Amanda Rouse- Reading Advantage Interventionist PLA@103 Three characteristics of a high-level engaged classroom evident in my classroom practice are: * Divergent ways of thinking and solving problems. I love to encourage scholars to arrive at the answer in ways that make the most sense to them. * A learning culture where everyone is free to pose questions and share about their learning. Encouraging life-long learning instead of just learning something for a test. * Clear and modeled expectations. Scholars thrive on routine and expectations. Making sure my scholars know what is expected and the procedures makes for a more comfortable learning environment for all.
One characteristic I want to work on instilling in my scholars is a culture of emotional safety in our learning. So often, our scholars (and even we as adults) look at mistakes as negative or wrong. I want my scholars to understand that mistakes happen and we can use them to learn and be our best selves.
Yes... we all need to keep working on the culture of emotional safety in our classrooms... in my classroom I LOVE to hear the scholars remind each other, "... if you make a mistake that means you're learning!"
As one of your "scholars", I am a teacher at 103, Amanda was one of my choaches, you always made me feel good when you would come in and do a choaching cylcle or just help me. Thank you! You did make me feel safe about making mistakes. Jenelle Miller PLA@103
I agree! I also want to keeping working on the culture of my classroom so that all students feel welcomed and safe at all times. Brittany Connett PLA@93
As an instructional coach, I will speak to three characteristics of a high-level engaged classroom that are evident in some of my teachers' practices regularly + one characteristic that I would like to see implemented more this year.
1. When any of our K-5 scholars are in the PBL (Project Based Learning) lab engaging in project work. This is a prime example of scholars doing the "heavy-lifting work called learning" in which they are creating, innovating, persisting at a task that requires thinking, and "responding with wonderment and awe." 2. Scholars posing questions to one another and the teacher refraining from jumping in, but rather, allowing their peers to respond. 3. Scholars eager to answer questions and problem solve, without fear of being wrong.
1. An increase in opportunities for productive struggle and additional wait time given as opposed to teachers quickly rescuing scholars through their thinking and reasoning processes.
As a pervious teacher and now a principal, I have observed some very engaging classrooms. I believe the three characterizes of a highly-engaged classroom are: Pride, Passion and enjoyment. If you walk into a classroom that is highly engaged, you can easily see the pride and passion of the scholars. Engaged Scholars will take pride in the quality of the work they produce. They’ll be proud of accomplishments and invested in their own learning outcomes. You will observe a classroom where scholars are eager to show off their work and participate to give answers. Passion in learning will look like genuine enthusiasm and joy for the subject or activity. Passion and Pride go hand and hand. Learning is suppose to be informative and enjoyable. Engaged scholars will feel comfortable and relaxed in your classroom, and this will make it easier for them to open up and have fun. When scholars have fun, they will enjoy and retain whatever they’re learning.
One characteristic that I would like to work on with my staff is the enjoyment part of learning. I want to help coach my staff to understand that learning can and should be fun. Understanding that teaching is a serious concept however, realizing teaching and learning should be approached in a manner in which not only should the scholars be excited to be there, but so should they.
I truly look forward to learning some new strategies and techniques to make my lessons more engaging and fun for my 4th/5th grade scholars. I agree that there needs to be a balance between rigor and fun to make learning truly both challenging and engaging.
I too believe that when you have passion the enjoyment will show. You will be able to get your scholars to "pay in" and be engaged. I too agree that there needs to be a better balance of rigor and fun to make the learning environment engaging.
Music classes were a bit limited this last year as many of our normal activities were not covid safe (singing and playing wind instruments). I will list three characteristics that I hope came through in my teaching this last year.
1. A sense of audience beyond the test/classroom. 2. A culture of emotional safety.
Throughout the year, I did "birthday bios" on favorite performers or groups of scholars (based on a survey from the beginning of the school year). I tried to make it clear to scholars that this was just to learn more about other music groups and styles that may not be as familiar to us. I also did my best to encourage positive talk about the music and musicians, even if it was a person that not everyone in the class appreciated or enjoyed.
3. Social interaction.
Playing music as a group is naturally socially interactive. Whether we played a call-and-response/follow the leader song on drums or we were reading music and doing our best to play together, it required listening to everyone in the group.
Something I want to work on for next year is allowing for varied responses from scholars. As these scholars are in the early stages of learning music, it is difficult for them either have the desire or confidence to truly create anything musical on their own. I hope to be able to find ways to play as a group "correctly" but also allow for more self expression.
Our Fine Arts teacher, who taught Art and Music this year, used Chrome Music Lab for scholars to create their own music. Many scholars chose to use the site during their free time after they finished eating their lunch in the classroom.
I looked into that, but I was worried it would be too immature, or at least seen as too immature, for the scholars as they were high schools or a few late middle schoolers. I did have a scholar working with a Digital Audio Workstation during his individual lessons and at home, but individual lessons were very poorly attended while we were virtual so we had very limited time together to work on his project.
As a previous teacher and now an Assistant Principal, the three characteristics that ensure high-level cognitive engagement that I see in some of my teacher's practices and that I would love to see in all of my teacher's practices are creating a culture of emotional safety in the classroom so that students become risk takers and stretch their learning to new heights. I've observed new and novel tasks that students want to dive into to figure it out. I've observed students interacting socially. Academic conversations with their peers are crucial to stretch their thinking and truly consider all possible perspectives of a subject matter.
One characteristic that I would like to work on with my staff is allowing students opportunities to make choices within the activity. Teachers can assign the skill while allowing students to make choices about the direction the skill goes in. Learners buy into their learning when they are allowed to make choices. The quality of the work improves as well along with retention because they never forget when they take the reign.
I feel it is very important for scholars to be able to choose their type of learning. As a visual learner, I have difficulty learning in certain ways and when I can choose my way to express the way I learn better really helps me make the life long connection. I want my scholars to feel the same way and make a lasting connection to learning.
Teresa Jones, 1st grade teacher at TLJA in Fort Wayne, IN
The three characteristic that are already in my classroom are a culture of emotional safety, clear and modeled expectations, and personalized responses. The characteristic I would like to improve is having an audience beyond the teacher and the test. Every year I have grand ideas about having an audience beyond me. However, it has never moved past the idea stage. I am hoping to get some direction in this course as to how to put my ideas and more into the classroom.
Brooke Berk, Chapel Hill Academy in Fort Worth Texas
As the Dean of Instruction a few of the strategies that I have seen being utilized on campus by some of our teachers are social interactions, culture of emotional safety, and clear/modeled expectations. I would like to help our teachers implement allowing opportunities for students to personalize their responses to an assigned activity/strategy/task/idea.
Student choice/personalization is something I have been learning a lot about in my PD this summer. I would welcome any suggestions you have for me in this area! :)-Sarah Williams Chapel Hill Academy
1. Social Interaction - In my classroom we talk a LOT. We share our ideas on a regular basis and dig deeper into the subject matter by trying to relate things to our own lives. I love to hear to my scholars discuss certain topics because they actually learn more from one another that way. My scholars have a lot more in common than they realize and that realization comes from social interaction.
2. I'd like to think that my classroom is a safe place for scholars to express their emotions in a safe and productive way. We all know that when you put 20+ scholars in a room you get quite the variety of personalities. I know my scholars can share anything with me and that it is safe, I can only hope that they sense that with their peers.
3. My expectations are very clear in my classroom. I model my expectations daily in my room on how to perform a task.
I teach all ELA at GVPLA for 5th Grade and it is a true challenge for me on some days. One thing I really want to work on this year is to come up with new, innovative, and engaging ideas to make the stories come to life for the scholars. I'll be the first to admit that my engagement levels within the text are very low on most days. My goal is to ramp up this year. I'm planning to tweak lessons plans and activities to make this a reality for the upcoming year. I'm also open to YOUR ideas!
Critical thinking is so important for scholar engagement. That being said, it is important to teach facts and history, so the scholars have something to critically think about.
As an administrator, seeing scholars engaged in a lesson makes for the best lessons, and critical thinking gets that result. Finding ways to incorporate facts into critical thinking makes for an even greater lesson.
Finding a balance between the two styles of teaching is the hardest part. In this standardized testing world, scholars are more often tested on what they know and not what they think, and this often leads teachers to teach facts.
I look forward to learning ways to help teachers balance both for the benefit of all scholars.
Three characteristics of high-level cognitive engagement that I use in the classroom are:
1. Clear and modeled expectations: I start the beginning of the year discussing expectations with my students and practicing what those expectations will look like in different scenarios. Then, I begin each lesson of a review of expectations for the activity.
2. Social interaction: students can learn so much from discussion and sharing ideas.
3. Personalized response: having open ended responses allows students to connect what we are learning to their own lives and makes the content more exciting for them to learn.
One characteristic I would like to implement more this year is finding ways to make activities more authentic.
I as well want to implement authentic activities in my instructions this year! I think this such a great way to get students in engaged and excited to learn!
I believe that critical thinking is apart of scholar engagement. This year was such an unusual year and I believe me students are in need of consistency. First, everything needs to be clear and modeled for the students. Students need to understand what is expected of them and it has to be reviewed many times. My students love to participate in everything so I think it is important to have personal responses where students can share their feelings and find the connection in what they are learning in school. Last, for students to be critical thinkers they need to be able to feel safe to take risks and not fear that they will not be ridiculed by their peers. This past year that has been challenging to have the students treat each other they way they should be treated so they can help each other learn. I would like to be able to create more of a classroom where students feel safe to express their thoughts and ideas and where students look for the ways to be kind and support one another.
I appreciate you bringing attention to the importance of creating opportunities for scholars to "share their feelings and find the connection in what they are learning in school." One of the worst feelings is telling scholars with their hands up, eager to share, that we need to move on to the next part of our day and to hold on to that thought for another time. When I was in a teaching role, I created a "share box" where scholars could write down (or draw a picture of) the thought they had or question they wanted to ask and drop it in, so that they could still be heard and it could still be addressed.
The 3 characteristics that ensure high-level cognitive engagement evident in my classroom are activities that allow for the student to personalize a response and bring their life experiences, student choice, and the introduction of new and novel tasks and concepts. As I reviewed the remaining characteristics ensuring the activity is authentic was the characteristic I identified as one I'd like to implement more in my classroom. I have seen the educational benefits of connecting the content to reality and students are significantly more engaged when it makes logical sense of where the content fits into the real world.
Amy Jo Miller-Chapel Hill Academy Fort Worth, Texas
As a previous teacher and now an Assistant Principal, the three characteristics that ensure high-level cognitive engagement that I see in some of my teacher's practices and that I would love to see in all of my teacher's practices are creating a culture of emotional safety in the classroom so that students become risk takers and stretch their learning to new heights. I've observed new and novel tasks that students want to dive into to figure it out. I've observed students interacting socially. Academic conversations with their peers are crucial to stretch their thinking and truly consider all possible perspectives of a subject matter.
One characteristic that I would like to work on with my staff is allowing students opportunities to make choices within the activity. Teachers can assign the skill while allowing students to make choices about the direction the skill goes in. Learners buy into their learning when they are allowed to make choices. The quality of the work improves as well along with retention because they never forget when they take the reign.
The 3 Characteristics that I feel I use are: modeling expectations through the whole group lesson, social interaction by having students work with partners or small group to continue practicing new skills, choose activities I use choice boards for both math and reading seatwork during small group instruction. I would like to use more critical thinking skills by asking higher order questions. I have used a series of lessons about the brain and how students can train their brain to think critical. Because of e-learning and in-school I didn't get to teach it all or the way I wanted to present it to students this year.
The 3 characteristics that I believe are evident in my classroom are 1) clear and modeled expectations, especially since I teach math, 2) encouraging social interaction during small group instruction, 3) and encouraging a culture of emotional safety when answering academic questions and when interacting in class. One characteristic I would like to work on implementing more this year is encouraging more student-centered responding and not feeling rushed while learning. There is always a sense of urgency and it hurts the scholars' ability to learn, especially those learners who learn at a slower pace.
