Binge Watching

We live in the age of Netflix, which encourages a strange habit these days of “binge watching” TV shows. “Binge Watching”, as a phrase, means watching numerous (too many?) episodes of a show all in one sitting.  I recently went to watch a new TV show I had heard about only, to download 8 episodes at once.

I know I sound old, but it wasn’t that long ago that we used to have to wait for a specific channel to bring us a rare “marathon” on an off-season Sunday afternoon. Now, with streaming TV, we can binge-watch shows all the time.

So, the problem is, when I binge-watch, I go on overload. My brain can’t actually process all that stuff. The next thing I know, it’s the middle of the night and I can’t actually remember what happened or in what order in the “Series of Unfortunate Events” or “Portlandia” or “Man in the High Castle” or whatever.

And then one of two things happens.Either my brain shuts down like a full belly on Thanksgiving -- orr I need to process some of the info to make room for more.

We used to take commercial breaks. Or wait a week for the next episode. Now, we have to force ourselves to pause it for a restroom break.

Kids brains get “full” too. They can really only handle 10-15 minutes of school content before they can’t handle any more and they either shut down or need to process.

What can we do to prevent kids’ brains from shutting down?

There are plenty of ways to process classroom content. Here are a few of my quick  favorites:

1. Talk About It -- Turn and Talks are the best classroom hack ever.. Take a break from your lecture/discussion/video/reading/activity and have the kids turn and talk about it.
1. How? You can either ask them to recap what they just learned or ask a higher-order question for kids to discuss/process together. I would eavesdrop to see how well they’re getting the material.
2. Write About It -- Quick writes can be a brief and simple way to get kids to process content. They don’t require a lot of set-up and they don’t require a lot of management.

1. How?  You can ask them what they just learned, how they can apply it, or what it has to do with another thing they learned. Give them a short time limit and ask them to write the whole time.Then, you can use what they write to see where they are in their thinking and learning

3. Draw about it -- Having kids create a meaningful representation of their learning is powerful -- if THEY make the drawing (not copying one from somewhere).

1. How? Ask kids to make a visual illustration of a vocab term, a concept, or how two ideas go together. This makes them process the info and make it their own. Again, you can use this info to see where they are in their thinking.

There are, of course, plenty of longer, more involved ways to process content. But these three are the quickest and most adaptable. I highly suggest you give your kids a “processing break” and give them time to digest their learning. I honestly believe that they learn and retain better when they process their learning.

Do you give processing breaks? If so, how do they work for you? If not, will you try one? If you aren’t changing up the activity, try taking a processing break! Let me know how it goes!

-Tracy

Life Hacks and Teaching Hacks: Part 2

I’m on a Life Hack “kick”. I actually watched an awesome video on youtube where my secret author-crush, John Green tested several Life Hacks out, kind of like Mythbusters-style. Hilarious and helpful!

Life Hacks that are dumb:

1. Using your pants hanger as a chip clip. Are your pants on the floor now? Are your chip needs stronger than your clean-pants needs? I would vote for unwrinkled pants, but that’s just me...
2. Using a cassette case as a cell phone stand. Do you really need to stand your phone up? Do you need that enough to get your cassettes out of that box in your garage and use one of the few cassette cases that did not break in the 90s and leave that cassette hanging out un-cased and put the cassette liner back in the box to get crumpled -- all because you can’t look down onto your table or desk or counter? Really?
3. Using your soda can tab to hold your straw. First of all, do you really need a straw with your can? Do you carry straws with you, just in case you decide to have a can of soda? Second, does the floating straw really bother you that much? Really? It doesn’t float away into the sky, you know.

Teaching Hack that is dumb:

Hand sanitizer as a bathroom pass. Can someone count all the ways this could go wrong? Sprayed all over campus? Gotten in eyes? A “hand sanitizer flinging fight”? Someone ingesting that stuff? Yikes!

