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.

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Worth Your Time

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4 Strategies for Using Cooperative Learning for Review

Ideas in Education: Using Cooperative Learning for Review

While review games like Kahoot! and Jeopardy can be fun, they often only confirm the learning of some students and provide little help for students who haven't yet mastered the content. It's easy to use cooperative learning strategies for review and test preparation, and unlike review games or worksheets, you're able to build student knowledge, advance learning and build interpersonal skills. The below strategies can be competitive and cooperative, making them fun and productive where the success of each student depends on the teamwork and hard work of the other members in the group.

Strategy 1: Marketplace

1. Strategically split the class into groups. Each group is given one subtopic. Groups should create a poster-style presentation for their subtopic. 
2. One person from each group stays. The rest of the group goes visiting other groups. One student visits group B, one visits C, one visits D, etc. Visitors are responsible for taking notes. (Some teachers find it effective to require the person who stays only to answer questions after allowing the visitors to review the poster. This helps ensure that everyone is responsible for learning).
3. After a set amount of time, everyone returns to their original groups and shares their knowledge. 
4. Assessment: It is important to assess students soon after completing this activity. Assessment can be formal or informal: a quiz/test, a discussion, a learning activity, etc. Students are not permitted to view their notes or posters. A possible strategy is to have students check the work of their groupmates.

Tips:

• Limit the number of words that can be used on the poster. 
• Strategically grouping may mean grouping students by ability/readiness in this activity and providing least-ready students with the simplest topic. 
• Depending on your students or groups, determine whether or not you give students resources. 

Strategy 2: Snowballing 

1. Students are placed in groups (either randomly or teacher-selected) of 3-5. 
2. Students are given questions or problems to do, and students work individually on these.
3. After the set amount of time expires, students enter their groups and compare their answers, their thinking process, etc. This is an important focus for this stage as it makes the learning visible and focuses on the reasoning and why--not just the answer. 
4. The teacher then provides each group with exemplars to compare their group's answers to. 

Strategy 3: Numbered Heads Together 

This strategy is best used for reviewing information before a test. A high-functioning group supports each member and provides opportunities for practice and discussion.

1. Students are placed in groups and each person is given a number. 
2. The teacher asks/posts a question and groups are required to put their heads together to figure out the answer. Provide each group with a set amount of time to answer the question (more simplistic/closed answer questions require less time and open-ended questions, require more time). 
3. The teacher then calls a specific number to respond to the class. This ensures that each member is responsible for knowing the answer. They cannot receive help at this point. Some teachers like to have each group use a small whiteboard for the student in each group to write down their groups answer and then ask all the number 3's for example to show their boards at the same time. 

Tips:

• It may be helpful to keep track of the number of correct answers given by each group. This increases the accountability even if it's not entered into the gradebook. 
• Ensure that students have the correct answers. If you are pulling the questions from a review, encourage students to write down the answers to use for studying. 
• If you are using more open-ended questions (those without right/wrong answers), have students agree or disagree with the other group before sharing their answer. You may also require/encourage a clarifying or deep question as part of the process.

 Strategy 4: Showdown

1. Place students in groups. 
2. Provide each group with a set of problem cards. 
3. The group determines who the first leader is. 
4. The leader picks up a problem card and reads the question aloud before placing the card in the middle for everyone to be able to read. 
5. Without talking, students individually write down answers on a dry erase board. When finished, they turn their boards upside down. 
6. The leader then says, "Showdown!" and everyone flips their boards. 
7. The leader checks all of the answers. 
8. If the answer is incorrect (see tips), the group is responsible for correcting the error and teaching each other. The card is placed back in pile in this case. 
9. Rotate the cards and the leader. 

Tips: 

• Cards can have questions and answers, depending on the learning intention. The answers can be checked by providing an answer key. You may also choose to not provide the answers and require students to find the correct answer.
• The assignment can be varied based on student need. If for example, you have several students who have mastered the content, you can place them in a group with higher-order thinking questions for enrichment.  
• Since everyone will be a leader, use an icebreaker question to determine the first leader. This can be something as simple as Who woke up first this morning? to a more complex thing like What's the most bizarre food you've ever eaten? (groups then vote on the most bizarre...this is also a great opportunity for a conversation on what's bizarre is often cultural).

Always Debrief

With all assignments, but in particular cooperative ones, it's important to provide students with time to reflect and debrief. Encourage students to identify what they learned and where they fell short. Have them discuss what worked and what didn't work and why?

What are some cooperative learning techniques that you use for review?  

