CLASSROOM INSTRUCTIONClassroom Instruction from A to Z Learn the most effective ways to promote student learning. This second edition of best-selling author Barbara R. Blackburn's Classroom Instruction from A to Z covers a broad range of key instructional strategies to help you create more meaningful, engaging learning experiences for your students. Each chapter from A to Z offers guidance on a specific aspect of classroom instruction, such as planning strong lessons, assessing student learning, cre- ating more successful homework assignments, differentiating instruction, and scaffolding students for success. Throughout the book, you'll find practical strategies and tools that you can implement immediately, no matter what subject area or grade level you teach. Topics new to this updated edition include: Exploring blended learning techniques such as flipped classrooms; Strategies for implementing social emotional learning and mindful- ness; Understanding diverse learners and accommodating all students; Teaching academic vocabulary in deeper ways; and Integrating subjects and promoting writing across the curriculum. With 26 chapters, each devoted to a different aspect of instruction, this book has something to offer both new and experienced teachers looking to improve student learning. Additionally, classroom-ready tools are available as free Resources from our website, www.routledge.com/9781138935952. Barbara R. Blackburn is the best-selling author of 15 books and is a sought-after consultant. She was an award-winning professor at Winthrop University and has taught students of all ages.Other Eye On Education Books Available from Barbara R. Blackburn (http://www.routledge.com/eyeoneducation) The Principalship from A to Z, Second Edition Barbara R. Blackburn Literacy from A to Z Barbara R. Blackburn Motivating Struggling Learners: 10 Ways to Build Student Success Barbara R. Blackburn Rigor in Your Classroom: A Toolkit for Teachers Barbara R. Blackburn Rigor Is NOT a Four-Letter Word, Second Edition Barbara R. Blackburn Rigor for Students With Special Needs Barbara R. Blackburn and Bradley Witzel Rigor Made Easy: Getting Started Barbara R. Blackburn Rigor in Your School: A Toolkit for Teachers Ronald Williamson and Barbara R. Blackburn Rigorous Schools and Classrooms: Leading the Way Ronald Williamson and Barbara R. BlackburnClassroom Instruction from A to Z Second Edition Tylor Francis Group‘Second edition published 2016 by Routledge 711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017 and by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 4RN Routledge isan imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2016 Taylor & Francis ‘The right of Barbara R. Blackburn to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. The purchase of this copyright material confers the right on the purchasing institution to photocopy or download pages which bear the copyright line at the bottom of the page. No other parts ofthis book may be reprinted or reproduced of utilised in any form of by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, ‘or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing, from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. First edition published by Routledge 2007 Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Blackburn, Barbara R., 1961 Classroom instruction from A to Z / by Barbara Blackburn. — Second edition. pagescm Includes bibliographical references. 1. Teaching. I. Title. 1.B1025.3.B577 2016 371.102—de23 2015011658 ISBN: 978-1-138-93594-5 (hbk) ISBN: 978-1-138-93595-2 (pbk) ISBN: 978-1-315-6715-6 (ebk) ‘Typeset in Palatino by Apex CoVantage, LLCThis book is dedicated to my nephew and niece, Matthew and Jenna. May you encounter teachers who help you soar to new heights.This page intentionally left blankContents @Resources .. 2.6... e cece cece cece eee eee e eee e eee eee eeeeeenee ix Acknowledgments .....000000cccseeesesesssseeeeeeeeeeeenreaeees xi Meet the Author «0.0.0.6... cee eee e eee e eee e teen eee eee e teen eens xiii fittroduction tenet este reeset stteh tet eeteer eerste eee ee rc rer! xv Academic Vocabulary Is Foundational. Begin Lessons With a Bang. Can You Hear Me? Teaching Speaking and Listening Skills Data Informs Instruction Expect the Best: High Expectations. Focus on Your Purpose .. Grading and Assessment Help Me: Scaffolding for Success Integrate Subject Areas Just for Me: Differentiated Instruction Strategies. Keys to Blended Learning Literacy Is for Everyone... Makellt Real ere entttttrettet recent trertt tere eteeeeretee Next Steps (Helping Students Break Down a Task) . Options for Successful Homework... Project-Based and Problem-Based Learning, Questioning Strategies Research-Based Evidence on Instruction. Social Emotional Learning Matters. Turn the Tables: Helping Students Take Responsibility for Their Learning . Understand Diverse Learners Value Writing for All