Strategic Teaching Overview

1. Strategic Teaching Overview Madison City Schools Jackie Flowers and Carmen Buchanan

2. Norms • Be open to ideas from others. • Be an active participant. • Avoid side conversations. • Cell phones on vibrate. • Be present. (Avoid checking your e-mail/messages and working on other projects except for during breaks.) • Take care of your creature comforts.

3. AQTS 2.6 Designs coherent lessons that integrate a variety of appropriate and effective instructional strategies.

4. Learning Target Teachers will determine the key factors in creating a classroom as a place of active engagement and where learning is visible.

5. “A teacher’s job is not to teach kids, a teacher’s job is to create meaningful engaging work whereby the student learns the things we want them to learn.” Phil Schlecty

6. Making Clock Appointments Each person will need to make a 12:00, 3:00, 6:00 and 9:00 appointment by exchange names for each time slot. Write down the name of the person that you will be meeting with beside that time on your clock sheet. Questions?

7. Clock Appointment Interviews Directions: • Interview question: What are the characteristics of an effective learning environment? 2. Interview three people (12:00, 3:00, 6:00 appointments)- ask the question, record the response on the back of the clock appointment sheets, then move to another person. 3. Summarize findings on the back of the clock appointment sheets.

8. Some Research What teachers do in the classroom has 6 to 10 times as much impact on student achievement as all other factors combined. (Mortimer & Sammons, 1987) Individual teachers can have a profound impact on student achievement—even in otherwise ineffective schools. (Marzano, Pickering, & Pollock, 2001) The key to improving education—more than any other factor— is improving the effectiveness of classroom instruction. (Wright, Horn, & Saunders, 1997) Effective classroom instruction works—regardless of students’ socioeconomic status. (Schmoker, 2006)

9. “A Tale of Two Classrooms: Transforming a ‘Place’ of Learning” The contradiction exemplified so eloquently in the first paragraph of A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens poignantly creates a metaphor for the possibilities of creating a classroom as a positive learning environment. For one classroom, it can provide the best of times, the age of wisdom, the epoch of belief, the season of Light, and the spring of hope. In comparison, another classroom can experience the worst of times, the epoch of incredulity, the season of Darkness, and a winter of despair. How does a brick building transform into a place of learning? How can individual rooms within this place become ones in which “learning” turns into a tangible and desired need not only for students but teachers as well? The answer lies within the assumptions that students have about learning and the use of active engagement as a means to address these assumptions.

10. Stretch Break

11. School Calendar Do we have enough time to do all we need to do?

12. Instructional Time

13. Strategic Teaching Strategic teaching describes instructional processes that focus directly on fostering student thinking, but goes well beyond that. Strategic teaching and strategic learning are inexorably linked. A strategic teacher has an understanding of the variables of instruction and is aware of the cognitive requirements of learning.

14. Strategic Lessons include TWIRL Talking Writing Investigating Reading Listening

15. Essential Element of a Lesson Plan Learning Target Beginning (Before Strategies) Middle (During Strategies) End (After Strategies) Formative/Summative Assessment Reflection

16. Beginning (Before) (20%) Learning Target- Student Friendly Sets the stage Hooks the students Activates prior knowledge Build background knowledge Generates questions Discuss vocabulary Establishes a purpose

17. Middle (During) Engage with text Verify and formulate predictions Summarize text Self monitor comprehension Construct graphic organizers Integrates new information with prior knowledge

18. Middle (During) Scaffold the Instruction Using the Gradual Release of Responsibility (GRR) I Do We Do Y’all Do You Do

19. End (After) (20 %) Wrap up Reflection on the lesson Retell and summarize Gives the teacher information about how much the student actually learned

20. Assessment Every lesson needs some form of formative assessment… • 3-2-1 • Exit slips • Observational data • Etc. Otherwise you are throwing seeds in the wind and hoping that they grow….

21. Teaching is not the presentation of information by the teacher, but the engagement of the learner with the information. -Engaging Teens in Their Own Learning

22. Engagement and the Brain Why must we engage the learner before, during and after the lesson?

23. Brain Research and Chunking Research on the brain and attention spans tells us that it is very important to chunk the text or the lesson. • Grades K - 2 equals 5 – 7 minutes • Grades 3 - 7 equals 8 – 15 minutes • Grades 8 -12 equals 20 – 25 minutes

24. Engagement and Rigor http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hMOQHsWfOB4&feature=fvst

25. Discuss the following question with your 9:00 appointment: Can we help students learn hard information if we make it engaging for them to do?

26. Think of Strategic Lesson Plan as a Sport Before- Warming up, stretching During- Playing the game After- Celebrating the successes and planning where you go from here.

27. Five Corners Activity I think active engagement could be compared to a: Basketball game Football game Baseball game Track meet Volleyball

28. Share Out Share beliefs on what active engagement should look like.

29. Resources Carmen http://lms.madisoncity.k12.al.us/?PageName=TeacherPage&Page=2&StaffID=145483&iSection=Teachers&CorrespondingID=145483 Jackie http://dms.madisoncity.k12.al.us/?PageName=TeacherPage&Page=16&StaffID=145310

30. Parking Lot Postings Reflect on the learning from today: • Questions • Concerns • Comments Have a great school year!