Hot chocolate is brewing, icicles are waiting in the wings for their moment to sparkle, and teachers are counting down the days to winter break. As the sun sets on 2023, I'm pondering the power of engaging our students proactively in 2024. When the weather turns colder, get a cozy December fire of learning blazing in your classroom with a reminder of some tried and true strategies.
So, in honor of the generic ease of filling a post with an end-of-year countdown, here are my top four ways to put students at the center of the classroom when you return in 2024.
Number 4: Standing and Thinking vs. Sitting and Getting
The cult craze surrounding Peter Liljedahl is nothing new. In the last few years, he has inspired scores of teachers to fundamentally change the way they run math classrooms. While the education pendulum of ideas is always swinging, there are enduring ideas in Liljedahl's work that create classrooms where students are always responsible for thinking. First, a thinking classroom is a standing classroom. Sitting at desks for hours a day hinders thinking. Stand them up at whiteboards around the room and provide students with interesting and engaging phenomena and topics to consider while they are standing. Student brains are functioning better while standing, and the teacher can see students' work with a glance around the room.
Secondly, stop answering questions that stop students from thinking. Teachers care so much about their students. Sometimes, however, we "care" them right into apathetic classroom behavior. Liljedahl recommends that we show how much we care by giving students the space and ability to think instead of immediately answering every question they ask us. Connie Hamilton, who wrote Hacking Questions, also has a website with a wealth of free resources to spur student thinking and questioning. No matter the resource, find ways to pause, prompt, and let students get active and keep thinking.
Number 3: Old School Games to Summarize the Learning
Can rock, paper, scissors and tic tac toe be effective ways to end class? Absolutely they can. In the last ten minutes, have students play a version of rock, paper, scissors. Two students stand together, count to three, and throw rock, paper, or scissors. Depending on what they throw, they have to share something specific about the lesson. When a student throws a rock, they talk about the hardest part of the lesson for them. When they throw paper, they flatten and condense the main learning. When they throw scissors, they snip out one important vocabulary word from everything they learned. Students play to win against others but also have to share learning around the room based on what they throw.
If you choose tic tac toe as your way to gamify and summarize the learning, then draw a large tic tac toe board in the front of your room. Ask students to come up with the top nine vocabulary words or ideas from the lesson that day and place them randomly on the tic tac toe board. In order to get a tic tac toe, students need to be able to form an accurate sentence about the learning using three vocabulary words in a row. They can walk the room, partner up, provide what they think is a good tic tac toe summary sentence and, if their partner agrees, they can shout out tic tac toe!
Number 2: Fun Daily Quizzes
Take the scary sensation out of quizzes by giving one every day. It feels counterintuitive, but it is backed by all the brain science. We do not need fewer quizzes, we need more. Use the beginning of class every day to give a quick creative quiz to review previous learning. The technical term is retrieval practice, but it comes in many forms. Try a big basket quiz where you keep important vocabulary and questions from each unit all year and just pull five questions out of the basket each day to start class. The quizzes should be low or no stakes. The goal is that students are constantly being asked to retrieve information they have learned previously. You can also try a Sesame Street, or Which One Doesn't Belong, quiz. These originated in math but they can be used anywhere and are fun and creative ways to have students remember what they are learning.
Number 1: Hyperlinked Scales for Self-Assessment
One of my favorite strategies recently has been something that Jennifer Gonzalez put out on Cult of Pedagogy over two years ago. Student self-assessment is certainly not new and teachers ask students to self-assess and reflect in the classroom all the time. A hyperlinked proficiency scale targeting a single skill, however, is a very intentional self-reflection that elevates the activity. Students look at their work, place themselves on the scale according to their reflection, and then are provided with links to resources that will help them move to the next level. This sample shows specific work on claim statements and evidence, but the scales can be used for any subject area. These hyperlinked proficiency scales earn the number one spot on this very distinguished list because they focus on metacognition, provide scaffolding for students, and create opportunities for targeted conversations between teachers and students.
As we all slowly evaporate into a comfy couch or chair this winter break, we should think about just one of these four ways to more actively center students and hold them accountable for learning in 2024. May your hot chocolate be warm and your classroom be cozy in the new year.
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