I Love Sticky Notes

What is the one supply you could not live without in your classroom?

Mine is sticky notes.

I love sticky notes! I lovelovelovelove them. They are cheap, plentiful, colorful, and moveable. They are the best tool for organization, feedback, lists, ... and teaching.

Of course, I write lists and notes on them. But that’s basic stuff. I used to write specific feedback to my students in their notebooks on sticky notes (and now I sometimes use them with teachers).  I use them when I am in classrooms to give  teachers feedback. Anyone who knows me knows that I keep them in a little box in my work bag and bust them out everywhere I go

Sticky notes are appealing to kids. They’re small, so they don’t look like “too much work”. They are colorful and appealing and they require student thinking (not just a one-word answer). And they aren’t permanent. So a sticky note put in the wrong place can be moved and it’s no big deal. They can be saved more easily than a full page of paper. And there’s something a little fun about them. At least more fun than “regular” paper.

But how else can we use sticky notes to support higher order thinking in our classrooms? Here are a few quick and awesome ideas!

1. Sticky Notes as Feedback -- When grading an assignment, particularly a tough  higher-order-thinking one, give some feedback to a student on a sticky note. That way, the student can keep your feedback, transfer it to another place, show it to his/her family, or use it next time he does a similar assignment.
2. Sticky Notes for Peer Editing -- When you do a DBQ or a another short or long writing assignment, it’s extremely valuable for the kids to trade papers and give each other feedback. That way, they don’t write all over the other person’s paper, which can feel and look a little disheartening.
3. Sticky Notes for Annotation -- So, the kids can’t write in the textbook (or on the class set of whatever) but you want them to interact with text. What do you do? Have them take notes on sticky notes. Students can make notes, write questions, note important terms and ideas all on sticky notes. If you have them write the page number and paragraph number on the sticky note, and stick the note on paper in theri notebook, they can go back and use it another time. Bingo. Problem solved.
4. Sticky Note Gallery Walk -- Have you had your students create something in groups (like a poster or on chart paper) and then had other groups come around to learn from those posters? Let the observers leave thoughts, questions, feedback on the posters with a sticky note. This does two things. First, of course, it gives feedback to the group who created the poster (or whatever). Second, it keeps the other groups accountable by making them record their thoughts and feedback -- without tampering with the original poster that the group was so proud of!
5. Sticky Notes for Formative Assessment -- How do I know what my kids learned this period? Again, use sticky notes. I have two favorites with this. First, I love to have my kids write one sentence summaries. They can use the sticky notes to explain the lesson, the point, the learning goal, or what they learned in one  sentence. OR they can write the five most important words of the lesson/reading/topic on their sticky note and you-the-teacher can compare. This is a great way to get some overall feedback to see how well your kids learned what you wanted them to learn and what they got out of the lesson/reading/activity.
6. Sticky Notes for Hands-On Sorting -- Want your kids to do a card sort? Try it on Sticky notes, on a wall (or a table/desk/board/floor). Have your kids split the work of jotting down the terms and then sorting them into the three branches. Because they’re sticky, they’re easy to move if a group puts a term in the wrong place. Try this with words associated with the North and the South, the Axis and the Allies, the Three Branches, the Four Causes of World War I, or any other time you want your kids to sort words in a more hands-on, up-and-moving type of activity.
7. Sticky Notes As Survey -- Want to hook your kids in to the lesson? Ask them an opinion question and have them display their thoughts on a chart. Who do you think had the best plan for 1960s America -- Dr. King or Malcolm X? Would you have dropped the Atom Bomb if you had been Truman? Which author do you agree with? Have the kids write their comment and stick their note under the posted heading. Now you have a visual answer as to what each class period thinks...

How else do you use one of the cheapest, most versatile office supplies in your classroom? How can you make the most of something as simple as sticky notes to increase Higher Order THinking? As always, I love to hear about it! Email me newmantr@pcsb.org

The Hook

What are you doing this weekend? And what made you want to do whatever it is that you do on your free time?

