The Anatomy of a School Day

1. The Anatomy of a School Day Summer Institute

2. Elements of a School Day A teacher’s school day has 4 elements: • The lesson plan. • The delivery of the lesson. • The student’s assigned work. • The student’s understanding of the lesson. Then repeat the procedure 4 to 7 times daily

3. Setting the Stage and Pace –Lesson Planning– A good lesson plan details goals, strategy, and purpose for a body of academic material. When writing a lesson plan, the teacher must use language sparingly and encourage students to be an active part of the teaching process. Talk/lecture 25% and students work 75% of the time.

4. Just Because… Just because a lesson plan comes from a “teacher of the year” or wins awards or worked for the teacher across the hall, DOES NOT mean the plan will work for you. YOU HAVE TO MAKE THE MAGIC HAPPEN!

5. Where Does One Begin? • Does the teacher “aim & teach” the middle (tier 2) students and hope for the best? • Does the teacher “aim and teach” the top (tier 1) students, set the expectation and wait for the other students to catch up? • Does the teacher “aim & teach” the bottom (tier 3) students and everyone succeeds at a lower level of expectation?

6. The Needs of the Many versus the Needs of the Few With rare exception, the teacher will quickly realize that every class has a personality, a wide range of learning styles and abilities, and an even more diverse range of student expectations. The “trick” to being a good teacher is to balance everyone’s academic needs.

7. Touchdown or Fumble?-Lesson Delivery- The lesson “delivery” refers to the way a teacher imparts a body of knowledge to students. There are two unforgiving inverse relationships between time the teacher lectures and the amount of information a student learns: The longer a teacher talks/lectures, the less students learn and the less students learn the more teacher energy and effort will be needed to “re-teach.”

8. Students Learn by DOING! The teacher delivery should focus on the key ideas/concepts, and illustrate them with plenty of examples. Engage as many human senses as possible (sight, hearing, smell, touch, taste). Then cut students loose to duplicate or improve what the teacher did (remember monkey see, monkey do?).

9. Practice, Practice, Practice!!-Assigned work- It’s now the students turn to show the teacher what they have learned. Assign appropriate, meaningful, and easy-to-grade student work. Keep the amount of assigned work to a reasonable level*.

10. These Shoes are Made for Walkin’! It is now the teacher’s turn to learn from his/her students. The teacher must evaluate student progress and success with the assignment. Get out from behind your desk and start walking among your students. Check student work, praise student effort, encourage peer tutoring. In short, lead them towards “accountable talk.”

11. How Do You Know if Your Students “Got It?” Teachers face a difficult dilemma everyday: • Do I press forward in the curriculum to meet school/department goals and expectations? or • Do I stop at specific points to re-teach and fall behind school/department goals and expectations?

12. You Must Choose WISELY! Both questions are valid but overlook two more fundamental questions: • Did the teacher give and train students to use the necessary tools to succeed? • Did the teacher scaffold learning to bridge learning gaps and reach desired goals?

13. Student Tools? What Student Tools? Have you considered teaching students: • How to take notes? (See Cornell templates) • How to organize their materials? (organizer, notebook dividers, etc.) • How to study for tests/quizzes? (Study skills) • How to ask (phrase) questions? • How to deal with corrected/late work?

14. What’s Good for the Goose… Just as teachers need a set of “tools” to be effective, students also need a skills set or tools to be successful. Require students to learn these student tools, as this simple act will significantly decrease classroom management and disciplinary problems.

15. Assessments A balance of informal (spot checks, self assessments) and formal assessments (tests, quizzes, etc.) are best. In a grading period (6 or 9 weeks), the teacher should have about 3 major/formal assessments and between 10 and 20 minor and/or informal assessments. The school work “weight” factors depend on your school’s grade policy.

16. What’s my Average?… As a rule, students usually do not have a well developed frontal lobe (the place where critical decision making is located) and usually have a poor sense of “time.” This means that the good teacher will remind students of their grade status via progress reports. With today’s electronic grade books, generating weekly or biweekly reports is just a few computer keys away. Use this technology!!

17. Students “GOT IT!” if.. • They can demonstrate peer teaching or tutoring often (Glasser chart). • They participate/contribute in class often. • They score well on assessments. • They finish assigned work before class ends. • They say, “It’s easy, I got it!” often.

18. One Last Thought… For all this to work, the teacher MUST: • Share the classroom with students. • Rove about the classroom often and talk to students, encourage students to keep trying. • Recognize/complement individual students or groups of students for their achievements as you rove. This simple act tells the student(s) that you respect him/her/them and that the rest of the class should too.

19. Repeat, Repeat, Repeat!! The teacher must now summon all his/her stamina to repeat the procedures in this PowerPoint 4 to 7 more times EACH DAY, EVERY DAY!! CAN YOU DO IT?!

20. Activity Go to Slide 13 (Student Tools) and select/make: • A Cornell notes template you will use. • An organization system for student work. • A set of 4 to 5 important study skills sheet for student use. • A “questioning” sample that goes from simple knowledge to critical thinking (Knowledge to Evaluation).