Subjects........0...00seeeeeeeeeeeeeeenee 149 HOPOVOZZOA-“ToOAMMINW> ‘algns aip Jo ssueTIOTuA, ue Aupiien ayp 27140281 ©} a2uarpne ue s20unuo> squjod auos jo apaimouy :21do} Jo aBpaymouy pue 24do} Jo a8paimouy ue Bupueiapun | sulod you jo ssauazeme | — Buipueysiapun aoualpne jo Burpueysiapun aouatpne sasiey « pue Burpueyssapun sasea.0u) ANUEDYIURIS « ‘soualpne ase2i2u! 0} s|1e4 » pajuasaid Suiaq ‘soualpne sasiey «| uoRejuasaid azua uunp ssouaE mY paqussaid aidoa aun anoge sButjaas 21do4 snoge s8u}30}, 24do} jnoge wiseIsnyuE auarpny | 21d0} ut ys910}UF OU SMOUS « XIU 40 aN SOUS «| _aASEISMYYUD aUIOS SOUS « Suons soyensuowsa «| _/usersnyiu3| BDUapIAD JO BP suojsnpuoss0 | up dian sapnpuy u2afqns suoysnpuo souapina wien sap} 40} yoddns juapyjnsuy ay) uoddns Ajayenbape | sucddns yey) aouapina.so | seapysuctsnjouo> syioddns sani8 spalqns jo yoddns | you op yaiym ‘oysyeys 40 | eep awuos sapnpoul spafqns ‘onsweIs 40/pUe ‘sep ‘0140 eam sapinoid | /pue sive) ‘sajdwiexa yearn | ayy uoddns yeys sonsyews | “sajdwiexa yuauniad spalqns sasodund pue spafqns sapinoid :}pafqns pue so/pue ‘sey ‘sajdurexa | pur asodind seap sapinoid « auyap Aueap you sa0q «| asodind auyap 0} siduiany «| wos :alqns pue asodind uwon2i0qe)9 spafans suosanb eap yeymnawos sep} «| pur suoneuerdxa yp noge suonsanb samsue | —Arequswpns Ajuo samsue ‘uoreiogeye sno suonsanb ssep> jouue> pue uonewojur | oj aigest pue vorewuoyuy | “suonsanb je 0} ssgmsue | — Suuamsue Aq aBpaymouy | YOHEZIUEZIC jo dseu8 aney ou soo «| __ yin ajqeuojuiozun 51 parvadxa ia 2502 28 51 + ny sojexisuowag «| _/4uaqUoD yujOd Kay azyseydule pur aBeBuasip s91aqu} apuarpne UreqUIeW! aouaypne sasne> y>tym | uoyeyuy ou 20 apt yum uopeayur | 03 uon2ayju pue aunjon “auo} snousjouu 10 | auinjoa uanaun ul syeads «| pu auinjon jo uoyeuen | uj uonensany yum syeads « [pur auinjon mo) ul syeads « s2jou ayy ‘Aioppepsiies yea syeads « s2}0U ye Burjoo}, s2}0u Woy peas | wiody Aysou Suypeas ayn s2}0U 04 suunjas igs | wopjas “pequ09 ada jpauIp s1 yodas amnua se “souaypne “aouarpne yum pequo> | ang souaipne yarn equa | yo asn ayy yaw souarpne aten 392309 aha OU SPIOH aha jeumumu shejdsiq «| 24a 3e11p Jo asn yUa}sIsUOD «| —_a1UB JO UOAUAHE SPIOH « Auaayjaq Juaulenciduyy spaoN—1 wei—e poop—e qwa|axI—p dqny UOHe}UASaIg [LAO 24005 roweN,\ctivities to Encourage Effective Speaking and Listening There are a variety of activities you can use in your classroom to provide opportunities for students to practice effective speaking and listening skills. Let’s look at four examples. Pair-Shares Fishbowl Morning Meetings That Spark Discussions Paideia or Socratic Seminars Pair-Shares You may already use pair-shares or think-pair-shares in your classroom. In this activity, during your instruction you ask students to reflect on the content, turn to a partner, and share the answer to a question. Then, several students share their answers with the whole group. There's an easy way to switch this to make it more effective. When stu- dents share with the whole group, they share their partner’s answer, not their own. This encourages them to listen better, and it requires their partner to doa better job explaining their answer. Fishbowl We also need to create other opportunities for our students to listen to each other. After students read a book or story, LaShana Burris at Cotton Belt Elementary School uses the “Fishbowl” activity to prompt discussion and encourage active listening. Three to five students are designated as fish, and they sit in a small circle. She gives the small group members a piece of “food,” which is a slip of paper with an in-depth question written on it. As a school of fish, they discuss the answer to that question while the rest of the students sit in a larger circle around them and listen to the discussion (thus the fishbowl). As she explains, “The people who are in the larger circle act as observers only. They use clipboards and paper to document a chosen fish’s responses, behavior, and body language. After about five minutes of discussion, the observers share their notes with the fish they observed. After the last observer shares with the fish, the fish become observers and five of the observers become fish. The teacher gives the fish a different piece of fish food, or question to discuss. It encourages all students to actively read for comprehension, it is a vehicle for shy students to begin to participate, and it builds community.” 