Checking the Pulse--A Vital Practice

You know those doctor shows that take place in a hospital's emergency room with doors bursting open and paramedics shouting out vital signs? I'm always amazed at how quickly they give the information and how seamlessly doctors take it all in before even reaching the operating table.  Nothing is overlooked, the patient's weight, ethnic background, blood pressure, or even how he was found.  With all of that information in hand, the doctor then makes the best decision she can to help that patient.

Teaching is no different.  Before we act, we need to consider our students' vitals in terms of reading and writing.  We need to understand where they've come from, what their strengths are and what they struggle with.  
Sure, our situation may not be as dire as in an emergency room, but it still begs the question, "What are we doing to check the pulse of our readers and writers?"

Like emergency room doctors, we need efficient techniques to find out this vital information.  Here are some possibilities that I've witnessed in our RLA classrooms.

• On Demands:  At the beginning of a reading or writing unit, students produce a sample writing piece or demonstrate reading skills before any lessons are taught.  The teacher can then confirm and/or adjust a logical set of mini-lessons based on the results.

• Partner Talk:  By talking with their reading or writing partner, students explain their prior knowledge for a given lesson or try out a new technique during a read-aloud.  The teacher, circulating around and listening in, gauges where students are and what they are thinking.

• Thumbs Up/Thumbs Down:   With this less verbal technique, students answer a question with a thumb up or a thumb down (i.e. yes or no), and the teacher can adjust her plan based on the results.

• Fist of Five:  Students answer a question by voting with their fingers (i.e. five fingers is the most and one finger is the least).  This option allows students to process the question deeper by having to rank their feelings or experience across a range.

• End of the Lesson Share:  To wrap up a mini-lesson, the teacher can call on a student or two to share the work they have done. Hopefully it will show progress towards the lesson's teaching point.  If not, the teacher knows she'll have to readjust her plan. 

Google Form Results

• Exit Tickets:  At the end of a lesson or small group conference, students write down their take-aways or lingering questions about the teaching point.  The teacher can then sift through them and make groups for follow up teaching.

• Google Forms:  Students answer a Google Form survey.  Their answers are generated in a spreadsheet that is easy to read and rearrange.

Of course by implementing these and other vital techniques, we can make better informed decisions for our next teaching moves, but there are additional benefits as well.  By using these strategies, we are engaging our students more by accessing prior learning, working as readers and writers in real time, and synthesizing and reflecting on meaningful learning.

Not only that, as teachers we can focus on what our students are taking away from our lessons instead of what we're doing in the classroom.  I don't know about you, but when I share how lessons went with my colleagues or ask them about theirs, I often just talk about the moves I made as a teacher.  Many times, I'm assuming that my students learned better as a result of them.  With these techniques though, I can ground my assumptions in actual tell-tale signs that my teaching was effective.

So the next time you're heading into your classroom, be sure you've got a tool or two ready to check your students' vitals. In the meantime, if you have another great strategy for checking the pulse on your students, leave a comment.


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• www.1-800-translate.com

Gearing Up for Game Plans

One of the things I love about this time of year is football.  I'm not a diehard fan or anything.  I can't even name more than a few players, but there's something about watching two teams battle it out yard by yard.  For me, autumn just isn't complete without it.

Unfortunately, we don't have those crisp, fall afternoons where I can plug into a game here.  Not only that, I'm subjected to viewing the games 2 am or avoiding spoiler alerts the next day until I can replay them on my DVR.  It just isn't the same, but there's one aspect of the game that I do replicate in my own way here.  It's the game plan.

In football, before the players and coaches hit the field, each team sets a game plan, a series of plays they have chosen to use in their first drive down the field.  They've decided on these plays based on their strengths and their opponents' weaknesses.  They've practiced them over and over, minimizing any possibility that they won't work.  And while every play may not turn out the way they hope, they are prepared, focused and determined to succeed.

When it comes to teaching literacy, I do the same thing.  With every unit, my colleagues and I craft focused mini-lessons and teach them with precision.  Like a well choreographed offense, we drive through the unit making minor adjustments to our mini-lessons, bringing our readers and writers to a successful touchdown.

A good game plan involves much more than the mini-lessons we teach though.  Like coaches on a team, we need to take time between the mini-lessons (or plays) to check and see how our players are doing. I know that this is where my game plan needs work.  

After teaching a mini-lesson, I often move through the conferring time bouncing from student to student, trying to meet with those students I've seen the least or catching up with what students are working on right then.  I teach into that moment wherever those students are and go from there.  It works, but it could be better.

Instead,  I need to approach my conferring with the same intensity and purpose as I do with my teaching.  This is the time when I can really move readers and writers forward.  How do I hope to do this?  With formative assessments.  By using them widely and often, I can use the conferring time to follow up with small groups of students who need follow up teaching points.  In other words, I can address the needs of my students at all levels, and if I get it right, I can move down that proverbial field with greater efficiency and accuracy.    

Teacher Dashboard, a quick access to students' work

Last week I tried it out.  Before sitting down, I set my timer for ten minutes to look through my student work and set a game plan.  I know how precious time is, and I'm finding that since the mini-lessons are written for the unit, I do have a few minutes extra to do this important work.

Through Teacher Dashboard, I sorted my students' drafts of Personal Narratives with, looking for how they were using dialogue.  In just a few minutes, I had three piles:  students who weren't using it, students who were using it, but could need to fine-tune it, and students who were using it with sophistication.  

I thought of the skill as a continuum with low, medium and high. To determine teaching points for each level, I asked myself what do these writers need to know or be able to do next in terms of using dialogue.  Finally I made a list of them for each level accordingly.

In the next day's conferring time, Nicole and I pulled the groups separately and taught specifically to each group.  Instead of hitting the whole group with one lesson or following up with each student independently, we taught with precision, highlighting the challenges they were facing as writers at each level and offering a greater range of tips to reach the next level.  It also gave us a chance to extend our highflying writers by pushing them to move from Personal Narrative to Memoir.  

While this work is still relatively new for me (as are some of the formative assessment tools such as Google forms, Confer App, Teacher Dashboard, and sticky notes as a spot check), I plan to add it to my overall game plan as I'm already noticing a difference in my players.  When I do, we'll all be winners as a result.

Images from:   Some rights reserved by Cliff_Baise