Why > What! Getting Our Students to "Own It"!

After attending the Lead 4 Ward K-2 conference in Irving, I had the privilege of reflecting on my learning with some amazing teachers from R-H! We collaborated about all the great things we learned at the conference and determined which pieces we wanted to share with our staff. It's funny how much more I learned through a few hours of discussion about the presentation, than I did during the professional development itself. I feel like it was a chance for us as learners to have a "learning application" after we were presented with new information (the mini-lesson). This, among many other instances this year has turned me into a FIRM BELIEVER in the "Lesson Cycle". I know our intervention team has learned SO much about this process of teaching by getting to be apart of it and learning collaboratively with our PHENOMENAL teachers at Reeves. We have seen GREAT SUCCESS when we structure our instruction in this way. THANK YOU SO MUCH teachers for opening your classrooms to our team! 
Here is a brief summary of the 3 parts of the "lesson cyle":

• Mini-Lesson: A brief direct teach that is focused on the targeted learning objective. We are sure to include our "frame" to help students know exactly what they will be learning and expected to do at the end of the lesson. 
• Learning Application: This is where the "PLAY" comes in that Irvin talked to us about during the conference. A time for the teacher to be in the "Power Zone" for those "Frequent Small Group Purposeful Talks". Getting students to think about why they think something is HUGE. If they can prove their thinking we are creating some life-long thinkers! If they can OWN IT, then it is really meaningful to them. The WHY is more important than the WHAT. We know that planning in specific guided questions can be helpful, but sometimes our open-ended guided questions really promote the PLAY:

• What do you think?

• Why do you think that?

• How do you know?

• What would happen if....?

• Let's change this and see what happens?

• How many ways can we...?

• Can you show me another way? 

  

   

• Closure: This is our formative assessment to "check on the student learning". This is a quick way to assess or see which students have reached the learning objective. This is quite possibly the hardest part of our lesson cycle, but is the most crucial in my opinion. Kim Beth Buchanan gave the analogy of a bus: We can keep driving the bus, but if we don't have any students on it, what is the point of continuing? 

 

A couple of the common "thorns" from our feedback on the training were:

1. grading

2. one answer on STAAR

I hope that with our conversations around grading focusing more on the IFD, this will make more sense. If we dig deep into our standards, we will get better at deciding what and how to assess. Math, of course is much easier as we can tell if they answer correctly and can justify their answer thought process. ELAR, we may just have to make a general rubric we can use throughout the year to help us decide on the "non-skill based" standards (inferring, summary, etc.) Something that may be SUPER helpful is to bring our "closures" into PLC from time to time to talk about how we should "grade" them and what it looks like when they do have it.
One thing that is tricky about the difference in Math and ELAR is that:
Yes, in Math there is very OFTEN one right answer. There are many different ways to reach that answer, but it is usually ONE answer.
ELAR is a little more complex (as we well know)! Pretty much the only time there is ONLY one right answer is on a multiple choice test (which is crumby that the state decides to assess in this way). Everyone has a different way of connecting, comprehending, and thinking about texts. It doesn't mean that only one way is right, it just means that the more you understand your WHY (own it!) the better you learn. We can also reach our answer in very different ways as well (just as in Math). Don't get me wrong, there are OFTEN times when students are way off in left field and their thinking needs to be "guided". I am certainly not a believer in thinking every single thing a student says is right. Very regularly, we have to help them reach the correct level or range of thinking. This is why the learning application time is HUGE. We are able to help "guide" them through our questions thinking appropriately about their text.  If we allow them to think up front and then have a great discussion about how some answers are BETTER (not just RIGHT) and WHY, it will be much more meaningful than giving them an "quick way to circle and not think" with multiple choice. 
***I just hope that I personally get better at listening to their WHY before I decide they are wrong! 

Questions to think about:
How does this way of teaching prepare students for the real world?
In our day to day lives, how often is their one right answer (I can only think of very FEW examples)?
Which part of the lesson cycle promotes this type of thinking the best?
How does this add crayons to their color box and challenge a growth mindset?
What simple changes can we make to enhance deeper, more applicable learning?
What specifically could your PLC do next year to help "purposefully plan" certain things to ensure we promote PLAY?
How much time are we spending in the learning application piece?