As a Kindergarten teacher the three characteristics that I do well in my classroom are: 1. Clear and modeled expectations. I use repetition, dramatization, and modeling to teach the different procedures, work expectation, adequate participation, etc. This age group needs more practice than older scholars, but they also are very receptive of their K teacher. 2. Social interaction. I spend a lot of time modeling and correcting social interactions, so scholars can learn to be a classmate that supports their class. Students work in groups, pairs, and some become leaders when they achieve mastery quicker than others. The atmosphere is normally engaging and task oriented. 3. The ability to chose within an activity, I like to give different choices to the scholars, it gives them the illusion they are choosing the activity, but I really am giving them choices on what I want them to practice, reinforce, or relearn. I do this a lot in centers but I don't introduce this until after several weeks, because of the age of my scholars.
The characteristic I would like to work more on is new and novel, K is a grade that repetition is essential and sometimes I find it hard to make ABC practice new and novel, I will look into this for next year, and find other ways I have yet to use.
I LOVE having your scholars visit the art room! I can see how you help them by developing an atmosphere that is "engaging and task oriented."... they are always ready to create!
Although I am not currently in the classroom, there were three things that when I taught 5th and 6th grade Math that I feel as though I did well and led to a high- level engaged classroom, those being: 1) Social Interaction 2) Many of my lessons allowed for the scholars to arrive at their own response or at least arrive at one response but was able to "get there" using different strategies, 3) All expectations established in my classroom were clearly explained and modeled.
One thing if I were to enter the classroom again that I would like to incorporate more of and improve upon is giving the scholars more choice. My classroom was very much set up through procedures and routines and I would like to be able to give the scholars more say in my classroom.
Abby, I agree with you! I learned the hard way that I needed to establish clear and meaningful expectations. I just finished my third year teaching kindergarten and looking back on this past year, I wish I would have allowed more choice in my classroom rather than being set on the procedures and routines.
Kay Clabaugh Timothy L. Johnson Academy-TLJA Fort Wayne, IN
As the school Librarian I had opportunity to work with scholars from K-5. After reading a story/book to the class scholars returned to their seats to peruse their book selections. Scholars would share their selections with friends (showing and talking about the story (4). In grades K-2 they would find words they could read and write them on a sheet. I would walk around the room and they could read their "found" words to me. Then they could draw a picture of the story or read it (6). In this, scholars were making their own choice of book and what they did with it (6), sharing with peers (4), showing what they know, They felt safe in their environment to make their own choices and share ideas (5). They know what the expectations are from procedures of Library (2). I would like to be able to choose more exciting books for the older students. I want to broaden their knowledge and experiences to open their worlds to expand their horizons. I'd like to show them the world. I want to show them what's available and help them to grow through books (8).
As an administer, I will address the task by referring to 3 characteristics I always tried to focus on, and 1 at which I wish I would have done better.
A. As an English teacher, I had all kinds of opportunities to set up assignments/projects that were creative and engaging, and by the end of my time in the classroom, I spent most of my time trying to guide my students to understanding, as opposed to being the source of knowledge. I really focused on the following 3 characteristics: 1. Sense of audience - English is all about communication. Can you figure out a way to convey your meaning effectively (writing/speaking), and can you figure out what someone else is trying to convey to you (reading/listening)? This was always the basis for "audience in my classroom. Students rarely wrote to the teacher. I always tried to create situations that were important and relevant to them, even if they didn't know it yet. 2. Social interaction - once I realized how powerful this aspect was, my class was usually set up in groups, and after a quick introduction of the assignment, which usually included a sample of a previous successful finished product, the students were released to figure it out, with my assistance, encouragement, and supervision. 3. Choice - this characteristic was an epiphany that lead to students who were much more engaged. Just by giving the students a menu of products to chose from, their ownership in the work increased dramatically.
The area I wish I would have done better at was the concept of emotional safety. I wish I would have done a better job of using mistakes as a jumping off point to more understanding. I would always talk about how the best discoveries were preceded by trail and error as the discoverer honed in on the best possible solution, but due to time constraints, I usually just focused on the destination instead of the journey.
I do try my best to allow the students to personalize their task as much as possible. One page notes for example. They take notes on what we are learning with pictures, short reminders and so on. They can personalize the page and I only require certain main ideas to be there. I also try to remind them about who this task if for. Not just me or for the test. It's for them or for some other kid like them. In a normal year, group projects or sharing ideas among the class is always encouraged. Sharing often gives them ideas for their own work when they are stuck. I want work on making the expectations more clear and to give them more choice also. I believe when they have a choice, the project becomes more personal and has more meaning for them to do their best.
Three characteristics of high-level engagement that I see in my classroom are: 1) Clear and modeled expectations 2) A culture of emotional safety 3) New and novel tasks
One area that I would like to work on for the upcoming school year would be student choice, or the ability to personalize their responses more.
The three areas of high level engagement that I feel are strengths for me are number 1,2 and 4. As a teacher, I feel it is very important that you have clear and modeled expectations. If you are not showing your students what they are supposed to do it can lead to them not completing the assignment. Number one is also so important. If students are not given the opportunity to add their own strengths or thoughts to assignments then they are not willing to complete it. Which is also true for number 4. I enjoyed listening to the students conversations when they would complete group work. Many students would learn from each other and sometimes they would show each other how to complete skills in different ways. I am going to be changing grade levels for the upcoming school year. I am looking forward to trying these skills with 3rd grade. I have seen them work with Kindergarten so it should be great for 3rd. I would like to try number 7 is it authentic activity.
Taylor Pritchard PLA 103 I am going into my first year teaching so I love to read all of these characteristics of a highly engaged classroom as well as the things that haven't worked for others. I am going to include the top 3 things I want for my own classroom. 1) Student's working in pods, when students can work together to solve a problem I feel that it not only motivates them to continue working through the challenges but also is a factor in their retention 2) Using movement when teaching, not only do students love to get up and move around but they also can form connections differently when they are using their whole body to do do 3) Choice! I would like for my students to at least get one choice activity a day. While student teaching the students got a weekly menu and they could choose what activity they did on a daily basis as long as they did every activity by the end of the week and it kept the students engaged while letting them make the independent choice!
I have used weekly menus in the past for Spelling homework. It was very successful. Some activities took longer than others. Since scholars got to choose which activity to do, they could plan to do the shorter activities on the days that they had practice, church, or extra chores.
The three characteristics that I do well in my classroom are modeling expectations, encouraging social interaction, and creating a culture of emotional safety. 1. Modeling Expectations- I have learned that is is imperative to start the school year off with setting clear and meaningful expectations. I can not expect a brand new kindergartner to come to school and know exactly what to do and how it should be done in the classroom. I model behaviors, procedures, how to use materials in the classroom. If it is not done properly, we keep working on it! Modeling allows students to hear and visually see what is expected of them. 2) Social Interaction- Social interaction is a huge part in child development. Every morning, we start our morning circle off with greeting our classmates (encouraging eye contact and using that friends name) and a share. Students are encouraged to wait their turn and to be good listeners to their speaker. Social interaction improves young scholars vocabulary and reasoning skills when pressed with a conflict. I encourage students to turn and talk with their neighbors. We use I feel statements to encourage students to think about what they are feeling and what made them feel that way. 3) A culture of Emotional Safety-s Social interactions helps with students to be able to identify emotions and what made them feel that way. Due to the social interaction in the classroom and the strong classroom community, most scholars feel that they are free to express their emotions and take risk. The scholars in my classroom know that it is okay to make mistakes sometimes... they often see me making mistakes through out they day! My mistakes shows them how to handle the mistake and to fix it (or ask for help). We celebrate the small wins with student success and we encourage and help our friends when they need it!
A characteristic that I will improve upon is making task new and novel. The reading curriculum that we use often circles around. How can I made an already learned concept new and interesting. How can I find a new way to teach this?
Megan Denton, Media Specialist, PLA @ 48, Indianapolis
One characteristic that can be found in my classroom is scholars making connections to text and media with their own life experiences. We read a graphic novel called "When Stars Are Scattered" by Victoria Jamieson and Omar Mohamed. In the pre-reading activity, scholars were asked if they agreed with or disagreed with different statements. One of the statements was "I have nothing in common with refugees." A majority of scholars agreed prior to reading the story. When asked again in the post-reading activity, a majority of scholars disagreed and could provide specific connections to the refugees in the story.
Another characteristic in my classroom is having clear and modeled expectations. This year was especially challenging with maintaining our expectations in the Media Center. Not only did we start the school year virtually due to the pandemic, but this is also my first year in the Media Specialist role. With these things in mind, we reviewed expectations prior to each thing we did for class (i.e. entering the room, listening actively, looking for and checking out books).
A third characteristic found in my classroom is providing my scholars with new and novel tasks to interact with and interpret a variety of texts. For International Dot Day, we were still doing virtual learning. Scholars were able to create their own dot using whatever medium they had at their disposal. Some used crayons, while others used paint. One scholar looked for different dot images online. Their dot could be big, small, many, or few, but the most important part was what they made their mark on the world.
One characteristic that I would like to work on improving in my classroom is social interaction. This year, we did a lot of whole group discussions of our texts, but I hope to do more partner talks (think-pair-share) that I have done in the past. With our proximity restraints, I felt a little limited, but safety always comes first.
I agree this year was more about safety and therefore harder to implement social interaction. The students like to sit close to each other and talk and help one another. This year it was more group and talking across the room. I hope it will be better for the upcoming year. Sohn'a Duff PLA@103
The three characteristics of high level engagement in my classroom are giving students choice, encouraging social interaction, and creating a culture of emotional safety. I think it's important to give students a choice in order to keep learning fun and engaging for the different learning styles in your classroom. I try to incorporate a choice board into my centers, although it was very different this year due to the circumstances. I also try to encourage social interaction as much as possible, especially in first grade. It's so important to share ideas and create together! We really worked on not interrupting each other and being good listeners this year. This goes along with the last one of emotional safety. By focusing on positive communication skills, we were able to build a safe environment where it was comfortable to share. One thing that I would like to work on is clear and modeled expectations. I've always taught 3rd and 4th, but this was my first year in first grade. I absolutely love it, but I see that I need to change how I have given and modeled expectations in the past.
The three characteristics of high level engagement in my class room are: 1) Clear and model expectations: To begin the year I spend a lot of time setting the tone for my classroom. If my scholars want to sit on or under their desk, I don't care. If they need to pace in the back of the room, I don't care. They understand that this is earned and that if they are more comfortable there then by all means sit or pace there as long as they meet my expectations. 2) Social interaction: One of my favorite things to do is have my scholars work in groups. They always think that I am "busy" doing some sort of paperwork or other task When my crayon light is on, they cannot come to me for help. Little do they know, they always seem to workout the task at hand, and I love to listen to their conversations. 3) Social emotional: Being dyslexic myself it is really easy and quite often that my scholars see me make mistakes. I enjoy seeing them notice something that I have spelled wrong. They get a huge sense of accomplishment when they get to help me.
One thing I would like to work on in my classroom is: Scholar's choice. I tend to be a control freak.
Matt Rimer, Principal at PLA 103 Chapter 1 - Cognitive Engagement and the Thinking Based Classroom: The information provided in this chapter was familiar to me and should be to our classroom teachers because one of our main focus areas during staff meeting and PLC's was Rigor. The scholars should be doing the "work" in the classroom. A quote I shared with the staff: "At the end of the day, teachers should not be the one's worn out." I was glad to see in the chapter ways in which teachers can reflect on their own classrooms by looking at characteristics of Cognitive Classrooms.
Three characteristics of high level engagement in my classroom are: 1.) Clear and model expectations- I make sure that I model my expectations with the students at the start of the year. I did not do this last year because of us being virtual, but in my previous years I made sure that I collaborated with my students about their expectations and my expectations in my classroom. Then we signed it like it was a contract. 2.) Social Interaction: Since I teach Science and Social Studies, I think it is very beneficial for the students to be working with one another. Whether this is on a Science lab or they are having a discussion about why ot how a war started. I would rather them lead the discussion and I watch as a facilitator. 3.) Social Emotional- My students know that I am there for them if they ever need to talk. I let them know from day one that we are a family. Families don't always get along but they stick together. I also let them know that it is ok to make mistakes as long as we learn and grow from those mistakes. I do share with my students the mistakes I have made. What I learned from that experience and how did I grow and moved forward from it. One thing that I would like to work on is students choice. Jennifer Janusaitis- TBLA
As a fifth grade teacher who transitioned from a university setting to a traditional classroon, I am very familiar with teaching critical thinking to students. However adding cognitive engagement as a skill in my classroom excites me.
