Review Strategies to Include ALL Students Learn

Excellence in Education: Review Strategies to Include ALL Students Learn

With midterm exams around the corner, I thought I'd share a couple of review strategies that can be used to ensure all students are participating AND learning. Of course, they can be used at any time of year and distributed practice far outweighs cram sessions. 

Numbered Heads Together

1. Students are placed in heterogeneous/mixed ability groups of 4 with each group member assigned a number 1-4. 
2. Inform students that all group members will need to be able to answer/present the group's answer/response.
3. Provide all students with a question. 
4. Options: allow students time to work individually, write down their answers (on own paper or whiteboard). 
5. Students share their response and confirm their answers. 
6. Call out a number for the team member who will present for the group. At this time they cannot receive help from their group. This could also mean having students clear their whiteboards and write down the answers with 1 member of each group being responsible for holding up the board.
7. Tips/Alternatives: vary the level of questions, keep score, use a radomizer/spinner to determine which group and/or number to call on; provide the questions visually and orally. 

Categories

1. Provide students with cards with names, items, etc. 
2. Ask students to sort the cards into piles based on common characteristics. 
3. Have the students rationalize (written, verbally, using technology) why they grouped the cards as they did. 
4. Often there are multiple ways to categorize the cards, so students can be challenged to re-do this. 
5. Tips/Alternatives: This can be done individually, in partners/groups, or in a combination of both. 

Networking Carousel

1. Prepare a series of prompts or questions and post them on bulletin board paper. Alternatively, this can be done digitally/electronically. 
2. Place students in partner/groups. 
3. Have students work together to write down as much as they can about that topic (either using or not using notes/resources). 
4. After a pre-determined amount of time, ask students to rotate to the next board/question. 
5. Repeat by having students add and edit. 
6. Tips/Alternatives: Provide students with note cards or use their notebooks to write down the information (pre-write and post-write) to use this information to study. 

Last Person Standing

1. Prepare questions in advance. Questions that work best for this are lists or require multiple parts. 
2. Put students into heterogeneous/mixed groups. 
3. Provide students and groups with information that they will be responsible for knowing (time to review). 
4. Working in their groups, students review. 
5. Have all students stand. Randomly call on two groups to face off. For example, groups 1 and 2. 
6. Alternating between groups and individuals between groups, each student is responsible for providing one new piece of information about the topic. 1A-1B-2A-2B-3A. 
7. When someone gets an answer wrong, the last person to correctly gets an the answer right gets to knock out any student in the class. This often means the best students are knocked out early on, but they can still participate in the group review (step 4). 
8. Tips/Alternatives: In stage 4, allow students to write down notes. Allow students to review or even use their notes for stage 5. Another option is to provide a question, allow students to work in groups and then proceed to stage 5. Then give another question/topic and repeat 4 and 5. Use chips or another marker to know which student to start with. 

Donut/Concentric Circles

1. Provide students with review questions. 
2. Students form two concentric circles with equal numbers of students in both the inner and outer circle. 
3. Students stand in concentric circles and with their partner they discuss their answer to one or more questions. 
4. After set period of time, students rotate. Usually, just moving the outer circle. 
5. Tips/Alternatives: You can be strategic with how you put students in the circles. Allow students to review their work with their previous partner so they can add or correct information. 

I think of many review strategies that I used especially games like Jeopardy! or today just using Kahoot! don't require all students to learn and such. What I like about the above is how they engage all students in the learning process and are beneficial to all students. What are some techniques/strategies that you use?  

Tasks, Important Information, Upcoming Events

Midterm Bell Schedule: bit.ly/MontMid 

Wednesday at 4:30 Winter Faculty Social at Timberwood 5th Street 

Ugly Sweater Contest on December 19

Friday: B-Day, Club Day with Club Pictures 

Hour of Code is coming up the week of December 9^th-13^th.

The Learning Technology team will be curating resources for this event. Our goal this year is for students to engage in 5000 hours of code throughout the week. If you pre-register through ACPS for this event we will send swag for your students and the chance to win amazing prizes for your school!
Link for registration 
For more information click here 

Golden Apple Awards: Read more from this post 

Field Trips

Birthdays
12/15: John Skelton

Useful Information

Bell Schedules http://bit.ly/MustangBells 

Seeking volunteers? ACPS is attempting to expand volunteer outreach and help teachers find volunteers. Here’s a form that takes a minute to complete.

Morning Announcement Stream: http://streaming.k12albemarle.org/ACPS/links.htm

Announcement Request

Athletic team schedules, rosters, etc.

