Design Question 3: What Will I Do to Deepen Students' Understanding
Module 8: Helping Students Practice Skills, Strategies, & Processes (p. 101-108)
What do you, as an educator, do to provide opportunities for your students to practice their skills, strategies, and processes that you have taught?
How do you determine the extent to which cooperative groupings will be used?
In completing the Activity Box on p. 105, I thought of ways that I use practice with my students in working on 2 digit addition. First, after modeling, I would have students work out many problems along with me on their white boards (I do). Then, maybe in a couple of days, practice with a partner on white boards and check out, one problem at a time. Third, practice problems independently while checking one problem at a time (teacher looking for errors so students can correct quickly). Finally, I will ask students to complete problems independently as in daily work and/or homework.
ReplyDeleteI want to send you a thumbs up emoticon. :)
DeleteAwesome!
DeleteThis module to me was all about the "I do, We do, Ya'll do, You do" practice and Kagan. I use both of these in every lesson I do. It might not be done all in one day, but we go through all the steps by the end of the actual lesson. My students sit in cooperative groups and they work together as a small family withing the classroom. While they work in their groups, I walk around and monitor them and if need be, I refocus the room to address misconceptions or pull students to work more with one-on-one or small group. There are times where I even make the blanket statement "If you feel like you got this, continue working with group/partner. If you feel like you need a little more help or just clarification join me at the table". Once we have a group or one student I work with them and once they feel confident they leave me to rejoin their groups.
ReplyDeleteAmy and Kim, I appreciate what you shared. I don't have anything to add. I agree. :)
ReplyDeleteAmy, what a great way to make sure your students feel that they can work together, work with you or work alone. I love you comment "small family". If you can't trust your family to help you out ...!
DeleteQuestion 3- Module 8
ReplyDeleteThe text states that initial practice should be highly structured and monitored. That means teach on your feet and not your seat! I provide extensive practice after initial instruction. Most every night my students have some sort of homework. This does not mean hours upon hours of homework, usually about 1 hour total. Homework for students is necessary and also provides me and the student immediate feedback. I grade and evaluate student work on a nightly basis. Work is returned with grades and comments the next day. My students get in the habit of looking over their graded papers every morning upon entering the classroom. I often hear them comparing scores and comments. This also helps remind students that didn't turn in papers to do so before the bell rings. Grading papers also provides me with immediate feedback. Was my instruction effective? Who needs reteaching? We often use graphs to chart progress over specific skills taught. Students are rewarded for ANY progress made, not just meeting certain goals such as 90%.
After a variety of skills are taught, students are required to complete a culminating performance task. This can be accomplished through oral presentations, demonstrations, or tests. I've noticed that frequent evaluation and immediate feedback are crucial in order for the culminating task to be successful.
Initial practice takes on various forms such as pair-check, cooperative groups, jigsawing, and teacher directed whole group lessons. While peer learning is useful, it is vital that I observe and evaluate progress on a frequent basis. My goal is for students to develop fluent and automatic use of a procedure.
What a great accountability with your students Valerie! Students looking over their graded work, comparing and discussing it with the others in the classroom and finally those who didn't get it turned in "feeling it" when others have their work done.
ReplyDeleteIn Interventions, we had lots of references (anchor charts-kind of) that the students could refer to when working on our phonics lessons. They had lots of time to practice as a group, as individuals, not that much with partners though. But during their independent reading times it was really really neat to see the kids,pull out a specific skill we had just worked on, or one that we had already covered. That gave them time to apply what we were working on. When we taught Math, there was a lot of procedural practice with the basic math concepts and it was easier to have partners. They could start a problem, and then pass it back and forth each person taking/solving the next step. That way they had to see where in the process they were at and figure out what the next step should be.
ReplyDelete