I mean, what makes you want to watch that movie, go to that event, show up at that party? What makes you pick up that book or call that friend to do dinner.

Someone has to grab your attention and hook you in.

Sometimes it’s a trailer for a movie. Sometimes it’s an advertisement. Sometimes it’s a personal invitation. Sometimes it’s an article you read or a flyer you spotted or a word-of-mouth recommendation or an email from me looking/stalking for NHD judges (please! We still need some for saturday morning!)

But you and I are not immune to getting hooked into things.

So why don’t we plan explicitly to “hook” our kids into our lessons?

We know that some of our students struggle to get “into” school. Some struggle to participate. Some struggle with motivation. Some struggle with relevance.

Sometimes we treat these issues as something we can get to maybe when we have time. Something we would tackle if we didn’t have so gosh darn much content to teach. Something that sounds like a good idea but not our main jobs.Something that’s not our problem; it’s the kids’ problem.

I would argue that motivation and engagement are MORE important than the details of our content. These things are not secondary to the content. Without engaging kids, the kids will never LEARN the content!

Does that make sense? Kids can’t learn content if they don’t have a reason. They can’t learn it if it doesn’t catch them and relate to them.

I sat through a training recently that wasn’t relevant to me. You better believe that I struggled to be engaged and learn the content because I didn’t connect or see a reason for learning it.

Why don’t we use quick hooks to get our kids interested and engaged -- so that we can increase motivation and increase participation and increase student success?

In plain speak, why don’t we do something to get our pique our students’ interest and then see if that makes them more likely to participate and actually learn?[

A hook doesn’t have to take long. It shouldn’t take long! Somewhere between one minute and five minutes. It might be part of you bellwork. It might not.

One of the easiest, quickest hooks I ever saw was an ELA teacher teaching about suspense. He had piled a bunch of books precariously on his desk that were going to fall at any moment. That was a fantastic hook that required less than one minute of class time.

So what can we do to hook our kids? There are a million ideas. Here are just a few

• Relatable Questions: Ask a relatable, discussion-worthy question. Kids can turn and talk or can do one-minute, timed quickwrites and share.
• If an 18 year old decides to run away from his/her family, should the family make that person come back? What about a 17 year old? (to introduce the Civil War)
• Artworks: Art is created to make people think and feel. Period. If you can find art to hook kids, you can engage them in a non-intimidating way.
• Nothing like the “American Progress”  painting to get kids thinking about Westward Expansion. You can do “I See, I Think, I Wonder” pretty quickly and get the kids thinking.
• Surveys/Continuum:  Ask your students what they think about whatever. Or, have them place themselves on a continuum.
• Survey them about whether they would rather stay home on the farm or move to a factory town for work during the Industrial Revolution. Ask them to make a human continuum of whether they think stronger federal government or stronger state governments better protect people’s rights.
• Prior Knowledge: Sometimes, the kids don’t have any prior knowledge. But sometimes they do. Instead of assuming one way or another, find out. If they DO know something, it will make them feel more successful and likely to participate that day.
• Ask them to “braindump” everything they know about World War II (or think they know) or about the Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s.
• Card Sorts: A card sort is a great way to get kids engaged. Give them cards with different terms from the lesson and have them sort them into categories that “make sense”.
• Give the kids cards with amendments and have them sort the amendments into categories.
• A Video: A quick  video -- with a higher-order question that ties to the point of the  lessons is always a good way to catch your students’ attention. But make it a useful video that it quick. And then don’t ask your kids to take notes. Try asking them to link the video to the benchmark or using five words to describe the event in the video or asking them to explain the connection
• Try a video of the Berlin Wall coming down on live TV or a Brain Pop or Flocabulary or any of a million great lesson hooks. Just keep it quick and relate it to the lesson.
• Adolescent Perspective: Get inside the brain of a teen or kid at the time and see if you can get your modern kids to think about being a kid in the past.
• Try a quote from the Tinkers (of Tinker vs. Des Moines), a quick story about the Children’s March in Birmingham, or the perspective of a younger sibling of soldier in war.

