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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Report: Minority, Disabled Students Suspended More Often 

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Cooperative Learning Strategies for Review, Part 2

Ideas in Education: Using Cooperative Learning for Review, Part 2

As a teacher, one of my least favorite times of the year was test review season. One of the reasons why: I wasted students' time with practice tests. Students took the test; then we went over the answers. It confirmed what I knew and what they knew. In my case: some students struggled with maps, graphs, and visuals. Almost everyone would benefit from a quick review of the world's religions/philosophies. They weren't confident on Great Zimbabwe, Western African Kingdoms, and pre-Colombian civilizations simply because we didn't spend much time on these, and some of the more obscure questions about Greek playwrights and inventors tripped them up). 

For many students, their scores on the practice test confirmed that they were in good shape for the SOL. For others, however, it confirmed their sense of dread and added to their anxiety. 
 
All-in-all, for most it was a waste of time. 

The good news: practice tests and review don't need to be a waste of time, if done right.

I highlighted some strategies last week, and here are some other strategies to make reviewing more effective and meaningful.



Using Practice/Review Tests 
The above isn't to suggest that practices tests have no part in reviewing. Here the focus is on maximizing their value as an assessment for learning tool and building metacognition and content learning. 

1. Students take the quiz/test. 
2. Students self-check their answers or trade with a partner for peer checking.
3. Students work in teacher-created groups (one stronger student in each group) to correct AND diagnose their answers. This includes Why did I get this wrong? What types of questions was I getting wrong? Where do I/we need to improve? You may include having students graph/chart/categorize this information by SOL strands, themes, etc. and then use this information to group students, determining what to re-teach or review, or for some of the other ideas included below. 
4. Provide an opportunity for students to show improvement and build confidence. This could include having them only do the questions they got wrong or grouping students and having them explain to peers the questions they got wrong and the right answer. There are some great opportunities for re-grouping and flexible grouping with this approach. 

Student review groups
This strategy can stand alone or you can use the data from the review test or another method of grouping, to have students review and teach each other.

1. Working in groups, students write questions and answers or complete a graphic organizer or poster on one topic. 
2. Groups swap and/or circulate their questions/answers and/or information with other groups. 
3. If using questions, the answers are passed back to the original group for checking and re-teaching. After this occurs, the second group tries again.

Race to the Top Game

This is a worthy means of reviewing while also instill a collaborative climate with a touch of competition. 

1. Each team is given a topic from the year. As a team, they will devise a set number of questions and answers for that topic. These should be short answer type questions. It may be helpful to require the students to refer to Bloom's taxonomy or something similar to ensure their questions require some mix of higher-order questions. 
2. Check their work. 
3. Have the groups create cards with their questions and answers. Alternatively, have them enter this into a spreadsheet that can be used to create flashcards or a similar tool. 
4. Create the cards and a game board (don't really need a board for each partner group). For every five cards, add a space. So if there are 20 cards, you will have 24 spaces. Every fifth space is a stopping point. 
5. Provide cards from each topic to student partner groups. Have the partners split the cards evenly. 
6. Student A asks Student B five questions. If Student B gets a question correct, he gets the card and puts at the bottom of his stack, so he will ask Student A the question later. Student B moves one space. If Student B gets the question wrong, it is place to the side. 
7. After 5 questions, switch roles. 
8. After both students have asked/answered five questions, they review the missed questions and ask them again. 
9. The next five questions are asked. 
10. Continue until both students are finished with all questions and get to the top. 

Important Dates and Information and SOLs

Monday & Tuesdsay: SOL Training Sessions before and after school, Re-test/Transfer students begin testing (see Monticello Outlook Calendar or Cindy's email for students) 

Tuesday: 8am AVID Site Team Meeting 

Wednesday: Continuation of SOL Re-test/Transfer 

Thursday: Leadership meeting &  Continuation of SOL Re-test/Transfer 

Friday: Continuation of SOL Re-test/Transfer; Club Day and Job Fair (see below)

Job Fair On Friday: In partnership with Virginia Career Works, we are hosting a job fair here from 9:45-12:15. Students will be able to attend the job fair during club period (sign up in adaptive scheduler) and during lunches (no sign-up required). It will be in the auditorium atrium. Please share this with your 1A classes so they can sign up!