GOOD Teaching Hack:

Use a “call-on system”. Don’t just call on the kids with their hands up. Calling on only raised hands gives you four problems:

1. Problem #1: Kids with their hands up learn. Everyone else sits back and lets the hand-raisers do the thinking. This is scheduled napping-with-your-eyes-open time for the non-hand-raisers!
2. Problem #2: You, the teacher, have no idea what, if anything, the rest of the class is learning. And you won’t know for a week or two until the test and you say, “Wow! These kids didn’t learn anything!”
3. Problem #3: Kids who don’t raise their hands learn that you won’t call on them and assume that you don’t care if they learn or not.
4. Problem #4: Or they learn that being called on is a “gotcha”. When teachers run out of raised hands, they often call on the kids that look the least engaged as a way of “busting” the kid who is lost or daydreaming or whatever.

Instead -- use a Call-on system.

You can go low tech -- like putting a number on each desk, putting the same numbers on a set of popsicle sticks, and pulling a popsicle stick out of a bag and calling on the student sitting in the corresponding desk.

Or, you can go high-tech with Class Dojo which will randomly call on a kid when you have entered all the student names into the system. You-the-teacher can use it on your projector, your smart board, your phone, your ipad, whatever.

But however you do this, make sure you set it up correctly -- TELL YOUR KIDS WHAT YOU’RE DOING AND WHY. You can’t start a call-on system in October without some good preparation

Even high school kids need a call on system. Why?

1. It holds every kid accountable. Every kid has to learn the material (or at least TRY) and be prepared to answer or share.
2. It tells your kids that you care that each of them learns. That you’re not just interested in what the hand-raisers have to say (and what those hand-raisers have learned) -- you’re interested in what EVERY kid has to say and what every kid is learning.
3. It helps you figure out where your kids are lost, stuck, confused, or wrong EARLY in your instruction. This way, you are doing formative assessment and you know where they need help or re-teaching BEFORE you get to the formal test or quiz. So you can, you know reteach or adapt your lesson.

Tips:

• Set up a plan for the kid who can’t or won’t answer. Do you allow him to “phone a friend” (I mean, talk to a neighbor)? Do you give him a minute to think and come back to him? Are you aware of the kid who just got a referral last period and is struggling to keep himself from blowing up this period? I would skip that kid if he asks you to.
• Preach again and again that you are doing this because you CARE, not because you’re a “gotcha”-kind-of-jerk.
• Be consistent with your system. Use it frequently, at least until your kids are used to it. Make it a part of your procedures.

Do you use a “call-on” system? How do you use it? What have you learned from it? Any tips for folks new to “call-on” systems?

AS always, I love to hear from you! Email me! newmantr@pcsb.org

Life Hacks and Teaching Hacks

The internet is full of “Life Hacks” -- simple things you can do to make your life easier.

Some are silly. I have no interest in cooking noodles in my coffee maker. I have a pot and a stove top and I don’t want coffee-tasting noodles.

I will not put my bagel in an old CD spindle. Why do I need a bagel tote? What’s wrong with a ziplock bag? And how many old CD spindles are you storing in your home anyway?

C’mon, people! Don’t FORCE this whole lifehack thing...

My favorites ACTUAL life hacks?

• The carabiner-clipped-grocery-bag = trash bag for your car. Genius.
• Nail polish on your keys -- so you know which key is which. Fun AND sparkly!
• Putting smelly shoes in the freezer (in a bag) to kill whatever bacteria are making them stinky.
• Use toothpaste to patch nail-holes in your apartment walls. Or to make pimples go away. Or to fix scratches in CDs. Or to clear up hazy headlights... Toothpaste is the best lifehack.

What’s my favorite Teaching Hack?

It’s called “Turn and Talk”.

Period.

So simple. So quick. So powerful.

So underused.

The average teacher probably uses turn and talk once or twice a week.

How do I do it?

Step One: Ask a question, preferably higher-order (you do this a million times a day anyway)

Step Two: Give a time limit. I like 30 seconds, but you can choose a larger or smaller time frame depending on the question, your time frame, your students, etc.

