Importance of Active Participation: Video 01: Importance of Active Participation

What we want to consider today: How can teachers:  gain and maintain attention?  elicit many responses from students?  provide passage reading practice so that all students are engaged in “doing the doing.”  maintain a “perky pace” and keep lessons moving?  monitor students’ responses by providing additional instruction/modeling/recognition?  insure that all students are practicing all key knowledge and skills correctly? (Anita Archer, 2006)

Gaining and maintaining attention: The teacher – what she does or doesn’t do – is the key predictor of student attention and engagement. (A. Archer, 2006)

Procedures for Gaining and Maintaining Attention:  Use a signal, such as “eyes on me” or, “we’re going to begin now.”  Elicit responses from students.  Keep a perky pace.  Maintain close proximity to the students.  Connect with students.  Add delight, enthusiasm, and humor to instruction.

Food for Thought: “It’s not what you say or do that ultimately matters … it is what you get the students to say or do as a result of what you said and did that counts!” (Anita Archer, 2006)

Active Participation: Tools for Your Engagement Tool Kit  Eliciting Responses: Choral Responses (Students are looking at the teacher) Procedure: a. Ask a question requiring a short response. b. Raise your hand to cue quiet thinking time. c. Give thinking time. d. Say, “Everyone…” e. Lower your hand to signal response time.

Different ways choral responses can be used:  Choral Responses (Students are looking at a common stimulus) a. Point to the stimulus. b. Ask a question. c. Give thinking time. d. Tap for a response.

Continued…  Choral Responses (Students are looking at their own paper/book) a. Ask a question. b. Give thinking time. c. Use an auditory signal, such as “Everyone…”  Hint: If students don’t respond, repeat the process.

Eliciting Responses: Partner Responses Procedure:  Teacher chooses partners.  Partners are given roles. They can be assigned “A” or “B”, “one” or “two.”  Partners sit next to each other, not across from each other.  Partners are given specific topics to consider.  Have partners talk for short periods of time.  Call on individual students after they have practiced with a partner.

Hints for Partners:  Teach students how to work together and how to be a good partner. Teach, “Look, Lean, Whisper.”  Teach students how to give and receive feedback, encouragement and compliments.  Have students come to the “whole group area” with their desk partner so that new partners do not have to be assigned.  To facilitate partners at small group tables, tape cards on the table with numbers (or letters), and arrows pointing to each partner.  Change partnerships occasionally (three to six weeks).

Use Think-Pair-Share for brainstorming: THINK  Have students think and record their responses.  As students are writing, move around the room and record their ideas and names on an overhead transparency. PAIR  Have students share their ideas with their partners. Have them record their partner’s best idea(s).  As students are sharing, continue to record ideas on the overhead. SHARE  Use the transparency for sharing with the class.

Take a look… Video 02: Brainstorming: 3 rd

10:2 Theory for Processing To reduce information loss, pause for two minutes at about ten minute intervals. For every ten minutes or so of meaningful chunks of new information, students should be provided with two or so minutes to process the information. Students can respond and discuss their current understanding in various ways. (Rowe, 1983)

Use Think-Write-Share- Strengthen THINK  Teacher asks a question.  Students think quietly about possible answers; this usually takes only about 30 seconds to one minute, unless it is a complex question. WRITE  Students write a response. SHARE  Students share their responses with their partner. STRENGTHEN  Based on input from the partner, students strengthen their response.

Use Tell-Help-Check for review: TELL  One participant tells his/her partner all that is remembered about the topic. (The teacher will indicate if they can use notes or not). HELP  The second partner adds any additional information that he/she remembers. CHECK  Both partners check their responses with their notes.

Another partner procedure: Share with Team GENERATE  Generate a response or a product with a partner; SHARE  Share with another partnership.

Work with a partner to process video information: FOCUS  Trainer/teacher presents a focus. (Watch for….) WATCH & NOTE  Participants/students watch the video and take notes. SHARE  One participant/student shares his/her observations with his/her partner. FEEDBACK  The partner adds his/her observations. GROUP SHARE  The group participates in a discussion.

Setting Up Video Viewing for Adults Video 03: Set Up Adult Video Viewing

Let’s watch: Video 04: Active Participation: 2nd

Other uses of partners:  Say answer to partner;  Retell content of lesson (or portion of a lesson) using a graphic organizer;  Explain process or strategy, using examples;  Read to or with partner;  Monitor partner to see if directions were followed;  Share materials with partner;  Assist partners during independent work;  Provide feedback on written products;  Collect papers, handouts, assignments for absent partners.