20 @ Can You Hear Me?Morning Meetings That Spark Discussions Jenny Johansson creates listening opportunities for her special education students through inquiry-based morning meetings. For the first 5-20 minutes of class, she focuses on independent inquiry. Students generate questions on a variety of subjects and read books and articles about their topics. “Then we get together in a circle on the floor for CPR [Circle of Power and Respect] for the actual meeting. During the independent inquiry time, they could sign up to actively participate in the meeting. The routine of the meeting includes a greeting, poetry, book recommendation, and inquiry sharing. During the greeting, they hear their name said in a positive light by their peers each day. During inquiry sharing students get to share with us what they are currently becoming an expert on. Student interests are really developed during this time.” During the discussions, she enhances the student's listening through involvement and ownership. As she notes, “They are so motivated by their own voices being heard.” Paideia or Socratic Seminars Another type of discussion is a Paideia, or Socratic seminar, which shifts the role of the teacher to that of a facilitator and emphasizes each student's contri- bution to the discussion. As Marcia Alexander, a high school teacher explains, Paideia seminar has been the most successful teaching tool that Thave used because it gives students the opportunity to demon- strate their knowledge and concerns about an issue that they can relate to. For example, I may have students read an excerpt written by Sojourner Truth, an African American ex-female slave, abo- litionist, and speaker on women’s rights. The discussion topic is discrimination and I create open-ended questions, such as “Does being illiterate make a person less intelligent?” In her role as a facilitator, Marcia ensures that every student speaks at least once before she poses another open-ended question. The nature of the discussion requires that students actively listen to each other in order to respond appropriately. Speaking Listening as the Foundation Whether you use pair-shares, discussions, small-group activities, or a blend of these activities, a basic element of success is that your students Can You Hear Me? @ 21speak and listen. I learned early in my teaching career that my students didn’t always know how to do those things well, so I needed to teach them how. And then, I needed to provide multiple activities for them to practice the essential skill. Isn’t that the key to any good instruction? Teach your stu- dents what to do and give them plenty of opportunities to apply the skill. Summary = Effective listening requires practice. Teach your students that hearing isn’t the same as learning, but a concentrated effort to process what you are hearing enables learning. Effective speaking also requires practice. Students need to learn that effective speaking is more than just talking to each other. Listening isn’t a passive activity. A student needs to be taught how to actively engage in verbal instruction. = It is important to create opportunities for all students to become effec- tive speakers and listeners. Allow students to talk about learning. Discourse helps students learn. If You Would Like More Information ... Tips for Teaching Listening: A Practical Approach by Jack C. Richards Well Spoken: Teaching Speaking to All Students by Erik Palmer This Edutopia Student Engagement blog entry describes five ways to get students to listen: http://www.edutopia.org /blog /five-listening- strategies-rebecca-alber. This Edutopia Student Engagement blog entry provides information on teaching presentation skills to students. http:/ / www.edutopia.org/ blog/teaching-presentation-skills-with-ignite-andrew-miller 22 @ Can You Hear Me?D Data Informs Instruction If anything concerns me, it's the oversimplification of something as complex as assessment. My fear is that learning is becoming standard- ized. Learning is idiosyncratic. Learning and teaching is messy stuff. It doesn't fit into bubbles. —Michele Forman, High School Social Studies Teacher and former Teacher of the Year When I talk with teachers about data, I hear a variety of comments. The most common is, “Yes, we have test scores. But shouldn’t it be more than that?” Absolutely. As Michele Forman points out, we tend to oversimplify learning. Achievement is more than a test score, and data is more than a set of numbers. Data is any information that helps you understand your stu- dents and teach them more effectively. The purpose of data is to help you improve your teaching and your students’ learning. Formal Data You probably have some formal data about each of your students. It might be from a standardized test or some other assessment that is collected in your school or district. The first step is to learn what information is avail- able to you. Start by checking the cumulative folders of your students. Also, think of the people in your school who might know sources of data. For o 23example, one of my graduate students was frustrated by the school’s lack of information about one of his students. However, the second-language learning teacher was able to provide additional diagnostic data from an alternate assessment, once my graduate student asked for the information. Think About It What data is available to you? Next, organize the information