Here are three concepts that I believe already exist in my teaching environment:
There are clear and modeled expectations in every assignment including station activities. I believe clear and modeled expectations assist students as they begin the process of deciding how to tackle a task.
There is also a culture of emotional safety in the classroon. Part of my teachsing philosopy is to create a classroom where everyone is valued and is free to speak their own truths whether I agree with the view or not.
Students are given the opportunity to choose within the activity. This is true in my classroom espcially within stations where students have two or three days to work on a number of activities within their learning environment.
My goal is to allow for more student personalization in his/her responses. This will allow students more opportunities to bring their life experiences into the activitity and make it their own.
Dr. Deborah Godwin-Starks, Teacher Timothy L. Johnson Academy Fort Wayne, Indiana
The three characteristics of a high-level engaged classroom evident in my classroom include:
Clear and modeled expectations-At the beginning of every school year we spend time practicing classroom and school expectations. Modeling expectations carries throughout the year with each assignment and station activity. Clear and modeled expectations were so very important this past year as we worked together virtually.
Emotional safety-Practicing kindness is at the top of my list when it comes to classroom expectations. It is with this that I create a culture of emotional safety. Mistakes are welcome and I make it a point to share my mistakes.
Social Interaction-I teach ELA and love to make time for my students to engage with one another over the text we are reading. This allows for different points of view to be voiced and allows students to see that there is more than one way to view things.
My goal for the upcoming school year is to allow for more student choice. I tend to be a control freak, so this is something I really want to work on! I’d also love to integrate new and novel tasks to increase engagement among my 4th graders.
Nicole Amodei, 4th grade ELA Thea Bowman Leadership Academy Gary, Indiana
I am the same way with being in control all the time. This is personally one of my goals for this upcoming school year to give them more student choice. I bet it will help with classroom management.
Three characteristics that are currently present/ evident in my practice regularly are; 1. Building a sense of pride in the work scholars produce. This help with build confidence that will engage scholars in learning. It will also help them take pride in the quality of the work they produce. They will become proud of accomplishments and invested in their own learning outcomes. 2. Patience- Allowing scholars to have wait/ thinking time to develop or answer questions, process/ take- in information and to explore learning in a way that will help them connect or make sense of whats being taught. 3. Peer-to-peer learning. Learning with others in a group setting. Scholars often times learn best from their peers. This is also a great way to promote positive peer engagement. For second language learners it is a great way to expose them to vocabulary and vocabulary usage. One characteristic I would like to work on implementing this year is incorporating high-leveled, open-ended questions. This will push scholars to think more critically, and problem solving abilities.
Three characteristics that are currently present/ evident in my practice regularly are;
1. I feel that my scholars have a clear and modeled expectations. I teach 1st grade so I tend to model and have scholars repeat expectation so they are aware of the expectations. If the expectations are not being met, we stop and discuss the situation and how and what needs to change. 2. There is social interaction among the scholars in my classroom. I enjoy having them communicate and work together. They learn from each other and it allows them to see each others point of view. 3. I feel that my classroom has a sense of emotional safety. I want my scholars to feel safe to learn and communicate without feeling bad about themselves. The safer and comfortable they feel and more they will open up to learning.
The characteristic that I would like to work on is implementing authentic activities. With teaching the younger scholars I teach skills that have repetiton such as with phonics and math facts so finding authentic activities is difficult at times.
Task#1 -Three characteristics of a high level engaged classroom evident in my classroom:
1) Social interactions 2) Emotional Safety 3) Authentic Activities
I want to work on activities / learning experiences that are CLEAR and MODELED. I set goals for lessons but to really define and provide modeling of the expectations to allow for scholar success toward mastery of learning. What will the end result “look like and sound like”. My goal is to make this clear by modeling more precisely.
As a Teaching assistant I implement critical thinking and cognitive thinking. In my grade levels I embrace what the teacher is teaching and I get into small groups, ask open ended questions, and provide skills in various context to ensure students apply the skill in different situations. I gather data through all senses and work where the student need help, depending on the level that they need. This allows them to think interdependently while asking open end questions. I make sure that the students are developing understanding to promote deep understand of the material. Consistency is a major key after a different kind of year that we have had. Knowing each student and their abilities to perform tacks is something that needs to keep happening.
Three characteristics of a high-level engaged classroom that are evident in my practices include:
1. Clear and modeled expectations: I teach 3rd grade and the focus shifts from learning to read in 2nd to reading to learn in 3rd. This makes 3rd a critical year for scholars. They tend to be used to having much more support in the lower grades and in 3rd we shift to trying to get them to be more independent. This makes having clear and modeled expectations something that is absolutely necessary! We start our year off with repeated practice of all of our expectations and routines. We are constantly modeling what we want them to do throughout the year so that, hopefully, they are prepared to be independent thinkers and learners by the end. 2. Social Interaction- I was that shy, quiet child growing up but would thrive when allowed to work with others so I strive to allow that as much as possible in my classroom. Turn and talks, jigsaws, group projects, etc. Anytime they can discuss their thoughts with others allows them to better process the information and create new learning. 3. Social emotional safety- Scholars need to know that it is okay to make mistakes, it's one of the best ways to learn. I've found that admitting my own mistakes to scholars and pointing out that, even as an adult, I don't know everything, helps them understand that it's okay. If you are "real" with the students they will be more open.
My ultimate goal is to allow scholars more choice in their responses to tasks. However, I really think that they tasks need to be authentic, new, novel for students to really be engaged with them. If they are completing the same types of tasks over and over each grade level, by 3rd grade they are bored with them. If they do not relate to the scholars own lives they do not see any real value in them. I think my focus this next year will be this before adding in the characteristic of choice.
Chapter 1 Hello! One of the three high level characteristics that I use in my classroom setting includes allowing students to personalize their response. I like when students are able to tell me about how they have used some of the things we have used in class. I like when they add personal information to their assignments because they are more engaged in the work when they can add their own information. I also allow students to interact with each other. This allows the students to not only learn from each other but also to get to know each other better. I think this helps make the class more like a family. I also try to make the classroom feel emotionally safe. I want the students to feel safe and know that if they make a mistake it is ok. Most mistakes in my class can be fixed and so it is really ok. I also try to teach and model to the students that we should be more positive when others make mistakes because we all do, including myself. I would like to work on making sure lessons are new and novel. I try to build on previous lessons and therefore sometimes they are not always new. Sohn'a Duff Technology - PLA@103
One of the three characteristics I have in my classroom is having clear and modeled expectations. I learned the hard way at the beginning of my teaching career how essential this was in order to have a high level of engagement with my scholars. Another one is focusing on the learning process. I find myself telling my scholars (and myself) that we don’t have to be perfect, but we have to try our best. Growth can be hard, but the process and the end result makes it worth it. The last one is a learning centered classroom. I want to try to give my scholars as many ways as possible to learn a new skill.
One thing I want to implement this school year is more student discussion of their ideas and solutions. This year it was tricky with Covid, however I think this encourages scholars to become problem solvers along with working well with others.
One of the three characteristics I have in my classroom is having clear and modeled expectations. I learned the hard way at the beginning of my teaching career how essential this was in order to have a high level of engagement with my scholars. Another one is focusing on the learning process. I find myself telling my scholars (and myself) that we don’t have to be perfect, but we have to try our best. Growth can be hard, but the process and the end result makes it worth it. The last one is a learning centered classroom. I want to try to give my scholars as many ways as possible to learn a new skill.
One thing I want to implement this school year is more student discussion of their ideas and solutions. This year it was tricky with Covid, however I think this encourages scholars to become problem solvers along with working well with others.
The three characteristics I regularly and consistently implement in my kindergarten classroom are clear and modeled expectations, emotional safety and authentic activities.
From day one with kindergarteners, my goal is to teach, model and practice clear expectations for the classroom. If this is not done from the very beginning, there is no getting it back and there will be discipline issues. I am consistent and practice and model for the first several weeks - with "touch-ups" all throughout the year. I think this helps tremendously with a positive, work-oriented classroom environment. I work on emotional safety by letting the students know from the very beginning that it's okay to make mistakes, to try and to share their thinking, take a risk. Thats how we all all learn - even as adults - and Im sure to point out when I mess up and make a mistake, too, and how I can correct it. Even though I do allow plenty of sharing and social interaction during the school day, that is also the one characteristic that I could implement even more (more "turn and talks") and have a higher threshold for when the socializing gets a little noisy!
I too teacher kindergarten and I agree that with Kindergarten its important to set the expectations. You must make sure that you model what that expectation looks like, since they don't have the prior knowledge or understanding.
The three characteristics of a high-level engaged classroom that are evident in my classroom practices regularly: Once the students have practiced a skill the final activity/project allows the students to personalize their responses. The modeled expectations are clear and modeled, with professional, student, and teacher made examples shown and available for the students to investigate. The sense of audience above the teacher and test is when the students participate in positive critiquing discussions, using paper and pencil positive feedback sheets, show and tell about their completed projects in person and online. One characteristic I would like to work on implementing more in my classroom: Encourage more directed & purposeful content led social interaction discussions about the project and problem solving to help fellow students when they are having difficulty with their projects. -Janine Shafer PLA@103
Frederick E. Pittman Higher Institute for Arts and Technology 4th/5th Math and Science Instructor
The three characteristics I regularly and consistently implement in my classroom are clear and modeled expectations, emotional safety and authentic activities.
The first 21 days of school are extremely important to establish rules, routines, and expectations so that students know what is expected from them from the time they come into your classroom until the time they leave. Consistency and practice are the only way to keep things running smoothly and maximize learning opportunities. making sure that you establish relationships and repour with my scholars is also key to better classroom management and academic performance. Making sure that the classroom is a safe place to engage, explore, and make mistakes is an utmost importance.
The one area that I am going to try to make definite improvement in is showing my students how to engage in conversations and arguments that are respectful in nature through both verbal and written communication. Modeling and multiple opportunities to engage in these exercises will be the key to my success.
This first chapter was very meaty on high level engagement. There was a lot of information to self reflect on as a teacher and for my students. Ive always felt that critical thinking is so essential in math, but like any skill it requires practice. There are many students that learn the skill, but some develop the skill later, and I may not see that development until next year when another teacher is discussing how much the student has grown academically. This is one area I would like to improve on, but r the idea of not working harder than the students is something I really want to accomplish. I feel like everyday I am putting on a performance and at the end of the day I'm exhausted. I feel like the scholars have many high interest, quick feedback, and get it right quick gadgets, and technology that I have to put on that high energy (Prince, Michael Jackson, or Beyonce) performance to keep their interest and engagement. I know a lot starts with class culture and expectations, so I need to be the agent for change so I'm not working harder. Focusing on the five questions in my lessons will enhance my instruction as well as my student's learning, which is what teaching is all about. I feel that the three characteristics you would find in my classroom is having a safe and cultured classroom where students feel they can take risks and not fear being laughed at or judged. Also, there would be meaningful modeling. I enjoy a classroom with a lot of collaborative work, however this past year was so different.
Three strategies that I have successfully implemented in my first grade classroom are clear and modeled expectations, a culture of emotional safety, and authentic activities. These can be observed through my modeled exemplars, shared rubrics, do-it-agains for routines, community huddle to debrief any cultural problems, SEL strategies practice, and tailored assignments to be realistic and reflect my specific group of students. You will not hear a “Ms Bell packed 72 sunglasses for her Hawaii vacation...” story problem but you will hear squeals of glee as my students hear their name and favorite video game or activity come up in the story problem.
I am excited to offer a lot more choice when it comes to presenting their learning. i am teaching 6th grade next year, so I will be looking for many more opportunities for students to hypothesize, test their hypothesis and create/design how they will present what they have learned. As 6th graders inherently have more practice working independently, I feel like i can really help guide them to create amazing work. I will just need to be very cognizant on how much “help” I provide. That level of support looks very different in a first grade classroom than in a 6th grade classroom.
The three strategies I have implemented in my classroom are clear and modeled expectations, a culture of emotional safety, and authentic activities. I believe these strategies could be observed in my classroom during any lesson. At the beginning of the year I spend a lot of time modeling and practicing the expectations in our classroom. We work on SEL social stories which allows students to discuss and share how we handle different situations. These social stories allow the students to talk about their emotions and feelings while they are not currently feeling them. For example, instead of starting a lesson on name calling after it has already happened, we open the conversation up to share how that would make us feel and if that has ever happened to us. This can happen without any students feeling like they are being called out and more likely to share honestly. I feel it is important to create authentic activities that engage students by making connections and relating to their lives.
