On Wednesday I started a three day long professional development session (over a few months) that features Lin Kuzmich who is a senior consultant for secondary schools. While our general overall focus for these sessions is literacy, there were some really great underlining strategies and information that can prove to be useful for classroom teachers.
Keep the Switch On
Today we talked quite a bit about rigor and how to keep students engaged with what is happening in class…today this was referred to as keeping the switch (learning switch) turned on as long as possible. One important thing was pointed out by Lin is that our students are constantly switching in and out during class lessons (paying attention and not paying attention) and our jobs as teachers is to make sure that we are keeping our students tuned in as long as possible. The best way to do this is to keep the work we are doing as teachers to a minimum and the work the students are doing at a high level. This can be accomplished by keeping our instructions as teachers concise and to the point and allowing time for activities for our students to process and apply the principles to a relevant activity.
Rigor and Relevance
We as teachers need to be aware of how challenging and relevant our lessons we present to our students are. In order to understand what level of rigor and relevance we are reaching there is a model that we can use. This model can be seen above and features Blooms Taxonomy in the vertical column and levels of application in the horizontal row. By using Blooms and applications we can clearly identify what levels of thinking and application we are reaching. Now ideally you want to reach the D quadrant as much as possible but not all lessons can be in that quadrant…some lessons have to be in the A or B quadrants in order to obtain basic knowledge. More importantly it is a great tool for teachers to have because if we expect our students to reach higher levels of Blooms and to use the taught curriculum in real world situations then we need to be aware of what level of rigor and relevance we are striving for to help ensure our students have a better chance of getting there.
Mr. McClung
I loved what you had to say about “keeping the switch turned on.” Teachers definitely need to do all they can to keep students intrigued in a lesson, and they also need to be aware of what they are teaching. Teachers need to make sure that students are getting all that they can out of a lesson.
Hello Mr. McClung
My Name is Edward Hughes and I am a student at the University of South Alabama in Dr. Strange’s EDM 310 class. I have read through your post and I agree with your point. We as teachers need to keep the attention of our students to ensure that they get the best possible benefit from the lesson. To do that we must keep the students involved in the lesson to help them keep interested in learning the material. Thank you for sharing this information with us I will make sure to apply what I have learned from your post to my lessons as a future teacher.
Hi Mr. McClung!
I’m a student at the University of South Alabama in Dr. Strange’s EDM 310 class. I have read your post and i agree with the points you made. One thing that stuck out to me was when you said, “We as teachers need to be aware of how challenging and relevant our lessons we present to our students are”. This is so true and i can use myself as an example to a teacher being poor in this situation. Great post and Thanks!
I am a student in Dr. Strange’s EDM310 class at the University of South Alabama. “Keeping the switch turned on” is a vital thing in educating students. Students have to be well engaged in the lesson and absorb everything they can from in in order to apply it where necessary. Thank you for sharing!