Final thoughts on partners:  Pair shy children together;  Pair outgoing students together;  Teach the behaviors you want to see;  Think about when a “divorce” may be needed and do it quickly.

Eliciting Responses: Individual Turns  Eliminate Less Desirable Practices from a Teacher’s Repertoire  Calling on volunteers Guideline: Call on volunteers when the answer is a result of personal experience. Don’t call on volunteers when the answer is a product of instruction or reading.  Calling on inattentive students. “Catching students being bad” does not work, breeds resistance, and may reinforce wrong answers.

Individual Turns – More Desirable Practices  Option 1:  Have students share answers with their partners.  Call on a student to respond.  Option 2:  Ask a question.  Raise your hand to indicate silence and thinking time.  Give thinking time.  Call on a student.

Individual Turns  Procedures for calling on students to insure that all students are engaged.  Option 1: Call on students in different parts of the room.  Option 2: Write names of students on cards or sticks. Draw a name.

What if a student is called on and says, “I don’t know”  Scaffold his/her response!  Option 1: Have the student consult with his/her partner, then respond.  Option 2: Have the student refer to his/her book or notes.  Option 3: Have the student tell the ‘best’ of the previous responses given.  Option 4: Tell the student an answer, and then let the child say it for himself.

Keep your expectations high…. “….there are no power struggles, we’re all going to do this; we know what we’re supposed to do, we will all do it, and I will support anyone who needs assistance. Not doing it is not even on the radar screen.” (A. Archer, 2006)

Eliciting Responses: Written Responses Gauge the length of the written response to “avoid voids.”  Make the response fairly short, or, make the response ‘eternal.’ To keep students from ‘sneaking’ ahead:  Expose limited items on the overhead, chart, etc.  Have students put their pencils down or turn their papers over to indicate completion.

Eliciting Responses: Other Responses Touch stimulus:  Increases attention  Allows monitoring of attention to stimulus Elicit a physical response: Act out Use hand signals  Useful when using categorical responses  Carefully introduce and model hand signals Display answer with response cards  Have students write possible responses on cards or white boards  Ask a question. Have students display card or point to a response

We said we would work on passage reading procedures today…. “We know that round robin reading doesn’t work and silent reading only, without accountability, leaves struggling readers likely to not be reading at all, so, what might work better? (A. Archer, 2006)

Better Options for Passage Reading:  Option 1 – Choral Reading:  Read the selection with the students  Read at a moderate rate  Tell the students to keep their voices with yours  Consider asking students to pre-read material silently first before choral reading; this provides a form of rehearsal, and may benefit less skilled readers.

Option 2 – Cloze Reading  Read the selection out loud to students  Pause at meaningful words, and allow students to supply the word chorally  Leave words out that appear at the end of a phrase or sentence to preserve the flow, or prosody

Option 3 – Individual Turns with Passage Reading  Use with small groups of students  Call on individual students in random order  Vary the amount of material read by each student

Option 4 – Silent Reading with a Clear Task  Pose a pre-reading, or focus, question to sharpen attention  Tell students to read a certain amount of the material  Ask students to reread the material if they finish early (make the task eternal)  Monitor students’ reading. A touch on the back means they need to whisper read to you.  Respond to the pre-reading question, first with a partner, then with the whole group

Option 5 – Partner Reading  Assign each student a partner  The ‘reader’ whisper reads to the partner. Students may alternate by sentence, paragraph or by time increment  The ‘coach’ corrects errors:  Ask: “Can you figure this word out?”  Tell: “This word is ____. What word? Reread the sentence.” HO1_Conversation Extenders

With partner reading: It is very important that the ‘coach’ insists that the ‘reader’ reread the entire sentence. Rereading:  Provides more practice with the missed word in context;  Improves fluency;  Helps student regain context and comprehension;  Motivates students to read carefully; if they know they will have to reread the whole sentence, they’ll attend carefully to the print (this is called ‘response cost’ in the literature)

Alternatives to Partner Reading to Support Low Readers:  Place lowest readers in a triad.  The first reader (better reader) reads the material.  The second reader reads the same material.  All three students read the material together.

Alternative Passage Reading Procedures: Video 05: Alternative Reading Passages 3rd

We said we would consider the importance of pacing:  Keep a perky, not pokey pace.  Instructional time variance  Transitions  Momentum