One strategy I would like to implement better in my classroom next year is offering more choice for how students can answer or show their work. With younger students it can be difficult to find different ways for them to show their learning. I am going to push my comfort zone and try to offer choices on how they can show their learning, especially during center time.
Task#1 -Three characteristics of a high level engaged classroom evident in my classroom
Modeling - I teach kindergarten and ensuring that they have a clear understanding of what is expected and how it looks is important. Once you set the expectation and procedures scholars will follow and be on task.
Emotional Safety - I work really hard to create environment that all scholars feel safe able to express there feelings. I've themed my room the Rainbow Room where Amazing things happens. I make sure that all scholars feel welcome and comfortable in "our" space.
A learning environment where they feel free to ask questions, concerns or comments.
The want to learn and work on implementing allowing the scholars to choose activities and ways that they can show there work.
Three characteristics of a high level engaged classroom evident in my classroom are clear and modeled expectations, a culture of emotional safety, and authentic activities. * Providing scholars with a clear understanding of what is expected. Be specific of what you want the scholars to know and be able to do. In my classroom, I like to give the scholars a opportunity to ask questions to communicate and clarify the understanding of the task at hand. This typically allows the scholars to create excitement and ideas. * I work very hard to establish a classroom that encourages an emotional safe environment. I encourage scholars to ask questions and to engage without fear. Every scholar needs to feel valued, listened to, respected and part of the group. I encourage the scholars that we are a team and we work hard for ourselves to be the best, but we also work hard as a whole with our classmates. * One thing I want to work on this year is giving more ownership to the scholars. Let them make personal goals to feel personally invested in accomplishing that goal and by tracking their progress.
The three strategies that I have successfully implemented in my classroom are: 1. Clear and modeled expectations - as a kindergarten teacher I have to be very precise in my language when presenting my expectations to scholars. I model EVERYTHING that I am expecting my scholars to do.
2. Social interaction - Scholars are frequently working in partners, teams, small groups etc. in class. I give students the opportunity to think, pair, share on a regular basis in whole group lessons. We are always learning from one another and have the opportunity to share our ideas.
3. Emotional Safety- I start each day in my classroom with a community circle. We start out by answering easy and fun questions and as we grow comfortable with one another the real work begins. We talk about feelings, emotions, events that have happened in our classroom and how we could have handled it better. We talk about things that could happen in our classroom and what we could/should do to handle those situations. As the year goes on our since of community and family grows.
One strategy I would like to to better implement in my classroom for next year is allowing for more student choice. I am excited to research and find different ways to allow for more choice especially with my little learners.
The three features in my classroom are, personalized responses, modeled expectations and social interactions. The area to develop more would be to (6) Choose within an activity. lolibo JRPLA
1) Collaborative learning - Students in my class engage with each other during small groups and during think pair and shares. I plan to have some struggling students with students who show mastery to exchange knowledge. 2) Routines and Expectations - At the beginning of year we talk about the times and different parts of class. I use visual and auditory cues to let them know when we are switching between small group and whole group. By the end of the year they were so on routine they would remind me when small groups were supposed to start. 3) Emotional learning - During circle time or morning groups, we name and discuss emotions. We discuss the differences between feelings and actions. We discuss safe actions and unsafe actions for when we are angry, sad, or upset.
One area I see for improvement is using authentic and open ended activities. We do daily journals during centers, but there are more opportunities in reading and math for authentic learning.
The following 3 high learning characteristics have been incorporated in the media center:
Emotional safety
Routines and expectation - Even though lessons vary on a weekly basis, our scholars always know what is expected within the library. Even though there are set library practices, scholars know the routine when visiting the library. I do believe that having a routine, even in a specials class that is once (sometimes twice) per week, this leads to scholars having comfort in know what to expect from their teacher and each other.
Emotional safety: As stated previously, I do believe that scholars know the library is a safe place for emotional safety. The routines established and the expectations within the library should contribute to a sense of safety. Scholars are aware that everyone learns when answering questions, that participation is important and that it is not "funny" if an answer is "wrong". Many times the discussions within media will be discussions about a scholar's experience or emotional connections to a certain topic, as we read a variety of stories as a group.
Collaborative learning: I have tried to incorporate activities after each lesson, where scholars may collaborate and work as a team. Many times it may just be a discussion about a short story, but this enables scholars to share their perspectives and contribute to a group activity.
The goal for next year is to offer more choice in activities, so that scholars may have an authentic experience during media. So, the goal while reading this book is to brainstorm and learn a variety of techniques that can be a tool for developing activities that give scholars a variety of choices and unique experiences.
Angela Posey PLA@ 103 Chapter 1- I have three strategies that I have consistently used in the classroo to develop critical thinking and high level student engagement. 1. Students work in groups to solve problem and respond to questions. They have dialogue and they collaborate. The discussions and the dialogue are powerful. 2. I have always stressed that a mistake is an opportunity to learn. Students, therefore feel safe to share their ideas. This promotes and encourages students to express themselves. This environment promotes student engagement because there is no fear of a mistake. 3. Modeling to me is a must in a classroom. Students are given multiple experiences with modeling in my classroom. One of my goals is to investigate and find more ways to make a task novel. When I present instruction in a new novel way, I can see the level of engagement increases.
As a new teacher, I have not had the opportunity to engage in high level studnet engagement. Throughout chapter one, I have learned that I need to work on modeling more clearly and slowing down my own teaching to help my students understand the material better. I learned during long-term subbing, that I often rushed to make sure we got everything accomplished rather than focusing on enjoying the learning process with my kids. I also want to learn more about giving my students choices.
I feel you. The focus of some schools is to simply get through the curriculum so the students are ready for the test. It doesn't always lead to real learning. In watching my co-teacher teach, I realized the importance of slowing down for my students to gain mastery. This is a life long lesson.
As a coach, I encourage teachers to use models of answers so students can see the difference between a rote answer and higher level answer. We have also employed several new, novel ways of demonstrating mastery such as using tech like whiteboard.fi and Nearpod. COVID has made it harder to interact with each other, but I know teachers are eager to have students back in the class! A goal for next year is to help teachers create "choice of activity" for scholars.
Melissa Cox- Choir @JacquetMS High Levels of Student Engagement in the Choral Classroom 1. sense of community and team work. The have to feel safe to make music together. 2. modeling clearly is at the core of what fine arts does. I model the students model for eachother. We watch or listen to other choirs. Modeling is one of the greatest classroom tools. 3. audience outside of the teacher and test- ALWAYS, that's way we do music to perform for community, family, friends, etc.
I would like to incorporate more student choices in the classroom.
During the first two weeks of school I focus on creating clear expectations. I model and we practice and practice and practice. I work to create specific words for scholars to know how to act during a specific activity. I implemented scholars giving feedback when they were not able to follow expectations so we could work to overcome road blocks.
During this time I am also very specific on getting to know the scholars and their 'quirks' so I can understand a behavior, an answer or even a non-answer in reaction to something we are doing. This allows me to 'excuse' some things yet hold them accountable for others in a way I know they will react without closing up.
Our learning groups are given various check lists they must complete during the week. This allows them to choose which activity they prefer to work at a given time. It is up to them to complete all the work.
The one thing I would like to work on is creating more new task to create more engagement. In other words they may like doing "A" all the time but let's get them to like "B" as well by tweaking and creating it into an activity they enjoy learning.
I'm Sheryll Purdy at Trix Academy In the age of Covid having a "thinking" classroom challenge. I have kept the focus on a learning centered classroom where my scholars have time to process and apply the concepts being taught. One of my favorite questions is, 'How else could you have worked this out?'. 'What is another way?' is also a favorite question I ask my scholars a lot. Giving my scholars time to process other ways to think and solve problems is an important skill to give my scholars. I encourage problem solving across all areas including their personal lives and congratulate them when they show good problem solving skills.
I have taught kindergarten for the last three years and I have loved being able think about the high levels of engagement in my classroom over the years and what I would like to implement. Three high levels of engagement that were in my classroom where:
1. learning with groups in a group setting- I have done centers for ELA and math in my classroom and it has been a great way for students to collaborate with one another.
2. clear and model expectations- as a kindergarten it was important to me to model and have clear expectations for every activity in our classroom. It helped the students feel confident in being able to complete the activity.
3. Social interaction- It was also important to me in my kindergarten classroom to have as much social interaction possible to help students in their social skills. It was so amazing to see the shy and timid students come out their shell during morning meeting/center/play time.
One characteristic I want to implement this year in my role as a reading interventionist is implementing authentic activities that will engage the students and make them excited to learn and feel confident in their ability to read.
The three characteristics of a high-level engaged classroom evident in my classroom practices are: Students engaged in the learning process. Students are actively working in groups and on task. Teachers act more like coaches and support independent-collaborative learning. Teachers drop in and listen to students’ discussions and make suggestions. Visual organizers are present, open-ended discussion questions, authentic projects, and tasks, are evident during instruction This year I would like to see more open-ended discussions and visuals being displayed that the students collaborated on using group activities.
Traits I will be looking for in my scholars as evidence that they are working and thinking at higher levels are: * expressing ideas other students don't think of * choosing their own way of demonstrating their understanding * asking questions that may seem off-task or silly * expressing their enjoyment about open-ended assignments * preferring to talk about ideas rather than facts * preferring to try new ways of approaching a problem rather than accepted ways
I will be challenging myself and my scholars to push beyond what is easy or comfortable and encouraging more creativity and thinking on a daily basis. I would like for this to become the norm in my classroom.
The three characteristics of a high-level engaged classroom evident in my classroom practice are as follows: 1. Collaboration-sharing information and where to find more info, discussing date/findings and coming to conclusions thru discussion and debate. 2. Personalized Responses-I love when students are able to choose options when demonstrating knowledge. This passed school year was a great time to allow student choice for product and demonstration of knowledge. 3. Authentic activities-Students are naturally interested in topics that relate to real life. During the passed year, we spent a lot of time discussing the demonstrations and daily wrongs that the students witnessed or related could relate to in their daily life.
I want to spend more time diving deeper into topics that are relevant and not feel the pressure to drive thru the curriculum. I also want to look for more ways to combine curriculum across subjects to make learning more congruent.
The three characteristics of a highly engaged classroom that I feel you can currently witness in my classroom include:
1. Clear Modeled Expectations - My personal goal is to always know and communicate what I want from my students--from behavior to academics. This has the added benefit of being proactive and positive!
2. Culture of Emotional Safety - Building a classroom community is high my classroom values. My hope is that my students always know that mistakes are going to happen during the learning process!
3. New and Novel - This past year we had weekly Fun Fridays. This was typically a culminating activity, project, or experiment based on what we were learning through out the week. The students were engaged, excited about learning, and eager to see what Fridays would look like!
The one area I want to improve upon is Social Interaction. It would be easy to say this was mostly due to COVID Restrictions, but candidly it is something I have not dived very deeply in to in the past. I see a lot of potential to expand on this moving forward, from peanut butter and jelly partners, to group collaboration with expected outcomes--anything to dig deeper than simply talk with your shoulder partner.
The three I identify that ensure high-level cognitive engagement in my classroom are:
1. Social Interaction- The moment you walk in my room you see students interacting with each other about the learning. I highly encourage social interaction because I know how important it is. The scholars learn from each other. I love seeing the students interacting and saying I didn't even think of that way to solve this problem, then they know more than one way of solving the problem.
2. Culture of Emotional Safety- My classroom is a safety net for all diverse learners. We always talk about how do you learn if you don't make mistakes and learn from them. I am always positive when discussing problems together to encourage self-esteem. I show them that teachers make mistakes as well and when I show I relate to them and tell my story in grade school that really helps build my classroom community.
3. Clear Modeled Expectations- I am always modeling what I expect from my scholars. This includes academics and behavior. When I do model expectations this gives my students accountability to academics and behavior which enforces a strong classroom community.
The one area I want to improve on this upcoming year is being New and Novel. I want to keep them guessing what each week will bring and keep them engaged to do the work and improve behavior. I want to include more fun this school year, not exactly sure what that means yet, but I definitely want to reward scholars for hard work.
I try to incorporate something from my background into our lessons frequently as well. Letting the kids know that we have things in common really helps initiate and build relationships throughout the year. When I'm explaining to the students how I tackled a project when I was in school, they know that I have been where they are at as well.