How do you purposefully hook your kids in at the beginning of a lesson? How to you intentionally grab their attention? If you think you don’t have time, how can you make time to catch the attention of more students? How do you already do this?

If you don’t regularly use “hooks”, I challenge you to try one on your next lesson and see how it goes. Maybe you can increase your student engagement by 10%? Maybe by 20%?

Let me know how it goes! I love to hear! Email me at newmantr@pcsb.org

-Tracy

Goldilocks and The Three Teachers

Goldilocks and the Three Teachers:   

A Metaphor Story

Once upon a time, there was a student named Goldilocks. One day, she went for a walk (with a pass) through campus. As she walked, she came across three teachers.

She knocked on the door (and showed her pass) and politely entered the first classroom where the teacher was teaching.  Goldilocks decided that the learning looked appealing and sat down to get a taste of that learning.

But when she started to try to take a bite of the learning, she closed her mouth and shook her head. This teacher gave TOO MUCH support! Before Goldilocks had a chance to think, the teacher was telling the class the answers, pointing to the page, and lowering the thinking level to recall level.

Of course, there must be some bears, I mean, students who need that level of support. But not all of them! And certainly not Goldilocks!!

So Goldilocks politely took her hall pass and headed out of that “too hot” class with the TOO MUCH SUPPORT. She walked to the room next door, knocked on the door, showed her pass, and took a seat in the second class.  The teacher was giving instructions and Goldilocks thought that maybe this would be the tasty learning that her brain needed that day!

But when she looked at her materials to start learning, she closed her mouth and shook her head again! This teacher gave TOO LITTLE support! Where the first teacher was doing all the work for the students, the second teacher just handed out the assignment and then left the kids to figure it out on their own! Goldilocks didn’t know where to begin, so she just didn’t start anything.

Of course, there must be some bears, I mean students, that don’t need any support with their assignment. But not all of them! And certainly not Goldilocks!

So Goldilocks politely took her hall pass and headed out of that “too cold” class with the TOO LITTLE SUPPORT. She walked to the room next door, knocked on the door, showed her pass, and took a seat in the third class. Goldilocks thought that maybe THIS would be the JUST RIGHT learning that she needed!

In the third class, the teacher was giving support that was JUST RIGHT! Goldilocks sat and stayed all period and learned ALL the things! She learned so much and was so much more successful!

What did that support look like?

• Written AND verbal directions
• Incorporation of visuals with new concepts
• Gradual Release of skills and procedures
• Chunking content and work into manageable pieces
• Differentiation (giving more support to kids who need more and less support to kids that don’t need as much)
• Collaboration (the real kind, not just I-do-the-first-half-and-you-do-the-second-half)
• Using sentence starters for ESOL students
• Letting kids have productive struggle

It’s easy, like Billy Joel sings, to “go to extremes”. We all have done it from time to time.

It’s easy to either give TOO MUCH SUPPORT, where we do the learning FOR the kids and they don’t have to do anything. These are the days where we are exhausted because we run around pointing out all the answers, lecturing and telling all the kids what to know, and give them word-for-word notes. It’s TOO MUCH support for almost all kids.  They don’t learn much because we-the-teachers are doing all the talking, all the thinking, all the work -- and the kids aren’t doing the thinking, the talking, or the work. They don’t own it.

It’s just as easy (maybe easier?) to give TOO LITTLE SUPPORT. Where we just tell the kids to figure it out on their own, where we just won’t jump in and save them or even help them. The kids don’t learn much here either (except the personally, naturally-intrinsically-motivated kids). This is where even a kid motivated by grades puts her head down and decides not to even try. This is when we had out the assignment, the packet, the work and tell the kids it’s due Friday.

