Thrive in Action Blog Series: Student Voice, GPS 9 - Active Student Responses
The Thrive In Action blog series highlights practical applications for Great Pedagogy Strategies (GPS) within the EdConnective Thrive Framework, summarized here. The EdConnective Thrive Framework is unique in that it can be applied to teaching actions seamlessly whether learning is in-person or remote. This week we get more familiar with:
Student Voice, GPS 9- Active Student Responses: Teacher frequently engages all students in responding to a question or prompt by using partner talk, write/pair/share, white boards, polling, choral response, simultaneously writing etc.
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In successful classrooms across the country, students are driving the majority of the thinking, conversation, and work that takes place in the classroom. Teachers in these classrooms act as facilitators, expecting all students to drive the learning process, by participating and being ready to respond to each question posed during class.
This strategy is about getting 100% of students to engage in the learning experience at the same time in order to gather real-time data on student mastery. For both in-person and remote learning it is important to keep students engaged and focused on the learning goal. Here a few strategies that promote active student responses in various learning contexts.
In-person: The show me then discuss strategy allows 100% of students to respond to a prompt at the same time and then based on the responses there is a discussion with the class (students are selected to provide a rationale for their answer). The show me part can be done by using whiteboards (students write an answer and show their work on an individual whiteboard), hand signals (students vote or show their answer based on the number of fingers they hold up, or four corners (the room is labeled with 4 responses and students move to a corner based on their response).
Virtual Learning: The chat waterfall strategy is a way to get 100% of the class to show what they know without the pressure of taking someone else’s ideas. The teacher gives the class a prompt or question and wait time for students to compose their answer in the chat, but not hit the send button until the teacher gives the cue. At the cue (Ex. When I say go, hit send and share your answer to...go). The chat becomes a waterfall of responses. Check out an example of this strategy here.
Virtual or In-person: A great strategy to get all students to participate in the questioning process is to have them use individual white boards to answer questions. White boards can be used for questioning throughout a lesson or they can also be used at the end of class as an exit ticket to assess how many of your students have grasped the daily objectives.
In order to use these in your classroom, you will need to provide each student with a white board, a dry erase marker, and an eraser. You can have Home Depot cut individually-sized white boards for you, or alternatively, you can use a piece of paper in a page protector as a cheaper option. Store the white boards and supplies in an easily accessible area so that students can get them quickly, like under their desk. This will reduce possible disruptions by decreasing down time and therefore offering a quick transition. This strategy could be used multiple times throughout a single lesson, so quick easy access is important for the lesson to run smoothly.
To employ this strategy effectively, you will need to ensure that you give clear and concise directions prior to the use of the white boards, and model for the students how you would like them to be used. Start by telling your students that they need to get out their white boards, markers and erasers. Next, tell the students that you are going to ask them some questions, and that they will have one minute to answer each question. Once the students have finished answering the questions posed, you will then tell the students to hold up their answers. Once the white boards are up, you can take a quick tally of how many students have answered the question correctly. Once the tally is complete, have the students put down their boards and erase them, then continue the questioning process.
This strategy can also be applied in a remote learning environment with little change in how it is implemented. Again, each student would have a white board or a page protector with a sheet of paper in it as well as a dry erase marker, and eraser. Once you have given verbal instructions and modeled the process, you would screen share a question for the students to answer. Once a minute has elapsed, you would then have each student hold up their answers and tally correct responses. If you want the students to see each other’s responses, then you can tell the students to click on grid view in Zoom prior to holding up their answers.
Sound off: What are some strategies that you use to increase student engagement in the questioning process?
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