As an instructional coach and one that also ended the school year teaching 3rd grade for about a month I am keenly aware of the characteristics that I feel are my strengths and weaknesses in and out of the classroom.
3 Characteristics found in my classroom are: 1. Students personalize response 2. Modeling Expectations 3. Student Choice
I have found that all 3 of the above help me to hook scholar's into the activity and it is then imperative that I make sure it is an authentic activity to have the experience yield critical thinking and deep scholar engagement.
Taking over 3rd grade at the end of a very challenging year made it even more important to make sure that the activities are authentic and new. I think this making activities new and novel are a huge part of hooking and keep attention of scholars and teachers alike,. especially during those times of the year that teachers are feeling exhausted and drained. We often turn to our tried and true activities and forget to branch out and try something new.
The three characteristic that are already in my classroom are a culture of emotional safety, clear and modeled expectations, and social interaction using turn and talk partners and small group collaborations. The characteristics I would like to improve are choice and higher order questioning.
Three characteristics of a high-level engaged classroom that are evident in my classroom practices regularly are personalized responses, modeled expectations, and ability to choose.
Personalized responses - During bellwork and other class assignments, I incorporate questions to get to know the students better & so I can share those details about myself with them. In turn, this can create whole class, small group, or individual conversations with the students and myself depending on the current topic.
Modeled expectations - For each assignment we do, I model what the assignment is expected to look like in the Google suite app we're learning at the time. I only complete each step as we go, so students do not rush their work and try to do more than we have worked on together.
Ability to choose - Often students will be able to choose how they complete their assignment creatively and in what order they complete their required work. Once we have completed an initial few assignments in that particular application, students are able to choose their own topics to showcase their knowledge of the app.
One characteristic I would like to work on implementing more in my classroom this year is making sure my assignments connect with the students authentically. Last year I was able to do that with some cross-curricular connections, and while I think they went well, there is always room for improvement.
Amanda Rouse- Reading Advantage Interventionist PLA@103
ReplyDeleteThree characteristics of a high-level engaged classroom evident in my classroom practice are:
* Divergent ways of thinking and solving problems. I love to encourage scholars to arrive at the answer in ways that make the most sense to them.
* A learning culture where everyone is free to pose questions and share about their learning. Encouraging life-long learning instead of just learning something for a test.
* Clear and modeled expectations. Scholars thrive on routine and expectations. Making sure my scholars know what is expected and the procedures makes for a more comfortable learning environment for all.
One characteristic I want to work on instilling in my scholars is a culture of emotional safety in our learning. So often, our scholars (and even we as adults) look at mistakes as negative or wrong. I want my scholars to understand that mistakes happen and we can use them to learn and be our best selves.
Yes... we all need to keep working on the culture of emotional safety in our classrooms... in my classroom I LOVE to hear the scholars remind each other, "... if you make a mistake that means you're learning!"
DeleteAs one of your "scholars", I am a teacher at 103, Amanda was one of my choaches, you always made me feel good when you would come in and do a choaching cylcle or just help me. Thank you! You did make me feel safe about making mistakes.
DeleteJenelle Miller PLA@103
I agree! I also want to keeping working on the culture of my classroom so that all students feel welcomed and safe at all times.
DeleteBrittany Connett PLA@93
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ReplyDeleteAs an instructional coach, I will speak to three characteristics of a high-level engaged classroom that are evident in some of my teachers' practices regularly + one characteristic that I would like to see implemented more this year.
ReplyDelete1. When any of our K-5 scholars are in the PBL (Project Based Learning) lab engaging in project work. This is a prime example of scholars doing the "heavy-lifting work called learning" in which they are creating, innovating, persisting at a task that requires thinking, and "responding with wonderment and awe."
2. Scholars posing questions to one another and the teacher refraining from jumping in, but rather, allowing their peers to respond.
3. Scholars eager to answer questions and problem solve, without fear of being wrong.
1. An increase in opportunities for productive struggle and additional wait time given as opposed to teachers quickly rescuing scholars through their thinking and reasoning processes.
As a pervious teacher and now a principal, I have observed some very engaging classrooms. I believe the three characterizes of a highly-engaged classroom are: Pride, Passion and enjoyment. If you walk into a classroom that is highly engaged, you can easily see the pride and passion of the scholars. Engaged Scholars will take pride in the quality of the work they produce. They’ll be proud of accomplishments and invested in their own learning outcomes. You will observe a classroom where scholars are eager to show off their work and participate to give answers. Passion in learning will look like genuine enthusiasm and joy for the subject or activity. Passion and Pride go hand and hand.
ReplyDeleteLearning is suppose to be informative and enjoyable. Engaged scholars will feel comfortable and relaxed in your classroom, and this will make it easier for them to open up and have fun. When scholars have fun, they will enjoy and retain whatever they’re learning.
One characteristic that I would like to work on with my staff is the enjoyment part of learning. I want to help coach my staff to understand that learning can and should be fun. Understanding that teaching is a serious concept however, realizing teaching and learning should be approached in a manner in which not only should the scholars be excited to be there, but so should they.
I truly look forward to learning some new strategies and techniques to make my lessons more engaging and fun for my 4th/5th grade scholars. I agree that there needs to be a balance between rigor and fun to make learning truly both challenging and engaging.
DeleteFred Pittman H.I.A.T.
I too believe that when you have passion the enjoyment will show. You will be able to get your scholars to "pay in" and be engaged. I too agree that there needs to be a better balance of rigor and fun to make the learning environment engaging.
DeleteAbbigail Brantch, Music Education at JRPLA
ReplyDeleteMusic classes were a bit limited this last year as many of our normal activities were not covid safe (singing and playing wind instruments). I will list three characteristics that I hope came through in my teaching this last year.
1. A sense of audience beyond the test/classroom.
2. A culture of emotional safety.
Throughout the year, I did "birthday bios" on favorite performers or groups of scholars (based on a survey from the beginning of the school year). I tried to make it clear to scholars that this was just to learn more about other music groups and styles that may not be as familiar to us. I also did my best to encourage positive talk about the music and musicians, even if it was a person that not everyone in the class appreciated or enjoyed.
3. Social interaction.
Playing music as a group is naturally socially interactive. Whether we played a call-and-response/follow the leader song on drums or we were reading music and doing our best to play together, it required listening to everyone in the group.
Something I want to work on for next year is allowing for varied responses from scholars. As these scholars are in the early stages of learning music, it is difficult for them either have the desire or confidence to truly create anything musical on their own. I hope to be able to find ways to play as a group "correctly" but also allow for more self expression.
Our Fine Arts teacher, who taught Art and Music this year, used Chrome Music Lab for scholars to create their own music. Many scholars chose to use the site during their free time after they finished eating their lunch in the classroom.
DeleteI looked into that, but I was worried it would be too immature, or at least seen as too immature, for the scholars as they were high schools or a few late middle schoolers. I did have a scholar working with a Digital Audio Workstation during his individual lessons and at home, but individual lessons were very poorly attended while we were virtual so we had very limited time together to work on his project.
DeleteAs a previous teacher and now an Assistant Principal, the three characteristics that ensure high-level cognitive engagement that I see in some of my teacher's practices and that I would love to see in all of my teacher's practices are creating a culture of emotional safety in the classroom so that students become risk takers and stretch their learning to new heights. I've observed new and novel tasks that students want to dive into to figure it out. I've observed students interacting socially. Academic conversations with their peers are crucial to stretch their thinking and truly consider all possible perspectives of a subject matter.
ReplyDeleteOne characteristic that I would like to work on with my staff is allowing students opportunities to make choices within the activity. Teachers can assign the skill while allowing students to make choices about the direction the skill goes in. Learners buy into their learning when they are allowed to make choices. The quality of the work improves as well along with retention because they never forget when they take the reign.
Mindi Spychalski PLA@103
DeleteI feel it is very important for scholars to be able to choose their type of learning. As a visual learner, I have difficulty learning in certain ways and when I can choose my way to express the way I learn better really helps me make the life long connection. I want my scholars to feel the same way and make a lasting connection to learning.
Teresa Jones, 1st grade teacher at TLJA in Fort Wayne, IN
ReplyDeleteThe three characteristic that are already in my classroom are a culture of emotional safety, clear and modeled expectations, and personalized responses. The characteristic I would like to improve is having an audience beyond the teacher and the test. Every year I have grand ideas about having an audience beyond me. However, it has never moved past the idea stage. I am hoping to get some direction in this course as to how to put my ideas and more into the classroom.
Brooke Berk, Chapel Hill Academy in Fort Worth Texas
ReplyDeleteAs the Dean of Instruction a few of the strategies that I have seen being utilized on campus by some of our teachers are social interactions, culture of emotional safety, and clear/modeled expectations. I would like to help our teachers implement allowing opportunities for students to personalize their responses to an assigned activity/strategy/task/idea.
Student choice/personalization is something I have been learning a lot about in my PD this summer. I would welcome any suggestions you have for me in this area! :)-Sarah Williams Chapel Hill Academy
DeleteZach Brubaker - GVPLA - 5th Grade
ReplyDelete1. Social Interaction - In my classroom we talk a LOT. We share our ideas on a regular basis and dig deeper into the subject matter by trying to relate things to our own lives. I love to hear to my scholars discuss certain topics because they actually learn more from one another that way. My scholars have a lot more in common than they realize and that realization comes from social interaction.
2. I'd like to think that my classroom is a safe place for scholars to express their emotions in a safe and productive way. We all know that when you put 20+ scholars in a room you get quite the variety of personalities. I know my scholars can share anything with me and that it is safe, I can only hope that they sense that with their peers.
3. My expectations are very clear in my classroom. I model my expectations daily in my room on how to perform a task.
I teach all ELA at GVPLA for 5th Grade and it is a true challenge for me on some days. One thing I really want to work on this year is to come up with new, innovative, and engaging ideas to make the stories come to life for the scholars. I'll be the first to admit that my engagement levels within the text are very low on most days. My goal is to ramp up this year. I'm planning to tweak lessons plans and activities to make this a reality for the upcoming year. I'm also open to YOUR ideas!
Alec Mayer, AP, PLA93, Indianapolis
ReplyDeleteCritical thinking is so important for scholar engagement. That being said, it is important to teach facts and history, so the scholars have something to critically think about.
As an administrator, seeing scholars engaged in a lesson makes for the best lessons, and critical thinking gets that result. Finding ways to incorporate facts into critical thinking makes for an even greater lesson.
Finding a balance between the two styles of teaching is the hardest part. In this standardized testing world, scholars are more often tested on what they know and not what they think, and this often leads teachers to teach facts.
I look forward to learning ways to help teachers balance both for the benefit of all scholars.
Kaylee Briggs-PLA103
ReplyDeleteThree characteristics of high-level cognitive engagement that I use in the classroom are:
1. Clear and modeled expectations: I start the beginning of the year discussing expectations with my students and practicing what those expectations will look like in different scenarios. Then, I begin each lesson of a review of expectations for the activity.
2. Social interaction: students can learn so much from discussion and sharing ideas.
3. Personalized response: having open ended responses allows students to connect what we are learning to their own lives and makes the content more exciting for them to learn.
One characteristic I would like to implement more this year is finding ways to make activities more authentic.
I as well want to implement authentic activities in my instructions this year! I think this such a great way to get students in engaged and excited to learn!
DeleteAmylynn Faulstich PLA 48
ReplyDeleteI believe that critical thinking is apart of scholar engagement. This year was such an unusual year and I believe me students are in need of consistency. First, everything needs to be clear and modeled for the students. Students need to understand what is expected of them and it has to be reviewed many times. My students love to participate in everything so I think it is important to have personal responses where students can share their feelings and find the connection in what they are learning in school. Last, for students to be critical thinkers they need to be able to feel safe to take risks and not fear that they will not be ridiculed by their peers. This past year that has been challenging to have the students treat each other they way they should be treated so they can help each other learn. I would like to be able to create more of a classroom where students feel safe to express their thoughts and ideas and where students look for the ways to be kind and support one another.
Hi Amylynn,
DeleteI appreciate you bringing attention to the importance of creating opportunities for scholars to "share their feelings and find the connection in what they are learning in school." One of the worst feelings is telling scholars with their hands up, eager to share, that we need to move on to the next part of our day and to hold on to that thought for another time. When I was in a teaching role, I created a "share box" where scholars could write down (or draw a picture of) the thought they had or question they wanted to ask and drop it in, so that they could still be heard and it could still be addressed.