Teacher Manual

Want something included on the Monticello Outlook Calendar, the Monticello website, in the PowerSchool Daily Bulletin, schoolwide Schoology accounts, or the student newsletter (viewed by parents, students and staff)? Please use this link https://goo.gl/forms/bIjfJLKokWPcEHx33 

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Catching and Recognizing Students Doing Good

Excellence in Education: Catching and Recognizing the Student Doing Good

As educators we must purposefully try to connect with each of our students. With some, the bond occurs almost effortlessly--the hard-working, charismatic, teacher-pleaser, the student with whom we have much in common. Connecting with others, however, proves much more difficult. It is with these students that we must initiate more purposeful actions such as catching and recognizing their strengths. 

To connect with all students, requires you to use the tool you know best--yourself. When I took over a very unsuccessful girls basketball team at Fauquier High School, during every practice I spent five minutes talking to one student-athlete. The previous coach and the players were disconnected, so I promised changes. Included in the promise was that I would meet with one player for at least 5 minutes during practice and these conversations could not be about basketball. For the first week or so, many of the conversations fell flat, especially with students with whom I didn't know. The conversations were superficial and uncomfortable silences. 

If I hadn't promised or committed to the athletic director, parents, and the players that I was going to do this all season, I may have stopped. I prepared questions (I committed them to memory, thinking that if I had written them down and referred to them during the conversation, it would be more like an interview) and shared my own personal stories. As the season progressed, the conversations became more natural but for 1 or 2 players, they still seemed forced. Not content, I began focusing more on student strengths--even seeking information from their teachers, teammates and families. The focus was always on building connections. By the end of the season, we were a tightly-knit team. 

Undoubtedly, these conversations made me a better coach, and it made us a better team and--I hope--helped each player become a better person. Additionally, I realized I needed to build better relationships with some of my students with a particular focus on positive attention. 

Here are some action steps that I took: 

1. I created a spreadsheet for each class with each student's name. Every week, I looked over the list and jotted down student strengths. I challenged myself further to think about each student without looking at the list; believing that the students I forgot were the ones I needed to most focus on. I'd review the list before classes to ensure I focused on student strengths and would take purposeful and deliberate actions to connect with these students. 
2. Catch the good behaviors and draw attention to these. Sometimes this would be done privately and other times it would be recognized in front of the entire class.
3. I set a goal to make more positive phone calls to families. 
4. Every week, I committed to writing one positive letter to a student. 
5. I set daily praise goals for myself. Today, I will provide genuine positive praise to at least 10 students in each class. (I often videotaped my classes, so I would also pay attention to this as I reviewed the video, paying specific attention to which students received positive interactions, who received negative interactions, and who received neither.)

What are some ways that positively interact with students? How often do you comment on the positive versus the negative? Does this differ from student to student? What would explain the differences? What are some strategies you could use to increase positive interactions?

Tasks, Important Information, Upcoming Events

Wednesday, December 4: Curriculum Expo 
I'm in the process of organizing our annual Curriculum Expo.  The Expo will be held on Wednesday, December 4th from 6-7pm in the gymnasium.  The Expo provides an opportunity for 8th grade students, current MoHS students, and families to explore course offerings at Monticello.  In the past, each teacher will set up a table to advertise or explain their class and a representative is there to answer questions from students and families.  Feel free to make it your own by bringing visuals, student work, handouts and student representatives to help attract students and families to your table.  Please take a moment and fill out this form so I can get the layout set up.  For those heading to the game either tonight or tomorrow afternoon, STAY WARM!  Goodbye, fall & hello, winter!  ~Laura Massey

Friday, December 6: Interim Period Ends; Grades in PowerSchool by 9am 

Hour of Code 
Hour of Code is coming up the week of December 9^th-13^th.
The Learning Technology team will be curating resources for this event. Our goal this year is for students to engage in 5000 hours of code throughout the week. If you pre-register through ACPS for this event we will send swag for your students and the chance to win amazing prizes for your school!
Link for registration 
For more information click here 

Golden Apple Awards: Read more from this post 

Field Trips

Birthdays
12/4: Matt Pearman

Useful Information

Bell Schedules http://bit.ly/MustangBells 

Seeking volunteers? ACPS is attempting to expand volunteer outreach and help teachers find volunteers. Here’s a form that takes a minute to complete.

Morning Announcement Stream: http://streaming.k12albemarle.org/ACPS/links.htm

Announcement Request

Athletic team schedules, rosters, etc.

Teacher Manual

Want something included on the Monticello Outlook Calendar, the Monticello website, in the PowerSchool Daily Bulletin, schoolwide Schoology accounts, or the student newsletter (viewed by parents, students and staff)? Please use this link https://goo.gl/forms/bIjfJLKokWPcEHx33 

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