the students become aware of how to monitor their own understanding of a subject. Some useful strategies for checking for understanding, which also double as excellent study skills for students, are the following: Re-stating the material in one’s own words; asking questions about the material, and thinking of examples that relate to the new information. When teachers ask students to do these things in class, the students begin to recognize those activities (no matter how quick or small) as meaningful ways to make sure they know what’s going on.
As mentioned earlier, many things “count” as checking for understanding, whether the teacher is giving a formal test at the end of the semester, or checking to see if a student is awake and ready to learn on a daily basis. The main goal of checking for understanding is to work on closing the achievement gap by making sure students keep up with what they are being taught every week, day, and hour.
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