The 3 characteristics that ensure high-level cognitive engagement evident in my classroom are activities that allow for the student to personalize a response and bring their life experiences, student choice, and the introduction of new and novel tasks and concepts. As I reviewed the remaining characteristics ensuring the activity is authentic was the characteristic I identified as one I'd like to implement more in my classroom. I have seen the educational benefits of connecting the content to reality and students are significantly more engaged when it makes logical sense of where the content fits into the real world.
ReplyDeleteAmy Jo Miller-Chapel Hill Academy Fort Worth, Texas
ReplyDeleteAs a previous teacher and now an Assistant Principal, the three characteristics that ensure high-level cognitive engagement that I see in some of my teacher's practices and that I would love to see in all of my teacher's practices are creating a culture of emotional safety in the classroom so that students become risk takers and stretch their learning to new heights. I've observed new and novel tasks that students want to dive into to figure it out. I've observed students interacting socially. Academic conversations with their peers are crucial to stretch their thinking and truly consider all possible perspectives of a subject matter.
One characteristic that I would like to work on with my staff is allowing students opportunities to make choices within the activity. Teachers can assign the skill while allowing students to make choices about the direction the skill goes in. Learners buy into their learning when they are allowed to make choices. The quality of the work improves as well along with retention because they never forget when they take the reign.
The 3 Characteristics that I feel I use are: modeling expectations through the whole group lesson, social interaction by having students work with partners or small group to continue practicing new skills, choose activities I use choice boards for both math and reading seatwork during small group instruction. I would like to use more critical thinking skills by asking higher order questions. I have used a series of lessons about the brain and how students can train their brain to think critical. Because of e-learning and in-school I didn't get to teach it all or the way I wanted to present it to students this year.
ReplyDeleteThe 3 characteristics that I believe are evident in my classroom are 1) clear and modeled expectations, especially since I teach math, 2) encouraging social interaction during small group instruction, 3) and encouraging a culture of emotional safety when answering academic questions and when interacting in class. One characteristic I would like to work on implementing more this year is encouraging more student-centered responding and not feeling rushed while learning. There is always a sense of urgency and it hurts the scholars' ability to learn, especially those learners who learn at a slower pace.
ReplyDeleteAnna Christina Luna-Harbert
ReplyDeletePLA @ 103
As a Kindergarten teacher the three characteristics that I do well in my classroom are:
1. Clear and modeled expectations. I use repetition, dramatization, and modeling to teach the different procedures, work expectation, adequate participation, etc. This age group needs more practice than older scholars, but they also are very receptive of their K teacher.
2. Social interaction. I spend a lot of time modeling and correcting social interactions, so scholars can learn to be a classmate that supports their class. Students work in groups, pairs, and some become leaders when they achieve mastery quicker than others. The atmosphere is normally engaging and task oriented.
3. The ability to chose within an activity, I like to give different choices to the scholars, it gives them the illusion they are choosing the activity, but I really am giving them choices on what I want them to practice, reinforce, or relearn. I do this a lot in centers but I don't introduce this until after several weeks, because of the age of my scholars.
The characteristic I would like to work more on is new and novel, K is a grade that repetition is essential and sometimes I find it hard to make ABC practice new and novel, I will look into this for next year, and find other ways I have yet to use.
I LOVE having your scholars visit the art room! I can see how you help them by developing an atmosphere that is "engaging and task oriented."... they are always ready to create!
DeleteAbigail Gaddis
ReplyDeleteInstructional Specialist- OH
Although I am not currently in the classroom, there were three things that when I taught 5th and 6th grade Math that I feel as though I did well and led to a high- level engaged classroom, those being: 1) Social Interaction 2) Many of my lessons allowed for the scholars to arrive at their own response or at least arrive at one response but was able to "get there" using different strategies, 3) All expectations established in my classroom were clearly explained and modeled.
One thing if I were to enter the classroom again that I would like to incorporate more of and improve upon is giving the scholars more choice. My classroom was very much set up through procedures and routines and I would like to be able to give the scholars more say in my classroom.
Abby,
DeleteI agree with you! I learned the hard way that I needed to establish clear and meaningful expectations. I just finished my third year teaching kindergarten and looking back on this past year, I wish I would have allowed more choice in my classroom rather than being set on the procedures and routines.
Kay Clabaugh Timothy L. Johnson Academy-TLJA Fort Wayne, IN
ReplyDeleteAs the school Librarian I had opportunity to work with scholars from K-5. After reading a story/book to the class scholars returned to their seats to peruse their book selections. Scholars would share their selections with friends (showing and talking about the story (4). In grades K-2 they would find words they could read and write them on a sheet. I would walk around the room and they could read their "found" words to me. Then they could draw a picture of the story or read it (6). In this, scholars were making their own choice of book and what they did with it (6), sharing with peers (4), showing what they know, They felt safe in their environment to make their own choices and share ideas (5). They know what the expectations are from procedures of Library (2). I would like to be able to choose more exciting books for the older students. I want to broaden their knowledge and experiences to open their worlds to expand their horizons. I'd like to show them the world. I want to show them what's available and help them to grow through books (8).
As an administer, I will address the task by referring to 3 characteristics I always tried to focus on, and 1 at which I wish I would have done better.
ReplyDeleteA. As an English teacher, I had all kinds of opportunities to set up assignments/projects that were creative and engaging, and by the end of my time in the classroom, I spent most of my time trying to guide my students to understanding, as opposed to being the source of knowledge. I really focused on the following 3 characteristics:
1. Sense of audience - English is all about communication. Can you figure out a way to convey your meaning effectively (writing/speaking), and can you figure out what someone else is trying to convey to you (reading/listening)? This was always the basis for "audience in my classroom. Students rarely wrote to the teacher. I always tried to create situations that were important and relevant to them, even if they didn't know it yet.
2. Social interaction - once I realized how powerful this aspect was, my class was usually set up in groups, and after a quick introduction of the assignment, which usually included a sample of a previous successful finished product, the students were released to figure it out, with my assistance, encouragement, and supervision.
3. Choice - this characteristic was an epiphany that lead to students who were much more engaged. Just by giving the students a menu of products to chose from, their ownership in the work increased dramatically.
The area I wish I would have done better at was the concept of emotional safety. I wish I would have done a better job of using mistakes as a jumping off point to more understanding. I would always talk about how the best discoveries were preceded by trail and error as the discoverer honed in on the best possible solution, but due to time constraints, I usually just focused on the destination instead of the journey.
By the way, I'm an administrator, not an "administer". LOL
ReplyDeleteI do try my best to allow the students to personalize their task as much as possible. One page notes for example. They take notes on what we are learning with pictures, short reminders and so on. They can personalize the page and I only require certain main ideas to be there.
ReplyDeleteI also try to remind them about who this task if for. Not just me or for the test. It's for them or for some other kid like them.
In a normal year, group projects or sharing ideas among the class is always encouraged. Sharing often gives them ideas for their own work when they are stuck.
I want work on making the expectations more clear and to give them more choice also. I believe when they have a choice, the project becomes more personal and has more meaning for them to do their best.
Sarah Williams-Chapel Hill Academy
ReplyDeleteThree characteristics of high-level engagement that I see in my classroom are:
1) Clear and modeled expectations
2) A culture of emotional safety
3) New and novel tasks
One area that I would like to work on for the upcoming school year would be student choice, or the ability to personalize their responses more.
The three areas of high level engagement that I feel are strengths for me are number 1,2 and 4. As a teacher, I feel it is very important that you have clear and modeled expectations. If you are not showing your students what they are supposed to do it can lead to them not completing the assignment.
ReplyDeleteNumber one is also so important. If students are not given the opportunity to add their own strengths or thoughts to assignments then they are not willing to complete it. Which is also true for number 4. I enjoyed listening to the students conversations when they would complete group work. Many students would learn from each other and sometimes they would show each other how to complete skills in different ways.
I am going to be changing grade levels for the upcoming school year. I am looking forward to trying these skills with 3rd grade. I have seen them work with Kindergarten so it should be great for 3rd. I would like to try number 7 is it authentic activity.
Karen Prince PLA#93 3rd grade
Taylor Pritchard PLA 103
ReplyDeleteI am going into my first year teaching so I love to read all of these characteristics of a highly engaged classroom as well as the things that haven't worked for others. I am going to include the top 3 things I want for my own classroom.
1) Student's working in pods, when students can work together to solve a problem I feel that it not only motivates them to continue working through the challenges but also is a factor in their retention
2) Using movement when teaching, not only do students love to get up and move around but they also can form connections differently when they are using their whole body to do do
3) Choice! I would like for my students to at least get one choice activity a day. While student teaching the students got a weekly menu and they could choose what activity they did on a daily basis as long as they did every activity by the end of the week and it kept the students engaged while letting them make the independent choice!
I have used weekly menus in the past for Spelling homework. It was very successful. Some activities took longer than others. Since scholars got to choose which activity to do, they could plan to do the shorter activities on the days that they had practice, church, or extra chores.
DeleteJacqulyn Ison
ReplyDeleteKindergarten Teacher PLA@103
The three characteristics that I do well in my classroom are modeling expectations, encouraging social interaction, and creating a culture of emotional safety.
1. Modeling Expectations- I have learned that is is imperative to start the school year off with setting clear and meaningful expectations. I can not expect a brand new kindergartner to come to school and know exactly what to do and how it should be done in the classroom. I model behaviors, procedures, how to use materials in the classroom. If it is not done properly, we keep working on it! Modeling allows students to hear and visually see what is expected of them.
2) Social Interaction- Social interaction is a huge part in child development. Every morning, we start our morning circle off with greeting our classmates (encouraging eye contact and using that friends name) and a share. Students are encouraged to wait their turn and to be good listeners to their speaker. Social interaction improves young scholars vocabulary and reasoning skills when pressed with a conflict. I encourage students to turn and talk with their neighbors. We use I feel statements to encourage students to think about what they are feeling and what made them feel that way.
3) A culture of Emotional Safety-s Social interactions helps with students to be able to identify emotions and what made them feel that way. Due to the social interaction in the classroom and the strong classroom community, most scholars feel that they are free to express their emotions and take risk. The scholars in my classroom know that it is okay to make mistakes sometimes... they often see me making mistakes through out they day! My mistakes shows them how to handle the mistake and to fix it (or ask for help). We celebrate the small wins with student success and we encourage and help our friends when they need it!
A characteristic that I will improve upon is making task new and novel. The reading curriculum that we use often circles around. How can I made an already learned concept new and interesting. How can I find a new way to teach this?
Agreed on all of your areas of strength! It was exciting to watch you learn and grow as an educator dig into the areas you listed above.
DeleteMegan Denton, Media Specialist, PLA @ 48, Indianapolis
ReplyDeleteOne characteristic that can be found in my classroom is scholars making connections to text and media with their own life experiences. We read a graphic novel called "When Stars Are Scattered" by Victoria Jamieson and Omar Mohamed. In the pre-reading activity, scholars were asked if they agreed with or disagreed with different statements. One of the statements was "I have nothing in common with refugees." A majority of scholars agreed prior to reading the story. When asked again in the post-reading activity, a majority of scholars disagreed and could provide specific connections to the refugees in the story.
Another characteristic in my classroom is having clear and modeled expectations. This year was especially challenging with maintaining our expectations in the Media Center. Not only did we start the school year virtually due to the pandemic, but this is also my first year in the Media Specialist role. With these things in mind, we reviewed expectations prior to each thing we did for class (i.e. entering the room, listening actively, looking for and checking out books).
A third characteristic found in my classroom is providing my scholars with new and novel tasks to interact with and interpret a variety of texts. For International Dot Day, we were still doing virtual learning. Scholars were able to create their own dot using whatever medium they had at their disposal. Some used crayons, while others used paint. One scholar looked for different dot images online. Their dot could be big, small, many, or few, but the most important part was what they made their mark on the world.
One characteristic that I would like to work on improving in my classroom is social interaction. This year, we did a lot of whole group discussions of our texts, but I hope to do more partner talks (think-pair-share) that I have done in the past. With our proximity restraints, I felt a little limited, but safety always comes first.
