Increasing Engagement so Teachers Can Work in Small

Groups

“Students come to school with a variety of backgrounds, abilities, learning styles, and English proficiency levels. In order to meet the needs of all students, differentiated instruction is necessary.” ~Mary Ellen Vogt

Objectives

CONTENT

Develop an understanding of how to design instruction so students are engaged independently.

Objectives

LANGUAGE• Practice strategies for small groups• Categorize students into 5 levels of language• Write a plan for 1 day incorporating at least 2

strategies• Develop a checklist for instructional

components for each lesson• Write and draw descriptions of the strategies

presented.

Today’s Strategies

• Brainstorming A-Z

• Appointment Calendars

• Think Sheet

Today’s Strategies

• Piece of Pizza

• Ticket Out-?/!

Today’s Strategies

• D.E.A.Q.

• Jigsaw

Today’s Strategies-Embed in Your Brain

Piece of Pizza

Brainstorming A-Z

Describe Strategy

How

The B.M.W. Club

Building Background: Brainstorming A-Z Activity

• Write down everything you know about STUDENT ENGAGEMENT.

• 5 minutes.

• Go!

Small Groups & Independence

• The key to being able to work in small groups to provide interventions is to keep the rest of the class “engaged”. The premise to all of today’s strategies.

16 different Pairs

Daily Appointment Calendar

• Find an appointment for each time

• You can “strategically” create appointments ahead of time to pair students up the way you want them.

`Differentiation is like a Baseball Game’

The pitcher in a baseball game is the most important player. They are the one who controls the game. The pitcher determines the speed and location of the ball, the greater the variety of pitches the more he can influence the success of his team.

Like the pitcher in baseball, the better you know each person you’re “pitching” to, the better you can pick strategies that help certain students to be more successful while keeping all students active and engaged.

Organization: 5 Levels of Language

• An easy way to design your instruction is to think about the 5 levels of language in your class.

• Use the Graphic Organizer

• Let’s Discuss Each Level-Bear, Brown Bear, etc.

• Think of a student for each level and write it on a sticky note. Post on large sheet.

Definition of Differentiation

When we discuss differentiation today it will be in the context that you are providing activities that are engaging to all students so you can provide needs based intervention to a small group.

Think Sheet

• Take a colored Sheet and label it “Think Sheet”

Brain Research

Gone are the days when we give kids a worksheet to complete quietly at their desk while the “bluebirds” meet with the teacher. This is not student engagement and very little learning takes place.

Brain research suggests that there is a definite link between learning and movement (Teaching with The Brain in Mind, Jensen 1998). Students are engaged when they are actively involved in classroom conversations and discussing information with others. They retain more when they have an opportunity to discuss information as it’s presented. In other word, when students are interacting with others, their brains are more engaged.

Challenge

• My challenge to you is to create opportunities for students to discuss, recall, analyze, predict, consider, and digest information together. And then…write about their experiences.

• The National Literacy Panel quotes, “…well developed oral proficiency in English is associated with English reading comprehension and writing skills for these students. Specifically, English vocabulary knowledge, listening comprehension, syntactic skills, and the ability to handle metalinguistic aspects of language, such as providing definitions of words, are linked to English reading and writing proficiency.”

National Writing Panel

• “…teachers in the successful 90/90/90 schools (90%FRL, Ethnicity, Benchmark) placed a very high emphasis on informative writing…The benefits of such an emphasis on writing appear to be two fold. First, students process information in a much clearer way when they are required to write an answer. They “write to think’ and, thus, gain the opportunity to clarify their own thought processes.” Second, teachers have the opportunity to gain rich and complex diagnostic information about why students respond to an academic challenge the way they do. (Reeves,2003)

When you lecture you’re addressing the auditory learners in your class. Watch out, even long lectures will tempt about 60% of your auditory learners to begin to “fake listen”. When you add pictures, charts, graphs, etc. to a lesson, you appeal to visual learners and increase retention by as much as 38%. When you add direct involvement by students you add kinesthetic learners and narrow the chance of missing all learners.