Step Three: Have your students turn to a neighbor and discuss your question

*Use some explicit instruction -- teach them how to do this. I know you THINK they know how, but your expectations and your next-door colleague’s expectations may be a bit different. Teach your kids:  

• how to stay seated
• how to actually TURN their heads and shoulders toward their partners
• how only 2 (or three in an odd-numbered class) per partnership
• who should turn to whom
• go over your group expectations  (mine are the Five Ohs: On task, On topic, Only your partner, One-level volume, On (in) your seat)

Step Four: This is the most important step. Walk around your room and LISTEN to the students turning and talking. If you don’t listen, you aren’t holding students accountable. How do you know that they’re not talking about Snapchat or whatever? If you don’t listen, the kids pick that up pretty quick and will never make this work right. *Fix the problem if kids are not on task and on topic.

Step Five: Ask each group to share out, either something they said or something they heard. Again -- to make sure EVERY kid has some thinking going on - and to make sure that every kid’s thinking matters!

Why is this a great Teaching Hack? (I thought you’d never ask...)

Here’s another Life Hack: People love countdowns. Spin it countdown style, and people love to find out the #1 answer.....  

So here are my Top Five Reasons To Do a Turn-and-Talk, countdown style

5. Because students turning and talking can break up monotony, make the pace pick up, and better “chunk” content.

4. Because when a teacher voices a great discussion question -- and then takes raised hands, the teacher only holds the students accountable who have raised their hands. The rest of the class can tune out and daydream and get away with slacking off. Turn-and-talk holds ALL kids accountable.

3. Because when students turn and talk -- and the teacher listens carefully -- the teacher can correct misconceptions and mistakes right there on the spot, instead of waiting until the quiz or test next week.

2. Because a kid who is talking about content is engaged in the learning. He or she is interested. His or her brain has woken up. Endorphins from talking about their own understanding and ideas can flow.

1. Because when kids get to talk, they get to try out their ideas and words -- and they OWN those ideas and words. The talking and thinking doesn’t belong to the teacher anymore. The learning belongs to the kids! And then they UNDERSTAND THE CONTENT BETTER. It seriously makes kids actually learn better!!!!!

It seems like we don’t have 30 seconds of class time to spare. But if those thirty seconds mean that the kids better understand and retain content -- they we don’t have time to NOT turn and talk.

If you take your class discussion questions (where you often take raised hands) and turn those into turn and talks -- you might actually GAIN learning time. (Hypothesis: it takes longer to call on 5 raised hands than it does to turn and talk for thirty seconds and share out? Someone test this one for me!)

I want to challenge you to use turn-and-talks obsessively. Every day, multiple times a period.  How many times a period can you turn-and-talk? 5? 10? 15? 20? more?

The more your kids turn and talk -- the more they retain. Period.

Best. Teaching Hack. Ever.

Let me know how it goes! As always, let me know! newmantr@pcsb.org

The Person Doing the Talking

Today, after school, stick your head outside your classroom and watch the kids. 

Man, they have a lot of energy, huh? As soon as that last bell rings, they seem to perk up, and get energized. Suddenly, drama becomes louder, skateboards come out, and “tag”-style flirting becomes a legitimate sport.  

Meanwhile, most of us teachers are beat. There are days when all we can do is get in the car and drive home and collapse.

Seriously. We, as a group, are pretty exhausted in the afternoons.

So, I want to throw this adage at you and then I want to shut up this week.

Are you ready? -- The person doing the talking is doing the thinking.

Take a look at those words again: The person doing the talking (about content) is doing the thinking (about content).

Now, look at your class today.

Who is doing the talking? Therefore, who is doing the thinking?

Find that smart-but-bored kid in your class and ask him or her to time when you talk and when the students talk.

Look at those totals. Whoooo is doing the (academic) talking? Whooooo is doing the (academic) thinking?

But Tracy (you may say), my kids don’t KNOW anything! They can’t TALK about content. I don’t know how to manage them so they do it well. When I let them talk about content, they go crazy! They talk about the movies or twitter or gossip or that dress!