I agree this year was more about safety and therefore harder to implement social interaction. The students like to sit close to each other and talk and help one another. This year it was more group and talking across the room. I hope it will be better for the upcoming year.
DeleteSohn'a Duff PLA@103
The three characteristics of high level engagement in my classroom are giving students choice, encouraging social interaction, and creating a culture of emotional safety.
ReplyDeleteI think it's important to give students a choice in order to keep learning fun and engaging for the different learning styles in your classroom. I try to incorporate a choice board into my centers, although it was very different this year due to the circumstances.
I also try to encourage social interaction as much as possible, especially in first grade. It's so important to share ideas and create together! We really worked on not interrupting each other and being good listeners this year. This goes along with the last one of emotional safety. By focusing on positive communication skills, we were able to build a safe environment where it was comfortable to share.
One thing that I would like to work on is clear and modeled expectations. I've always taught 3rd and 4th, but this was my first year in first grade. I absolutely love it, but I see that I need to change how I have given and modeled expectations in the past.
Heather Hill
PLA@93
The three characteristics of high level engagement in my class room are:
ReplyDelete1) Clear and model expectations: To begin the year I spend a lot of time setting the tone for my classroom. If my scholars want to sit on or under their desk, I don't care. If they need to pace in the back of the room, I don't care. They understand that this is earned and that if they are more comfortable there then by all means sit or pace there as long as they meet my expectations.
2) Social interaction: One of my favorite things to do is have my scholars work in groups. They always think that I am "busy" doing some sort of paperwork or other task When my crayon light is on, they cannot come to me for help. Little do they know, they always seem to workout the task at hand, and I love to listen to their conversations.
3) Social emotional: Being dyslexic myself it is really easy and quite often that my scholars see me make mistakes. I enjoy seeing them notice something that I have spelled wrong. They get a huge sense of accomplishment when they get to help me.
One thing I would like to work on in my classroom is: Scholar's choice. I tend to be a control freak.
Jenelle Miller PLA@103
Matt Rimer, Principal at PLA 103
ReplyDeleteChapter 1 - Cognitive Engagement and the Thinking Based Classroom: The information provided in this chapter was familiar to me and should be to our classroom teachers because one of our main focus areas during staff meeting and PLC's was Rigor. The scholars should be doing the "work" in the classroom. A quote I shared with the staff: "At the end of the day, teachers should not be the one's worn out." I was glad to see in the chapter ways in which teachers can reflect on their own classrooms by looking at characteristics of Cognitive Classrooms.
Three characteristics of high level engagement in my classroom are:
ReplyDelete1.) Clear and model expectations- I make sure that I model my expectations with the students at the start of the year. I did not do this last year because of us being virtual, but in my previous years I made sure that I collaborated with my students about their expectations and my expectations in my classroom. Then we signed it like it was a contract.
2.) Social Interaction: Since I teach Science and Social Studies, I think it is very beneficial for the students to be working with one another. Whether this is on a Science lab or they are having a discussion about why ot how a war started. I would rather them lead the discussion and I watch as a facilitator.
3.) Social Emotional- My students know that I am there for them if they ever need to talk. I let them know from day one that we are a family. Families don't always get along but they stick together. I also let them know that it is ok to make mistakes as long as we learn and grow from those mistakes. I do share with my students the mistakes I have made. What I learned from that experience and how did I grow and moved forward from it.
One thing that I would like to work on is students choice.
Jennifer Janusaitis- TBLA
As a fifth grade teacher who transitioned from a university setting to a traditional classroon, I am very familiar with teaching critical thinking to students. However adding cognitive engagement as a skill in my classroom excites me.
ReplyDeleteHere are three concepts that I believe already exist in my teaching environment:
There are clear and modeled expectations in every assignment including station activities. I believe clear and modeled expectations assist students as they begin the process of deciding how to tackle a task.
There is also a culture of emotional safety in the classroon. Part of my teachsing philosopy is to create a classroom where everyone is valued and is free to speak their own truths whether I agree with the view or not.
Students are given the opportunity to choose within the activity. This is true in my classroom espcially within stations where students have two or three days to work on a number of activities within their learning environment.
My goal is to allow for more student personalization in his/her responses. This will allow students more opportunities to bring their life experiences into the activitity and make it their own.
Dr. Deborah Godwin-Starks, Teacher
Timothy L. Johnson Academy
Fort Wayne, Indiana
The three characteristics of a high-level engaged classroom evident in my classroom include:
ReplyDeleteClear and modeled expectations-At the beginning of every school year we spend time practicing classroom and school expectations. Modeling expectations carries throughout the year with each assignment and station activity. Clear and modeled expectations were so very important this past year as we worked together virtually.
Emotional safety-Practicing kindness is at the top of my list when it comes to classroom expectations. It is with this that I create a culture of emotional safety. Mistakes are welcome and I make it a point to share my mistakes.
Social Interaction-I teach ELA and love to make time for my students to engage with one another over the text we are reading. This allows for different points of view to be voiced and allows students to see that there is more than one way to view things.
My goal for the upcoming school year is to allow for more student choice. I tend to be a control freak, so this is something I really want to work on! I’d also love to integrate new and novel tasks to increase engagement among my 4th graders.
Nicole Amodei, 4th grade ELA
Thea Bowman Leadership Academy
Gary, Indiana
I am the same way with being in control all the time. This is personally one of my goals for this upcoming school year to give them more student choice. I bet it will help with classroom management.
DeleteTeairai Jones- Hope PLA
ReplyDeleteThree characteristics that are currently present/ evident in my practice regularly are;
1. Building a sense of pride in the work scholars produce. This help with build confidence that will engage scholars in learning. It will also help them take pride in the quality of the work they produce. They will become proud of accomplishments and invested in their own learning outcomes.
2. Patience- Allowing scholars to have wait/ thinking time to develop or answer questions, process/ take- in information and to explore learning in a way that will help them connect or make sense of whats being taught.
3. Peer-to-peer learning. Learning with others in a group setting. Scholars often times learn best from their peers. This is also a great way to promote positive peer engagement. For second language learners it is a great way to expose them to vocabulary and vocabulary usage.
One characteristic I would like to work on implementing this year is incorporating high-leveled, open-ended questions. This will push scholars to think more critically, and problem solving abilities.
Mindi Spychalski PLA@103
ReplyDeleteThree characteristics that are currently present/ evident in my practice regularly are;
1. I feel that my scholars have a clear and modeled expectations. I teach 1st grade so I tend to model and have scholars repeat expectation so they are aware of the expectations. If the expectations are not being met, we stop and discuss the situation and how and what needs to change.
2. There is social interaction among the scholars in my classroom. I enjoy having them communicate and work together. They learn from each other and it allows them to see each others point of view.
3. I feel that my classroom has a sense of emotional safety. I want my scholars to feel safe to learn and communicate without feeling bad about themselves. The safer and comfortable they feel and more they will open up to learning.
The characteristic that I would like to work on is implementing authentic activities. With teaching the younger scholars I teach skills that have repetiton such as with phonics and math facts so finding authentic activities is difficult at times.
Brenda Shafer @GVPLA
ReplyDeleteTask#1 -Three characteristics of a high level engaged classroom evident in my classroom:
1) Social interactions
2) Emotional Safety
3) Authentic Activities
I want to work on activities / learning experiences that are CLEAR and MODELED. I set goals for lessons but to really define and provide modeling of the expectations to allow for scholar success toward mastery of learning. What will the end result “look like and sound like”. My goal is to make this clear by modeling more precisely.
Brenda Shafer, 3rd Grade teacher
As a Teaching assistant I implement critical thinking and cognitive thinking. In my grade levels I embrace what the teacher is teaching and I get into small groups, ask open ended questions, and provide skills in various context to ensure students apply the skill in different situations.
ReplyDeleteI gather data through all senses and work where the student need help, depending on the level that they need. This allows them to think interdependently while asking open end questions. I make sure that the students are developing understanding to promote deep understand of the material. Consistency is a major key after a different kind of year that we have had. Knowing each student and their abilities to perform tacks is something that needs to keep happening.
Three characteristics of a high-level engaged classroom that are evident in my practices include:
ReplyDelete1. Clear and modeled expectations: I teach 3rd grade and the focus shifts from learning to read in 2nd to reading to learn in 3rd. This makes 3rd a critical year for scholars. They tend to be used to having much more support in the lower grades and in 3rd we shift to trying to get them to be more independent. This makes having clear and modeled expectations something that is absolutely necessary! We start our year off with repeated practice of all of our expectations and routines. We are constantly modeling what we want them to do throughout the year so that, hopefully, they are prepared to be independent thinkers and learners by the end.
2. Social Interaction- I was that shy, quiet child growing up but would thrive when allowed to work with others so I strive to allow that as much as possible in my classroom. Turn and talks, jigsaws, group projects, etc. Anytime they can discuss their thoughts with others allows them to better process the information and create new learning.
3. Social emotional safety- Scholars need to know that it is okay to make mistakes, it's one of the best ways to learn. I've found that admitting my own mistakes to scholars and pointing out that, even as an adult, I don't know everything, helps them understand that it's okay. If you are "real" with the students they will be more open.
My ultimate goal is to allow scholars more choice in their responses to tasks. However, I really think that they tasks need to be authentic, new, novel for students to really be engaged with them. If they are completing the same types of tasks over and over each grade level, by 3rd grade they are bored with them. If they do not relate to the scholars own lives they do not see any real value in them. I think my focus this next year will be this before adding in the characteristic of choice.
Tammy Ahern
3rd Grade- TBLA
Chapter 1
ReplyDeleteHello! One of the three high level characteristics that I use in my classroom setting includes allowing students to personalize their response. I like when students are able to tell me about how they have used some of the things we have used in class. I like when they add personal information to their assignments because they are more engaged in the work when they can add their own information. I also allow students to interact with each other. This allows the students to not only learn from each other but also to get to know each other better. I think this helps make the class more like a family. I also try to make the classroom feel emotionally safe. I want the students to feel safe and know that if they make a mistake it is ok. Most mistakes in my class can be fixed and so it is really ok. I also try to teach and model to the students that we should be more positive when others make mistakes because we all do, including myself. I would like to work on making sure lessons are new and novel. I try to build on previous lessons and therefore sometimes they are not always new.
Sohn'a Duff
Technology - PLA@103
Heather Burch - PLA@103
ReplyDeleteOne of the three characteristics I have in my classroom is having clear and modeled expectations. I learned the hard way at the beginning of my teaching career how essential this was in order to have a high level of engagement with my scholars.
Another one is focusing on the learning process. I find myself telling my scholars (and myself) that we don’t have to be perfect, but we have to try our best. Growth can be hard, but the process and the end result makes it worth it.
The last one is a learning centered classroom. I want to try to give my scholars as many ways as possible to learn a new skill.
One thing I want to implement this school year is more student discussion of their ideas and solutions. This year it was tricky with Covid, however I think this encourages scholars to become problem solvers along with working well with others.
Heather Burch - PLA@103
ReplyDeleteOne of the three characteristics I have in my classroom is having clear and modeled expectations. I learned the hard way at the beginning of my teaching career how essential this was in order to have a high level of engagement with my scholars.
Another one is focusing on the learning process. I find myself telling my scholars (and myself) that we don’t have to be perfect, but we have to try our best. Growth can be hard, but the process and the end result makes it worth it.
The last one is a learning centered classroom. I want to try to give my scholars as many ways as possible to learn a new skill.
One thing I want to implement this school year is more student discussion of their ideas and solutions. This year it was tricky with Covid, however I think this encourages scholars to become problem solvers along with working well with others.
The three characteristics I regularly and consistently implement in my kindergarten classroom are clear and modeled expectations, emotional safety and authentic activities.
ReplyDeleteFrom day one with kindergarteners, my goal is to teach, model and practice clear expectations for the classroom. If this is not done from the very beginning, there is no getting it back and there will be discipline issues. I am consistent and practice and model for the first several weeks - with "touch-ups" all throughout the year. I think this helps tremendously with a positive, work-oriented classroom environment.
I work on emotional safety by letting the students know from the very beginning that it's okay to make mistakes, to try and to share their thinking, take a risk. Thats how we all all learn - even as adults - and Im sure to point out when I mess up and make a mistake, too, and how I can correct it.
Even though I do allow plenty of sharing and social interaction during the school day, that is also the one characteristic that I could implement even more (more "turn and talks") and have a higher threshold for when the socializing gets a little noisy!