Expected companies:

At Home Care
Bojangles
Farmington County Club
Charlottesville Aquatics
Doubletree Hotel
Express Employment Pros
Goodwill of the Valleys
Monticello
People Ready (18 year olds)
Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act Program (WIOA)
UVA Temps
UVA Talent Flexibility Team
Aramark (18 year olds)
Grounds Maintenance
Mathnasium of Charlottesville
Chick Fil A
Brooks YMCA **
Boars Head Aquatics**
Census 2020 (18 year olds)
Sentara Martha Jefferson
Panera Bread
CATEC Summer Programs**
ServPro
Marshalls
Belk**
Timberwood**
Shadwells**
Management Services Corporation**
Raising Canes**

**Waiting for Confirmation from Employer to attend

Job Opportunity for Teachers: As you may know, the Census is here. Much of the work will take place in July and August, but may extend into October. A hiring representative from Census 2020 will be present at the job fair, so feel free to stop by or email Ms. Terrell for more information. 

20-year Past and Present Staff Celebration: May 2 at Carter's Mountain from 5-9. Please bring your lawn chairs, blankets, etc. Friends and family welcome! Food and beverages for purchase.
 

 

Field Trips, Performances

May 3: In house previews of Once on this Island.

Friday: Club Day & Job Fair

Birthdays

April 30: Louise Weaver
May 3: Michael Schafer and Kelsey Terpay
May 4: Mary Morales

 

Useful Information

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

FAC Form

To add to Monticello-Outlook, School Calendar, PowerSchool Daily Bulletin

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

Announcement Request 

Athletic team schedules, rosters, etc. 

Teacher Handbook  

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

Student, Staff, Student of the Month Form

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Girl born with no hands wins national handwriting contest 

 

The other segregation: focus is on division between schools, while tracking has created a separate and unequal education system within single schools 

A lot of the focus on this article is on gifted education. 

Here are the numbers for Monticello's Gifted Student Population (numbers exceed 100% because of different ways of calculating)

 

2.19%	African American
2.73%	Black/African American and White
3.28%	Asian
4.37%	Asian and White
85.79%	White
6.01%	Hispanic

 Teacher didn't punish girl caught napping, his response has the internet talking

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

To add to Monticello-Outlook, School Calendar, PowerSchool Daily Bulletin

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

Announcement Request 

Athletic team schedules, rosters, etc. 

Teacher Handbook  

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

Student, Staff, Student of the Month Form

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Assigning Roles in Cooperative Learning

Ideas in Education: Assigning Roles in Cooperative Learning

Cooperative learning is a high-yield instructional strategy when done appropriately. One of the hallmarks of effective cooperative learning is student interdependence, meaning the students must work together and rely on each other.

It always helps to give students specific roles. This maximizes student participation and roles can be assigned based on students’ strengths.

Below are some roles that you may want to assign to students.

Teacher: Your role is to study the material and to explain it to the others in your group. You will be the only student in your group to study this information, so be sure to understand it well and think of how to explain it. You can ask the teacher for assistance. You are not to show any written materials to your group but you can use diagrams or pictures.

Checker: The teacher will choose students at random from your group to report back on what your group has learned and decided. It may be more than one person from the group and you may be asked more than one question. Your role is to make sure that ALL students in your group understand and can clearly report it to the rest of the class. You should prepare questions of your group and you will be allowed time to ask these questions after the material is taught.

Scribe: Your role is to summarize the key points that your group is making and to check that the entire group agrees. You should write down your group’s answers and ensure that there is agreement.

Questioner: Your role is to review the resource and decide on what is important. Your job is to focus your group’s attention on the key points and then give your questions to the group.

Questioner: Your role is to push back and ask the tough questions like Why? Can you explain that more? What about...You want to make sure your group is thinking things through and that everyone’s voice is heard. Your job is to involve everyone and make sure that your group truly understands the material and didn’t come to an agreement too quickly.

Vocabulary chief: Your job is to find the technical vocabulary in this material. You should then research the terms and explain the meaning of all the technical terms. You may choose to develop a glossary or some other way to teach these words to your group. It is recommended that you create a quiz or other means to make sure that everyone in your group understands the technical words from this material.

Leader/Facilitator: Your role is to lead and manage your group. You need to make sure that your group stays on task and completes all tasks. You want to make sure that everyone participates (has a voice and is heard) and learns. You’re also responsible for keeping your group on task. You can share out or create different roles if needed.

Data collector: Your role is to collect and record the data from your group.

Presenter: Your role is to communicate you group’s finished work to the class. You will not be the only one expected to answer questions, however. You should determine what needs to be presented and how much to share.

Encourager: Encourage group members to participate and to think things through. Ask probing questions to facilitate deeper learning and group consensus (agreement).