The more ways you teach, the more students you will reach

What strategies have we done so far?

Kids Today!

Just pouring information into the multi-media bombarded brains of our students today will not produce learning.

We must engage them in meaningful and motivating ways to learn the curriculum.

Processing Time: Independent

• On your Think Sheet write down 3 things that resonate with you today.

• What is the most important fact that you want to remember so far? Write it on your Think Sheet.

• 5 minutes, When you are done find your 6:00 appointment and share with them.

Purpose of UA or Small Groups

• Opportunity to provide direct-targeted re-teaching and pre-teaching and scaffolding so students can be independent workers

• Time to assess individuals or small groups

• Time to reinforce the core instruction with students needing more intensive intervention

Organization: Points to Remember

• Have rules for when you are working with small groups

• Have procedures for getting help or asking questions

• Train students and practice over time, gradually releasing responsibility

• Teacher should be working with intensive and strategic students most frequently

Think Sheet

• Write down the most important thing you have to remember about the Points to Remember or the Research

Fair but Not the Same

In a differentiated classroom everyone must meet the same standards and you will be FAIR about that, but, HOW each student meets them will be different. Students and parents need to understand this about your classroom. “I treat everyone fairly, but not the same, because no one is identical.”

ManagementNeeds Based. The teacher pulls flexible groups of

students for needed amounts of time. Others work independently or better yet, cooperatively. Those not with the teacher may rotate through engaging tasks.

You do NOT have to

Meet with every student

Every day!

T

Scaffolding

• Many students in your class can and should work independently on a task after simple directions, while others need your assistance to guide them through the steps.

D.E.A.Q.

• Drop Everything and Question– Student centered means that students are

doing the work, not you. Good Questioning engages students, helps them construct meaning, and develops higher-level thinking skills.

– There is more thinking and learning going on when students are asking the questions.

Questioning & Grouping: Apply D.E.A.Q. Through Jigsaw

• In your “Families” each person read a different colored section of the research.

• Next, pretend you are the teacher and write 3 questions from Levels 1-3 for the class in regards to these 2 activities. And 1 question for Levels 4-6. You will have a total of 12 questions.

Extend D.E.A.Q.

• Now get with all the other people in the room have the same color of sheet and share your questions.

• Go back to your family and share the information from your sheet.

• When you are finished use your Think Sheet to – Explain why this topic is important and how you will

use it in the future– Write down what your biggest challenge is in working

with small groups and motivating students to be independent.

Learning New Strategies

• Choice: Family, Choose partner or 3’s

• Choose a strategy to learn and present to group. Can use Posters, paper, etc.

• 5 minutes for presentation

• Share how it can be applied to our curriculum.

Choose a Strategy

• SQO2RS, Canned Questions, QAR, Anticipation/Reaction Guide, Stop and Think, You are the Teacher!, Value Line, Dinner Party, Reader-Writer-Speaker Response Triads, Find Your Match, Take A Stand, Frozen Moment, Puppetry

• Use your “Piece of Pizza” to take notes while strategies are being presented.

Write Your Lesson

• Choose a lesson you already teach.

• Add a strategy presented today

• How will you build background

• Add Engagement

• Group students

Ticket Out

• On a sticky note you have 2 choices for writing about your learning today:– ?~Write down something you still have a

question about– !~Write down something that you found fun or

exciting today

Materials

• Sticky Notes• A-Z graphic organizer• Pizza organizer copies• Large Poster of Levels of Language• Levels of Language Copies• DEAQ copies• Think Sheet copies• SIOP strategiesSQO2RS, Canned Questions, QAR,

Anticipation/Reaction Guide, Stop and Think, You are the Teacher!, Value Line, Dinner Party, Reader-Writer-Speaker Response Triads, Find Your Match, Take A Stand, Frozen Moment, Puppetry

• Research with different colored copies