Giving JUST RIGHT SUPPORT is tougher, more “grey area”. JUST RIGHT SUPPORT depends on the kids. Some kids need more support, other kids need less. You have to know your kids -- by data AND personality! You have to adjust what you do a little for each kid, each class. It means that third period might need you to give them six questions and fourth period might only need four. It might mean that 7th period needs the directions written and verbal and choral read aloud -- but first period needs everyone to stop talking about the directions so they can get started and concentrate.  JUST RIGHT SUPPORT might mean that sixth period needs to do just the top half of the page, and then get together and check to see if they’re doing it right before moving on to the bottom half -- while second period just needs the time and the quiet to zoom through the whole assignment. Half of fifth period needs you to read aloud to them to help them comprehend the text and the other half doesn’t.

It’s tricky but SOOOOO worth it.

How can we be Goldilocks and give JUST RIGHT SUPPORT (not too much, not too little)?  How do you do this? How can you be more intentional about this? As always, I love to ehar from you! Email me at newmantr@pcsb.org

-Tracy

What Are You Asking?

It’s not Duck Season! It’s not Wabbit Season!

It’s almost Testing Season! The time of year when schedules get crazy and your pacing goes out the window!

One of my least favorite things about testing season is the post-game talk of the students. After the test is over, despite the fact that they swear that they won’t talk about it, they of course DO talk about it.

So they come in my class after a three-hour testing block and the kids start talking about the test. And invariably, some kid will talk about something and some other kid will say “holy $#@!! Is that what that part was about? I totally thought it was asking about blahblahblah”

Aha. Here lies the problem. It happens on my classroom assessments, in district assessments, on the FSA, SAT, ACT, ASFAB, GED, GRE, and any other alphabet-soup of a test.

Kids don’t understand what the question is asking for.

For example, the question asks kids to analyze, but they describe. Or it asks them to contrast but the kids compare.

I’d like to propose that over the next couple of weeks, as we get closer to testing season, that we explicitly teach what those “power words” are and what they mean and what a kid should do if given that word in a test.

It depends on where you take your words from, but the internet (which, I know, I know, is NOT the authority of everything) often uses the “12 Power Words”.

Every teacher does NOT have to teach every one of these words.

But when they come up in your class over the next few weeks (and they should come up frequently), STOP! And explicitly teach the word.  (Honestly, if your class is not tackling at least SOME of those words, then your class is not hitting a lot of higher order thinking.)

It shouldn’t take a lot of time. A couple of minutes, at most. Which is worth it if your kids are mastering Tier Two Vocab.

What do I mean by teaching it explicitly?

1. Well, when that word comes up in an assignment or assessment or whatever, I will stop the class and see how many students can define the term with their shoulder partner.
2. Then (because kids will so often tell us that they understand things when they don’t) I will either solicit a few student definitions or give them my own.
3. I will have the kids practice  their acquisition of the term by having them do a turn and talk where each partner uses the word in a real sentence about anything they want. We will share those out, too.
4. I will have each team practice using the term by making a content-related question.
5. We will talk about the type of answer the question (the one we began with) is asking for. Is the question asking for you to compare? What would a compare answer look like?

For example: Based on the document, infer the author’s point of view.  

1. Turn to your partner and see if you can explain what “infer” means! Who wants to share  with the class?
2. Student A had a great definition! Infer means to get something out of words that isn’t “right there”!
3. Turn to your partner and use the word “infer” about something in your life. Mine is “I can infer from the fact that you’re not answering my texts that you don’t want to talk to me”.
4. Now, use the term “infer” about something regarding the Treaty of Versailles. “I can infer from the fact that Germany has to pay a bijillion dollars, that it’s kind of a punishment”
5. Now, what would an “infer” answer look like? It should include us getting something out of the document/text/cartoon/whatever that isn’t “right there”.

How do you teach the “power words”? What steps do you take? How can you really hammer this home in the next few weeks?