Tidbits and Tips:

• Not all roles will be used at all times and the roles will differ based on the task. For example, the role of questioner is listed twice.
• Chose higher order learning tasks that require analysis, synthesis, evaluation instead of memorization
• Point out why you’ve chosen the roles.For example,  I chose the role of questioner because it’s important that you learn to ask questions as you read. The vocabulary chief is important because when you’re reading complex material, you need to identify and learn some words. This is going to be the case especially when you get to college, but remember you don’t necessarily need to know every word.
• In addition to discussing the academic learning intentions, also discuss the behavioral learning intentions you desire and seek student input. What are the characteristics of strong teams and groups? If you do a lot of group work, setting norms or a group-member agreement/contract is a great idea.
• In addition to the learning material, you may want to provide students with:
• Task cards explaining the roles or tent cards so everyone can see them.
• A task to be completed (visualization, graphic organizer, etc.)
• The roles take practice and teacher guidance. It may be helpful to provide structure at first. Another idea is to allow all the students with similar roles to come together after completing the task individually (similar to Jigsaw learning).
• Allow to students to reflect on their own learning and how they did on their task. This builds self-efficacy and student responsibility for learning.
• After students have completed the group work, assess the learning of every student in some manner. This could be a quiz, a graphic organizer, or randomly asking students from each group questions that they need to answer individually.Provide each group with a white board. Randomly choose a student from each group to answer the question without help from their group. This could be by role or by number or something silly “person who woke up first this AM. Assign points to the entire group based on the number of correct answers (I prefer doing this as a competition and not as something that goes in the gradebook).
• Groups should teacher-selected, or if appropriate, random.
• If you feel your students don’t know each other well, use an icebreaker or a connector to start the assignment
• Cooperative learning structures with assigned roles:
• Jigsaw Learning
• Marketplace
• Reciprocal Teaching
• STAD - Student Teams Achievement Division (best for math or other information with closed-answers (right or wrong), but can easily be adapted, but roles not explicitly defined

What are some cooperative learning strategies you use? How do you assign roles? What are some roles you assign?

Important Dates and Information 

March 11: Honor Society Inductions (evening)

March 12, March 13: English 10 Writing SOL. No Mustang Morning during these days. 1st block will be extended. Almost ALL 10th graders will be taking the SOL during time.

March 15: Club Day, Long Lunch

March 19 @ 9:45 Tornado Drill

Interested in Offering a New Course for 2020-2021?

Please submit your request by Spring Break using this https://www2.k12albemarle.org/dept/dart/enterpriseapps/powerschool/course-requests/Pages/default.aspx . Requests will be reviewed by Mr. Vrhovac and, if approved, it will be assigned to a lead coach for further development. From there it will be collaboratively developed and will need approval by the Dept. of Instruction and finally the School Board.

March 29: Flex Day

Shout Outs  

What a great experience for our students on Thursday. It was a great opportunity for students to demonstrate their authentic learning and how you as teachers have motivated them through lesson design to learn new concepts and skills that will help them better understand the material and prepare them for college and careers.

A special thanks to Ms. Streit and Ms. Demitry for their organizational efforts.

Of course none of us got to every location in the building because there was so much going on but here are a couple of my highlights:

• All the performances. The first performance of the night by our ESL students set the bar really high. Their expressions afterwards spoke volumes and they definitely appreciate all the teachers who came to see them perform.
• Our CATEC students! At one time we had several families of our high flyers listening to CATEC students explain home electricity, fire fighting, hair cuts, and auto repair. For example, a parent sees electrical panel and asks, “I have one of those in my house. I haven’t a clue about it.” Several minutes later she’s been provided a run-down of the basics and is asking follow-up questions.
• Families working together to unlock the lockout boxes in the media center.
• The food in culinary (so much going on, that for the second year in a row, the fuses blew!)
• The TED talks and Tom Tom pitches
• HMSA students explaining to prospective students why HMSA AND Monticello are the right choice (and no, they didn’t know I was listening)

The enthusiasm for learning our students showed on Thursday was a clear demonstration of your commitment to providing our students with learning opportunities that extend beyond test scores and rote memorization. It was equally great to hear many of you talking throughout the night about how you wish you could have seen more and what you’re ready to do next year. We should all be proud!

Field Trips and SOLs

March 11: Reframing Narrative @ Montpelier

March 19: Global Health Case Competition

March 27-29: AVID College Tour

March 30: NOVA Teen Book Festival

April 9: Tom Tom Festival

Birthdays

March 12: Jennifer Meade

March 16: Dean Eliason

Useful Information

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

FAC Form

To add to Monticello-Outlook, School Calendar, PowerSchool Daily Bulletin

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

Announcement Request

Athletic team schedules, rosters, etc.

Teacher Handbook 

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

Student, Staff, Student of the Month Form

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