It’s ok. Relax. You can help them do more academic talking. Maybe if they talk more (academically) THEY’LL be more tired and YOU’LL be less tired at the end of the day

Here are a few suggestions for helping the TEACHER talk LESS and the KIDS talk MORE (about content)

1.    Allow students to struggle -- even though we, as teachers, want to tell them the right answers, it’s helpful to have kids struggle a little. It’s ok to give them corrective feedback (“I don’t think that’s really what you’re looking for. Try looking over here...”) but it doesn’t do them any good to give them the answer.

2.    Move away from the front of the room -- Sit in the back and ask a kid to show the class the procedure. Stand to the side of the room and ask kids to read the directions or concept aloud. Circulate and listen.

3.    Have the kids turn and talk -- It’s the quickest and easiest way to get them to to process and “own” the content. Give them an open-ended question and teach the procedure.

4.    Have the kids reciprocally read -- One of the biggest “bangs for your buck”. This is my favorite reading strategy.  When kids reciprocally read well, they better understand and negotiate the text.  The more they do it, the better they comprehend the content.

5.    Instead of asking “does that make sense?”, ask “can you put what I said into your own words?” Particularly when you give directions or explain a concept, have your kids tell you kids tell you what makes sense and what you mean.

6.    Stop summarizing and reviewing -- and have the kids do it. Again, get out of your own way and ask the class what the directions or the concept is. If you hear yourself saying “once again, remember, as I said, as always, so to sum this up, or don’t forget” for the millionth time, stop saying it. Your kids have then learned that they don’t really have to listen. They can tune you out. Instead, have them turn to a neighbor and restate the directions/concept or have volunteers or use a call-on system (like Classroom Dojo) and have your students restate the big idea or the summary or the procedure.

In an effort for ME to do LESS TALKING and allow YOU to do more, I’m going to shut up for today. I ask that, instead of me still typing, you think about if you can add or increase the use of any of those ideas above. Try to talk less and let the kids talk more (about content). I’m hoping – that once you and the kids get used to it – that you are LESS tired and the kids are MORE tired. Let me know how it goes!  

Dittos, Wars, and Encoding

About a decade ago, I had a colleague find a “ditto” machine that had been lost in a box in a closet for forever. It turned out, that while we had strict copy limits at my school -- there were no limits on the Ditto machine (until we ran out of ink -- can you even still buy that stuff?). So we went ditto-crazy and made dittos of everything after we used up our copies for the month. (Man, those dittos smelled good! :)

Sometimes, technology changes. While I might still use a ditto machine after I ran out of copies, I might also now project more on my projector, I might now email handouts to students, I might use write-and-wipes. There are a lot more options than dittos-and-overhead-projectors.

Confession time:

During my first year as a teacher I taught “Florida Challenges and Choices” to 8th graders. My entire curriculum was six squares on a single sheet of paper with a different topic each six-weeks grading period -- like “Florida Geography” and “Finance Park” and “Wars and Conflicts” and no textbook or notebook of resources. It was catch-as-catch-can. During that last unit, “Florida in Wars and Conflicts” my veteran colleague gave me a 22-page typed packet with outlined  notes on every conflict Florida had ever been involved in-- from the Spanish assault on Fort Caroline (1565) to Florida’s role in the Persian Gulf War (1991).

The students literally were expected to sit quietly and copy the 22-page packet of notes -- for weeks.

And I, being a new teacher, not knowing any better, assigned it to my students. And then struggled with the classroom management and the ensuing student revolt. In April and May!!

And then gave them an open-note test. Which they bombed, of course.

If you know any of those students -- please apologize for me. I’m pretty sure those kids didn’t learn ANYTHING about Florida Wars and Conflicts. Or anything!

So, with full disclosure of my own prior note-copying practices I want you to look deeply at your own.

There is a time and a place for students copying down information. I get that. But as professionals, we need to really examine our practices of copying.

Why do we have students copy?

If it is for students to get information, we might think about using the copy machine. Or the ditto machine (does anyone still have one? :) Or the books. Or let kids take photos with their phones.

If it is for students to interact with information, we might think about having students make notes instead of taking notes.

