Monday Mustang Memo: marketplace

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

Strategically split the class into groups. Each group is given one subtopic. Groups should create a poster-style presentation for their subtopic.
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).
After a set amount of time, everyone returns to their original groups and shares their knowledge.
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

Students are placed in groups (either randomly or teacher-selected) of 3-5.
Students are given questions or problems to do, and students work individually on these.
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.
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.

Students are placed in groups and each person is given a number.
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).
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

Place students in groups.
Provide each group with a set of problem cards.
The group determines who the first leader is.
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.
Without talking, students individually write down answers on a dry erase board. When finished, they turn their boards upside down.
The leader then says, "Showdown!" and everyone flips their boards.
The leader checks all of the answers.
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.
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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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