|
CAT Tracks for January 17, 2011
THE SEVEN STEPS |
TEACHERS:
If you do not read another edition of CAT Tracks, you simply MUST read this one.
This retired CAT can simply bite his tongue no longer...
I've spent much of the past decade defending you against your detractors.
That was a relatively simply task during the reign of our "Education President" George W. Bush, who could not spell, much less pronounce...ISAT. However, with the "turning of the Democrats", my self-appointed mission takes on a greater sense of urgency.
I can now reveal the reason why there were no CAT Tracks published on a couple of days during the past week. I was in a non-stop writing mode...reducing to print the expertise that I gained over a 39-year career in education. The working title of my missive..."The Seven Steps to Highly Effective Teaching"
If you are not doing precisely what I have painstakingly outlined below - every second of every single day, then you need to immediately:
Shape Up or Ship Out!!!
Since I never "preach", I was patiently waiting...wishin' and hopin'...that you would discover this "silver bullet" to education success on your own.
However, with Democrats and Republicans linking arms and singing "Education Kumbaya", the wolf is at your door!
Without another moment to lose...
Chapter 15. Seven Steps to Turn a Classroom Around
The prior chapters suggest seven steps to alter students’ cooperation and energy quickly. We’ll picture a class that’s distracted, marginally compliant, and with a spectrum of achievement among them. You’d like to increase their cooperation and interest, and bring everyone’s learning to a higher level.
These steps can be implemented in a few days.
The steps above work because of students’ social nature. They’re touched by the opinions of those about them, cluster with others like them, do what brings others’ approval, and are rewarded by others’ admiration for their competence. It’s not hard to notice the energy involved. Maybe you can remember from your schooling when you had to prepare a report to the class, and how keyed up you were. A teacher noted that most students he knew “would rather have a sharp stick in the eye” than rise to their feet and talk. If he was right, we can do something about it. Whatever we want them to present to the class, we first have them practice one to one quietly and safely until they’re confident. Once competent with the knowledge, expressing it is a lifetime satisfaction. Once getting a taste of it, they’ll want to do it even better, so we set up performance of learning to insure triumph. If we don’t arrange the early steps, we don’t get the later accomplishment. If we don’t get competence first, students don’t enjoy expressing it later.
Apply this to yourself. Say you’re at a seminar, the instructor explains a new idea, you absorb an impression of it, and the instructor unexpectedly asks you to stand and comment. Your words are necessarily sketchy, perhaps incompletely organized and inadequately thought through. Even as an educated professional, you may feel embarrassed, yet your feeling is only a construct of the situation you’re placed in.
Much seat-work or reading brings on poorly formed knowledge not ready for competent expression. Fill in a blank or complete a sentence or answer a question at the end of a chapter, and what remains to demonstrate? Temporary knowledge may increase a tick, but without practice, no competence. For students to claim it by the end of a lesson, they need a way to practice it right there. Choose the core knowledge you want everyone to master, and organize it concisely enough for them to do so. A teacher of a sophomore health class presents ‘eight signs of cancer’ on a handout for the class to master that period, and everyone does so with pleasure using 1) a hard copy of the idea (either on a hand-out, in a text, or in written notes), 2) a question that elicits it as an answer, and then 3) time to practice it with a partner until learned thoroughly.
Once they know the material, the next energizer is performing it (cf. Chapter 19 below). You’ve identified everything you want retained during a given week and placed in a bag a slip containing each question. You say, “Friday, we’re going to have a stand -up performance. I’ll draw a question, wait a minute while you think, and then draw someone’s name. You leap to your feet, explain the answer, everyone applauds, and you sit down. We’ll work our way through the questions we’ve learned this week.”
What would happen?
Working with successive practice partners to get ready generates a sense of teamwork, a feeling that “We’re all in this together.” Students develop “conversation contracts” with others. If Bill and Joe (who don’t usually associate) practice math questions together, later they’re more likely to accept each other and perhaps even talk about math. They want the competence but are driven more by the social reciprocity of gaining it. The personal element expands the reason for their effort just as an upcoming game in a sport shadows them as they practice.
When they finally sit down, the crackle of applause conveys a zing of significance. Preparing for and doing the performance feels important. You can channel your entire curriculum through performance as your validator of competence. This picture of motivation applies early and at every step onward. In pre-k to about second grade, their needs for attention are so strong that they immediately focus more intently on learning when they face the prospect of standing, performing, and being applauded.
But how about the isolated student from third grade to twelfth? His academic work is okay but from early discomfort with peers, he’s decided to keep to himself, or associate with others like him, or express needs for attention disruptively. How do you help him?
A valid basis for self-esteem is a history of successes. A child restores his confidence by looking back and remembering that he did valued things before, but with some students, the message system was stunted, and the student concludes that success is hollow, that working doesn‘t end up feeling good. He does the tasks but no bell rings nor applause erupts telling him “This matters in your social world.” We instead want him concluding, “I not only succeed, but the tasks bind me to the people around me.“
The crux of it is drawing on academic competence in a manner that causes peer relationships to solidify. Four means draw on his social base: 1) In partner practice they bring to mastery everything learned till then. Pairing them successively with every other student causes them to realize that they‘re accepted into their group. It provides them a history with each other, expanding their generalized sense of self to include the belief that they can get along with and work with anybody. 2) Stand-up performance of the bits and pieces of learning as question and answer draws out the isolated student and lets him know that he can face others’ scrutiny. The performance of material practiced to the point of competence takes its place within his history of certified successes. 3) Applause by peers delivers the message “You matter.” The unconscious is conditioned to hear “People like what I did.” 4) Keeping score of the success delivers the same message but helps to affirm the link between effort and results. Scores are stated to represent effort objectively and reliably, aiding students in directing their effort to the results they want.
If you found the above guidance helpful, you can read more of my articles and get information on ordering my books by following the links below...
From the Education News Website...