The best laid plans...sometimes work in your favor

Today was one of those rare days where my lesson went better than I had imagined.  Fortunately, I had a colleague observing who was able to give me some great feedback during the class as he witnessed some awesome student learning.  As educators, we strive for those days where things just work out, students seem to really get into the task, and forget they are even working from bell to bell.  We have to love it when we ask students to stop working on a task and they resist.  It's hard to complain, but those few extra minutes are always worth the wait.  The kind of affirmation I received from my colleague shows how planning with purpose produces results and allows students to constantly be engaged.  Here are a few ideas about classroom culture and the choices I made in this lesson and how they impact my overall teaching style.

1.  Using word sorts -  I'll admit that I have cabinet full of word sorts.  I think they are one of the greatest activities that allow students to review essential vocabulary and reason through the process of categorization.  Once student think they have organized the concepts in one way, the challenge is then to reorganize the material through a new lens.  In this lesson students practiced categorizing twice: once based on geographic regions (New England and Southern) and once based on historical themes (economics, migration motives, and social structure).  Listening to student argue about word placement and category titles reveals how they are considering the content.  I can also see when they misinterpret a term or need a little more background information for an essential idea.

2. Grouping & collaboration - One of the best decisions I made was to get rid of individual desks and bring in large tables.  While I didn't have much say in the size of the tables, I accepted some that allow me to create groups of 6-8 depending on class size.  It is easy to say talk with your elbow partner, or divide your table in half, or work as a table group to accomplish any number of tasks.  But when my students were working on writing thesis statements as a table group, my colleague was impressed that eight students were able to work together.  Each group looked a little different and they definitely sounded different.  We could hear their thought processes and I learned more about how the students saw themselves as member of a group.  One group sat silently and individually wrote thesis statements before coming together.  One group crowded around the white board and verbalized their input.  One group used multiple colors so they could track different ideas as they revised their thesis statement.  This activity revealed how different groups operate in accomplishing the same goal.

3.  Truly formative formative assessments - The two main activities students completed were first, the word sort, and second, writing a thesis statement in groups.  As described above, the final product of the word sort, a comparison matrix, could have easily been the starting point.  However, the kinesthetic nature of the task allows me to watch students struggle categorizing and to provide immediate feedback.  Word sorts are an excellent example of a formative assessment because teachers can hear what students are thinking as they complete the task and physically see the process occur.  When one word is out of place, I can ask the students about their choice or point them to a resource that might help re-think their decision.

Secondly I like having students write thesis statements as groups at the beginning of the year.  This reduces some anxiety over having to remember everything have studied and they get to think together.  Using white board allows me to provide feedback as they are writing.  Additionally, the collection of thesis statements informs my planning for future writing lessons.

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4.  The right kind of struggle - As students worked around the white board to write their thesis statements, there was a point in time (about 15 minutes into the task) where you could feel the tension shift.  They had hashed out the basics of the response, reviewed their evidence, and consulted their writing guides.  However, what changed is that a few students were physically frustrated because the words were stuck in their head.  One student, while smiling, told me she hated the task and couldn't move on.  I knew she was joking, but my colleague pulled me aside and said he appreciated watching them struggle.  He too noted this tipping point where groups were ready to write but they were deliberating about the wording and structure of the thesis statement.  For me, this was the right kind of struggle and reminded of Vygotsky's work on the Zone of Proximal Development.  I knew they had all the resources they needed and provided some feedback as they planned and wrote.  A few groups were finishing, but a couple were stuck.  I was ready to call the class back together to do some debriefing and noticed the groups who were not done refused my direction and wanted to push through.  They didn't look at the clock, which would have shown class was almost over, and they didn't look at me for help.  Their struggle to write truly reflected the cognitive processes I wanted them to develop.  This rare moment motivates me to push my students to embrace obstacles as a natural part of the learning process.

(This thesis was from another activity - I forgot to take pictures after they finished writing.  Oops.)