Excellence in Education: Top Ten Summarization
The other day Ms. Reynolds and I were talking about summarization. For those of you have been in the profession for many years, you probably remember when summarization was a naughty word in education circles as it was seen as superficial. We now know that when done correctly teaching and using summarization is a highly effective learning strategy that leads to greater understanding and long-term retention of information. This in turn enables deep learning and eventually transfer of learning to occur.
Throughout an 85-minute class we should give students several opportunities to reflect on their learning and summarization provides a means to do so by requiring students to apply new knowledge in different ways than it was learned.
To be effective, summarization must extend beyond retelling. Teaching students how to effectively summarize opens the topic to a deeper and more meaningful understanding. In teaching summarization Robert Marzano suggests that we teach students how to delete trivial and unnecessary information while keeping information that is focused on the big picture. Teaching that less is more is an important aspect of teaching students how to summarize and get to the essentials--those points worth remembering.
Top Ten is a flexible instructional strategy that can be easily implemented and used to teach students effective summarization. In Top Ten, students are challenged to create a Top Ten list aligned with the learning objective. As students create their top 10 lists they will be required to delete, keep and substitute which are integral summarization skills, and they will discern and differentiate and extra information, themes, main ideas and details.
How it works
- Have students individually create their own Top 10 lists based on the learning goal.
- Then students should work with a teacher-selected partner to share and explain their rankings. This is an opportunity for you to use flexible grouping (choosing to either pair students with similar readiness/ability together or match students from different levels together).
- Students and pairs can be challenged to combine and create a new Top Ten list.
- A next step could be to have them combine pairs and repeat the above steps to create a new Top Ten or to split the partners up and have them create new partnerships, triads or quads.
- Use this as a means to formatively assess students by listening to discussions and reviewing student work and provide feedback throughout.
Other Ideas
- Another strategy would be to have students pare down their Top 10 list to a Top 5 list.
- Throughout a lecture or lesson, provide students with opportunities to write down 2-4 top points at various stages of the lesson. This would culminate with a top 10 list.
- Use a graphical representation to further student learning. This could be a concept web or a visual ranking of the Top 10.
- Have students use their lists to write paragraphs or create some other means, like a visual representation, to solidify their learning.
- As a class, share student lists and review for commonalities and differences. Use this as an opportunity to discuss and if necessary reteach.
Need to Knows
Mustang Morning Updates:
- If you have a change to make to your Mustang Morning assignment, please complete this form . This must be completed by Tuesday.
- Next week will be a reset of the Mustang Morning schedule.
- The Mustang Morning Committee met on Tuesday and made the following decisions:
- Requesting priorities: 1) SOL Remediation, 2) Core Content/SOL classes, 3) Electives
- Students should not be requested more than 2 times per week by a teacher unless the teacher is sure that the student does not have any other requests
- One study hall session will be used for students who have not signed up for Mustang Morning. Unassigned students and those assigned to this study hall will be considered as “skipping.”
- Reminders:
- If a student has a D or F, they must be requested until they pull their grade up.
- 1A teachers, please make sure students are completely signed up for the entire week.
- Students must stay in their Mustang Mornings.
- Please take attendance during Mustang Morning and only accept students who are on your roster.
Upcoming Dates
October 2: Interim grades locked
October 4: Parent-Teacher Conferences
October 5: Extended 1st period for PSAT test administration juniors and sophomores only. Mixed classes: Allow freshmen and juniors to read/homework. Freshman and senior only classes: your call.
October 10: PSAT / CWRA Testing
October 12: A-Day with Long Lunch and Clubs
October 19: Extended 1st period (8 period schedule)
Field Trips and SOLs
October 9: Tech Tech Tour Field Trip
Colleges visits this week:
Radford University 10/1 @ 9:30AM
Culinary Institute of America-NY 10/1 @ 1:30PM
Duke University 10/2 @ 9:30AM
University of Richmond 10/2 @ 1:30PM
Gettysburg College 10/3 @ 1:30PM
University of Mary Washington 10/4 @ 9:30AM
Stats of the Week: Online Classes
When asked which classes would you like to take online, the top 8 classes and their percentages were (SpeakUp Survey)
Health 27%
English 27%
Math 23%
Personal Finance 21%
I’m not interested in online classes 21%
World Language 20%
Science 19%
PE 18%
Birthdays
October 3: Michelle Kessler
October 5: Tucker Tapscott
Shout Outs
Special thanks to the AD’s Office for organizing our tailgate and Jennifer Meade and Laura Gaskins for their work with all of the Homecoming events.
Useful Information
Bell Schedules : http://bit.ly/MOHSbells
Morning Announcement Stream: http://streaming.k12albemarle.org/ACPS/links.htm
Worth Your Time
Teacher fired for refusing to give students credit for work not turned in A great discussion to be had regarding this, whether it’s informally or in your PLCs.
8 Block Extended 1st Period-October 5
| ||||||
0 Period: 7:40-8:40
| ||||||
1A: 8:55-10:03
| ||||||
1B: 10:08-10:46
| ||||||
2A: 10:51-12:16
| ||||||
2B: 12:21-12:59
| ||||||
3A: 1:04-1:42
| ||||||
3B: 1:47-2:25
| ||||||
4A: 2:30-3:08
| ||||||
4B: 3:13-3:50
|
PSAT and CWRA Testing
October 10
There will be NO AM Bells
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
7:40-8:40
|
Zero Period
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
8:45
|
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
1:25-2:40
|
3rd Period
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
2:45-3:50
|
4th Period
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
AM CATEC: Canceled; PM CATEC Students will leave at 1:30
A-Day Friday Schedule with Long Lunch
October 12
| |||||||
7:40-8:40
|
Zero Period
| ||||||
8:55-10:15
|
1st Period
| ||||||
10:20-10:55
|
Club Period
| ||||||
11:00-1:00
|
2nd Period
| ||||||
1:05-2:25
|
3rd Period
| ||||||
2:30-3:50
|
4th Period
| ||||||