Important Dates and Information  

 

Field Trips, Performances, SOLs

April 23: Senior English in Forum during MM

Friday: Club Day

Birthdays

April 22: Brooke Lipscomb
April 23: Dan Brown
April 24: Lisa Killham, Katherine Williams 
April 26: Veronica Price-Thomas 
April 27: Kim Morgan-Thomas

Useful Information

Bell Schedules : http://bit.ly/MOHSbells

FAC Form

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Student, Staff, Student of the Month Form

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CSI and Numbered Heads Together

Excellence in Education: Color, Symbol, Image (CSI)
Last week's topic focused on discussions and ensuring inclusion of ALL students. This week's technique focuses students taking deeper dives into learning and offers the advantage of providing an opportunity for students who may lack language skills to display higher order thinking skills.

After learning about a topic, students;

1. Choose a COLOR that they think best represents the essence of that idea
2. Create a SYMBOL that they think best represents the essence of that idea
3. Sketch an IMAGE that they think best captures the essence of that idea 

What kind of topics does this work for? Choose a topic that has different viewpoints and is relatively complex. Some good examples would be a speech, a scene from a play, a snippet from a book, etc.

How do you introduce this to students? While you are getting students to think metaphorically, it's not necessary to delve into What is a Metaphor? Before the students read, view, watch, etc explain to them that they pay attention to things that they feel are important, interesting or insightful. Also explain that they are going to be completing a CSI assign. It may be helpful to explain what a symbol is with some examples.

How do you support and assess students? Encourage your student to take notes as they explore the topic. You can ask questions and make comments through this stage, "You wrote interesting there. What'd you find interesting?"

The same can be done as students develop their CSI portions. Require students to share their work with a partner, group or the class. You may ask groups to share their favorite or most creative or most thoughtful color, symbol or image.

Throughout the process, pay particular attention to the students thinking. 

How can this be differentiated? This is a great "leveler" to begin with but it can also be differentiated by student readiness levels. For example, the content can be presented through different means. If it is a reading assignment, for example, you can level the reading in advance or you can provide more direct instruction for struggling readers. You can also partner students together as they read and/or partner them together to go through the CSI process.

You can also differentiate the assignment by allowing students to use their computers to complete the CSI portion. Also don't require students to draw their images; instead, a student may wish to use his/her word.

*Attribute for CSI Making Thinking Visible by Ron Ritchhart, Mark Church and Karin Morrison.

Excellence in Education: Numbered Heads Together 

As we're in SOL season, this oldie but good from Spencer Kagan is a great way to review for exams but it also works great with complex, higher-order questions.

How to:

1. Students are placed in groups of 4. Assign each of the 4 a number (1-4).
2. You, as the teacher, pose a question. Of course, it helps for students to be  able to see the question as well as hear it.
3. Students individually think and write down their answers. Answers can be written on a their desks (using white board markers), individual white boards, on paper, or using their computers.
4. Provide the students with a set amount of time to answer the question individually and provide them with a countdown as time is about to expire.
5. After time is called, the group discusses the answer and works towards a consensus answer.
6. Each member of the group should be able to answer the question for the entire group.
7. Randomly call a number (1-4) and that student reports the answer to the entire class. Again, depending on the type of question, you could use this as a competition between groups by keeping score or by having all of the randomly called numbers write their answer on a small whiteboard. For example, after giving groups time to answer, tell them to erase their answers. Randomly call on a number and have all students who were that number write down the correct answer on their whiteboard. Then have them display their answers to you. It’s also great to ask follow-up questions too.  

Why it works?

1. Each student is accountable, but the team approach eliminates fear
2. It provides opportunities for students to talk and listen, making learning visible
3. Appropriate grouping means stronger students can support struggling students without feeling “slowed” by them

Need to Knows
Tech Newsletter from LEAD featuring a couple of our own!!

Faculty Meeting Google Slide Presentation 

Field Trips and SOLs
May 30-May 4: SOL re-tests and transfers
April 30: Poetry Slam
May 1: College Signing and College Culture/Pride
May 2, 3: Digital Imagining and Photography Field Trips to IX Park
May 3: Celebration of Dr. Moran
May 4: Spring Musical Preview


Birthdays


April 30-Louise Weaver
May 3-Kelsey Terpay and Michael Schafer
May 4-Mary Morales and Jennifer Timms

Useful Information
Activity Period Calendar : Mentorship for 9th-11th, Senior Class Meeting for 12th

Technology / Website Permission Request Form Please use this form to request use of a website or any resource that requires student log-in if the site is not already on the approved list. DART approved list

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Announcement Request: http://tinyurl.com/requestannouncement

Teacher Handbook

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