in a way that is helpful to you. When I was teaching, I used a simple chart so that I would know which skills each of my students had mastered. I coded the boxes with either a check plus (total mastery), a check (mastery but review is needed), a check minus (partial understanding), or a minus (minimal or no understanding). Then I could group my students accordingly for review or enrichment lessons. Now, there are a multitude of computer programs that can help you organize this infor- mation. The key is to put the data in a format that helps you. Data Chart Student Skill/Objective Skill/Objective Skill/Objective Paul v ve v4 Marisa = v v Julian - v v Instead of organizing by student, you may want to group students by whether or not they have mastered the skills, and then note possible next steps. Again, there are tools to do this electronically to make it easier to track. es, Progress Chart a Mastered | Progressing | Not Mastered Next Steps | Next Steps Next Steps 24 @ Data Informs InstructionInformal Data Teachers gather informal data about their students all the time. When you ask your students to write an autobiography or complete exit slips (see Chapter G: Grading and Assessment) at the end of a lesson, you are gather- ing data about who they are and what they are learning. However, the most effective teachers are intentional about the types of informal data they col- lect. For example, you can use student inventories to gain information about students’ interests and learning preferences. I was recently at Scott’s Branch High School and observed a similar activity. John Hildebrand, a first-year teacher, assigned his ninth graders a simple homework activity: “Write about what is working in our class and what isn’t.” As he explained to the students, “Transitioning to high school is important, and I don’t think class is going as well as it could.” As an example, he pointed out that many students were not completing their homework. He made the assignment and told them he would be using the information to improve his class. I then visited a fifth-grade class in the same district. Beverly Simon had gathered very specific data at the start of the year in order to understand her students’ math knowledge. Using a chart, she asked students to list what they knew about math and what they wanted to know about math. Then she asked them to work together to create a math alphabet of terms. Using the chart, she learned which broad concepts they knew, and then she gained a deeper understanding of their true knowledge based from their math vocab- ulary. The interactive lesson provided a collection of informal data. Another way to gather informal data is through the use of visuals, via photography or video. For example, you could record conferencing, sessions with students over time and use them to compare their reflective processes. This would allow you to see growth. I was also in a classroom where the teacher took pictures of work samples and kept an electronic portfolio of student work, Using Data Effectively Simply gathering data isn’t enough. You can collect information, but if you don’t use it to help you teach more effectively, you've wasted your time. The goal of data analysis is to make decisions that improve your teaching and your students’ learning. One of the major assignments in my graduate classes is a research syn- thesis paper. It’s quite challenging, partly because it is unlike anything my students have ever written before. During my first semester, I offered to meet Data Informs Instruction ® 25with any student for an individual writing conference. About a third of my students scheduled a meeting. When I graded the final projects, I noticed that all the students who met with me earned higher grades. The next semes- ter, I made the conferences a requirement, and I found that my students were more successful. I continued to monitor my students’ work, asked them regularly whether they thought the conferences had helped, and used their feedback to adjust the conferences to make them more effective. That's the purpose of data: use it to help you make the best possible decisions. Think About It What have you learned about your students that helped you change what you did? Multiple Sources of Data If you organize your data collection to include both formal and infor- mal assessments, you will have a great deal of information from multiple sources. This can be confusing, particularly if you have conflicting informa- tion, such as a standardized test score for writing and a student's writing in your class. Perhaps a student's class work is excellent, but his or her test score is low. What do you do? Think of data analysis like a triangle: those two pieces of information should be evaluated together with a third data point, your teacher judgment. Multiple Sources of Data Teacher Judgment Objective Classroom Data Data 26 @ Data Informs Instruction