Research shows that copying notes does not support retention of lecture content. So why do we do it?

Here’s a great quote from “Exemplary Instruction in the Middle Grades”, by Diane Lapp and Barbara Moss (2012), reading coaches and teacher-educators at San Diego State University -- stay with me, high school folks. This can apply to your kids, too! They cite teachers in a PLC at an “urban neighborhood school”.

Mr. Rappaport, a social studies teacher, tells his colleagues that he cannot understand why his students perform so poorly on the section quizzes and unit tests. He explains that he has developed Powerpoint presentations for each chapter that include many visuals and notes, which he has his students carefully copy down. He reveals to his colleagues, “And for my English language learners who can’t read the textbook and for those students who won’t read the textbook, lecturing and note taking seem to be the only way that the students will get the material. Most of my students can’t take notes on their own. They can’t write fast enough, and some of them have poor listening skills. Copying down the notes should help the students remember better than just reading or hearing the material. I like to have them copy the notes because it keeps them busy and on task during the period. Even so, they are still doing poorly on the tests.

With exasperation in her voice, Mrs. Grim, the science teacher, said, “I have the same problem, except that instead of having my students copy the powerpoint slides, I prepare graphic organizers, which the students follow as I lecture and we fill in together. If they study the graphic organizer, the students should do well on the quizzes -- but they don’t. (p. 292-293)

Does any of that sound familiar? It sure does to me! I swear, I spent hours every Sunday afternoon crafting clear, easy to read powerpoints with lots of historical art and engaging visuals. And still, my kids didn’t do so hot on my tests and quizzes.

According to Lapp and Moss, notetaking has two main purposes: recording information and promoting reflection. We record information like grocery lists and phone numbers every day. We get that.

Reflection, called encoding, is when students use notes for more sophisticated purposes, like summarizing, interpreting, making connections, etc. “When students actively generate relationships among parts of information and between this new information and their prior knowledge, comprehension is improved. When students re-process information in some way, whether through summary writing or self-questioning, long-term memory is improved and material is better recalled. ... The more the information learning process involves understanding and transforming operations, the greater the intensity and effectiveness of the learning process.

The keys are in the making of notes, not the taking of notes. What do I mean?

According to Robert Marzano, kids need to interact with information. They’re not sponges anymore. They’re potters who need to squoosh and smoosh and squish and manipulate the content until it fits the way THEIR brains want to store it. Encoding...

Research says that “The mere fact of copying information does not ensure that students will remember or truly understand the information provided. Research has found that the act of copying does not aid recall. For true learning to occur, students need opportunities to engage in tasks that go beyond copying.

SO, how do we do that? How do we help kids encode content? How do we get it to stick in their brains?

They’ve got to process it. First, they shouldn’t copy too much -- certainly not 22 pages! Let’s use the copying piece sparingly. Here are some ideas on processing.

• Kids can encode content when they discuss it. They need to do the discussing, not us-we-the-teachers discussing it for them. Try a turn-and-talk or sentence starters.
• Kids can encode content when they summarize it. Kids doing the summarizing, not us-the-teachers summarizing for them.
• Kids can encode content when they write claims and find evidence from their notes or readings. Again, they have to write the claims and find the evidence. We can’t do it for them.
• Kids can encode when they argue about something in their notes or readings. We can’t argue it for them.
• Kids can encode when they make connections to other information. Again, they have to make the connections for themselves. We can’t do it for them. d
• Kids can encode when they re-work or interpret the content into their own visual, graphic organizer, foldable, or whatever. We can’t rework it for them.

So what if my kids are lousy discussers, summarizers, claim writers, arguers, connectors, or interpreters?

I use gradual release to teach the skill. First, I show them how to summarize. Then, we summarize all together.  Next, they practice summarizing in groups. Finally, they practice summarizing independently.

Let’s find better ways to use notes -- and let’s not be a ditto machine but be judicious with copying of notes. Let’s find ways for our students to encode our content so they really get it.

How do you have your kids encode content? Any ways you can increase your encoding and use your copying more judiciously?