Brenda Kolkman - Kdg
Timothy L. Johnson Academy
I too teacher kindergarten and I agree that with Kindergarten its important to set the expectations. You must make sure that you model what that expectation looks like, since they don't have the prior knowledge or understanding.
DeleteThe three characteristics of a high-level engaged classroom that are evident in my classroom practices regularly:
ReplyDeleteOnce the students have practiced a skill the final activity/project allows the students to personalize their responses.
The modeled expectations are clear and modeled, with professional, student, and teacher made examples shown and available for the students to investigate.
The sense of audience above the teacher and test is when the students participate in positive critiquing discussions, using paper and pencil positive feedback sheets, show and tell about their completed projects in person and online.
One characteristic I would like to work on implementing more in my classroom:
Encourage more directed & purposeful content led social interaction discussions about the project and problem solving to help fellow students when they are having difficulty with their projects.
-Janine Shafer PLA@103
Frederick E. Pittman
ReplyDeleteHigher Institute for Arts and Technology
4th/5th Math and Science Instructor
The three characteristics I regularly and consistently implement in my classroom are clear and modeled expectations, emotional safety and authentic activities.
The first 21 days of school are extremely important to establish rules, routines, and expectations so that students know what is expected from them from the time they come into your classroom until the time they leave. Consistency and practice are the only way to keep things running smoothly and maximize learning opportunities. making sure that you establish relationships and repour with my scholars is also key to better classroom management and academic performance. Making sure that the classroom is a safe place to engage, explore, and make mistakes is an utmost importance.
The one area that I am going to try to make definite improvement in is showing my students how to engage in conversations and arguments that are respectful in nature through both verbal and written communication. Modeling and multiple opportunities to engage in these exercises will be the key to my success.
This first chapter was very meaty on high level engagement. There was a lot of information to self reflect on as a teacher and for my students. Ive always felt that critical thinking is so essential in math, but like any skill it requires practice. There are many students that learn the skill, but some develop the skill later, and I may not see that development until next year when another teacher is discussing how much the student has grown academically. This is one area I would like to improve on, but r
ReplyDeletethe idea of not working harder than the students is something I really want to accomplish. I feel like everyday I am putting on a performance and at the end of the day I'm exhausted. I feel like the scholars have many high interest, quick feedback, and get it right quick gadgets, and technology that I have to put on that high energy (Prince, Michael Jackson, or Beyonce) performance to keep their interest and engagement. I know a lot starts with class culture and expectations, so I need to be the agent for change so I'm not working harder. Focusing on the five questions in my lessons will enhance my instruction as well as my student's learning, which is what teaching is all about.
I feel that the three characteristics you would find in my classroom is having a safe and cultured classroom where students feel they can take risks and not fear being laughed at or judged. Also, there would be meaningful modeling. I enjoy a classroom with a lot of collaborative work, however this past year was so different.
Three strategies that I have successfully implemented in my first grade classroom are clear and modeled expectations, a culture of emotional safety, and authentic activities. These can be observed through my modeled exemplars, shared rubrics, do-it-agains for routines, community huddle to debrief any cultural problems, SEL strategies practice, and tailored assignments to be realistic and reflect my specific group of students. You will not hear a “Ms Bell packed 72 sunglasses for her Hawaii vacation...” story problem but you will hear squeals of glee as my students hear their name and favorite video game or activity come up in the story problem.
ReplyDeleteI am excited to offer a lot more choice when it comes to presenting their learning. i am teaching 6th grade next year, so I will be looking for many more opportunities for students to hypothesize, test their hypothesis and create/design how they will present what they have learned. As 6th graders inherently have more practice working independently, I feel like i can really help guide them to create amazing work. I will just need to be very cognizant on how much “help” I provide. That level of support looks very different in a first grade classroom than in a 6th grade classroom.
Stephanie Bell - PLA @ 93
Sent from my iPad
Brittany Connett-Kindergarten- PLA@93
ReplyDeleteThe three strategies I have implemented in my classroom are clear and modeled expectations, a culture of emotional safety, and authentic activities. I believe these strategies could be observed in my classroom during any lesson. At the beginning of the year I spend a lot of time modeling and practicing the expectations in our classroom. We work on SEL social stories which allows students to discuss and share how we handle different situations. These social stories allow the students to talk about their emotions and feelings while they are not currently feeling them. For example, instead of starting a lesson on name calling after it has already happened, we open the conversation up to share how that would make us feel and if that has ever happened to us. This can happen without any students feeling like they are being called out and more likely to share honestly. I feel it is important to create authentic activities that engage students by making connections and relating to their lives.
One strategy I would like to implement better in my classroom next year is offering more choice for how students can answer or show their work. With younger students it can be difficult to find different ways for them to show their learning. I am going to push my comfort zone and try to offer choices on how they can show their learning, especially during center time.
Task#1 -Three characteristics of a high level engaged classroom evident in my classroom
ReplyDeleteModeling - I teach kindergarten and ensuring that they have a clear understanding of what is expected and how it looks is important. Once you set the expectation and procedures scholars will follow and be on task.
Emotional Safety - I work really hard to create environment that all scholars feel safe able to express there feelings. I've themed my room the Rainbow Room where Amazing things happens. I make sure that all scholars feel welcome and comfortable in "our" space.
A learning environment where they feel free to ask questions, concerns or comments.
The want to learn and work on implementing allowing the scholars to choose activities and ways that they can show there work.
Three characteristics of a high level engaged classroom evident in my classroom are clear and modeled expectations, a culture of emotional safety, and authentic activities.
ReplyDelete* Providing scholars with a clear understanding of what is expected. Be specific of what you want the scholars to know and be able to do. In my classroom, I like to give the scholars a opportunity to ask questions to communicate and clarify the understanding of the task at hand. This typically allows the scholars to create excitement and ideas.
* I work very hard to establish a classroom that encourages an emotional safe environment. I encourage scholars to ask questions and to engage without fear. Every scholar needs to feel valued, listened to, respected and part of the group. I encourage the scholars that we are a team and we work hard for ourselves to be the best, but we also work hard as a whole with our classmates.
* One thing I want to work on this year is giving more ownership to the scholars. Let them make personal goals to feel personally invested in accomplishing that goal and by tracking their progress.
Alyssa Scott - Kindergarten PLA@93
ReplyDeleteThe three strategies that I have successfully implemented in my classroom are:
1. Clear and modeled expectations - as a kindergarten teacher I have to be very precise in my language when presenting my expectations to scholars. I model EVERYTHING that I am expecting my scholars to do.
2. Social interaction - Scholars are frequently working in partners, teams, small groups etc. in class. I give students the opportunity to think, pair, share on a regular basis in whole group lessons. We are always learning from one another and have the opportunity to share our ideas.
3. Emotional Safety- I start each day in my classroom with a community circle. We start out by answering easy and fun questions and as we grow comfortable with one another the real work begins. We talk about feelings, emotions, events that have happened in our classroom and how we could have handled it better. We talk about things that could happen in our classroom and what we could/should do to handle those situations. As the year goes on our since of community and family grows.
One strategy I would like to to better implement in my classroom for next year is allowing for more student choice. I am excited to research and find different ways to allow for more choice especially with my little learners.
I love the idea of a community circle! I think that really helps model an inclusive and welcoming classroom environment.
DeleteThe three features in my classroom are, personalized responses, modeled expectations and social interactions. The area to develop more would be to (6) Choose within an activity.
ReplyDeletelolibo
JRPLA
Bridgette Farmer @ PLA 103
ReplyDeleteThree ways I can see in my classroom are
1) Collaborative learning - Students in my class engage with each other during small groups and during think pair and shares. I plan to have some struggling students with students who show mastery to exchange knowledge.
2) Routines and Expectations - At the beginning of year we talk about the times and different parts of class. I use visual and auditory cues to let them know when we are switching between small group and whole group. By the end of the year they were so on routine they would remind me when small groups were supposed to start.
3) Emotional learning - During circle time or morning groups, we name and discuss emotions. We discuss the differences between feelings and actions. We discuss safe actions and unsafe actions for when we are angry, sad, or upset.
One area I see for improvement is using authentic and open ended activities. We do daily journals during centers, but there are more opportunities in reading and math for authentic learning.
Heather Barney - Media Specialist at PLA @ 103
ReplyDeleteThe following 3 high learning characteristics have been incorporated in the media center:
Emotional safety
Routines and expectation - Even though lessons vary on a weekly basis, our scholars always know what is expected within the library. Even though there are set library practices, scholars know the routine when visiting the library. I do believe that having a routine, even in a specials class that is once (sometimes twice) per week, this leads to scholars having comfort in know what to expect from their teacher and each other.
Emotional safety: As stated previously, I do believe that scholars know the library is a safe place for emotional safety. The routines established and the expectations within the library should contribute to a sense of safety. Scholars are aware that everyone learns when answering questions, that participation is important and that it is not "funny" if an answer is "wrong". Many times the discussions within media will be discussions about a scholar's experience or emotional connections to a certain topic, as we read a variety of stories as a group.
Collaborative learning: I have tried to incorporate activities after each lesson, where scholars may collaborate and work as a team. Many times it may just be a discussion about a short story, but this enables scholars to share their perspectives and contribute to a group activity.
The goal for next year is to offer more choice in activities, so that scholars may have an authentic experience during media. So, the goal while reading this book is to brainstorm and learn a variety of techniques that can be a tool for developing activities that give scholars a variety of choices and unique experiences.
I agree! I want to learn how to add more choices for my students and work on modeling more clearly so that my students are successful.
DeleteAngela Posey PLA@ 103
ReplyDeleteChapter 1- I have three strategies that I have consistently used in the classroo to develop critical thinking and high level student engagement.
1. Students work in groups to solve problem and respond to questions. They have dialogue and they collaborate. The discussions and the dialogue are powerful.
2. I have always stressed that a mistake is an opportunity to learn. Students, therefore feel safe to share their ideas. This promotes and encourages students to express themselves. This environment promotes student engagement because there is no fear of a mistake.
3. Modeling to me is a must in a classroom. Students are given multiple experiences with modeling in my classroom.
One of my goals is to investigate and find more ways to make a task novel. When I present instruction in a new novel way, I can see the level of engagement increases.
Sometimes I think I model too much, but your post has given me something to think about - how to balance modeling and independent work.
DeleteAs a new teacher, I have not had the opportunity to engage in high level studnet engagement. Throughout chapter one, I have learned that I need to work on modeling more clearly and slowing down my own teaching to help my students understand the material better. I learned during long-term subbing, that I often rushed to make sure we got everything accomplished rather than focusing on enjoying the learning process with my kids. I also want to learn more about giving my students choices.
ReplyDeleteI feel you. The focus of some schools is to simply get through the curriculum so the students are ready for the test. It doesn't always lead to real learning. In watching my co-teacher teach, I realized the importance of slowing down for my students to gain mastery.
DeleteThis is a life long lesson.
As a coach, I encourage teachers to use models of answers so students can see the difference between a rote answer and higher level answer. We have also employed several new, novel ways of demonstrating mastery such as using tech like whiteboard.fi and Nearpod. COVID has made it harder to interact with each other, but I know teachers are eager to have students back in the class! A goal for next year is to help teachers create "choice of activity" for scholars.
ReplyDeleteMelissa Cox- Choir @JacquetMS
ReplyDeleteHigh Levels of Student Engagement in the Choral Classroom
1. sense of community and team work. The have to feel safe to make music together.
2. modeling clearly is at the core of what fine arts does. I model the students model for eachother. We watch or listen to other choirs. Modeling is one of the greatest classroom tools.
3. audience outside of the teacher and test- ALWAYS, that's way we do music to perform for community, family, friends, etc.
I would like to incorporate more student choices in the classroom.
Audine Rathbun PLA Jones-Clark 2nd Grade
ReplyDeleteDuring the first two weeks of school I focus on creating clear expectations. I model and we practice and practice and practice. I work to create specific words for scholars to know how to act during a specific activity. I implemented scholars giving feedback when they were not able to follow expectations so we could work to overcome road blocks.
During this time I am also very specific on getting to know the scholars and their 'quirks' so I can understand a behavior, an answer or even a non-answer in reaction to something we are doing. This allows me to 'excuse' some things yet hold them accountable for others in a way I know they will react without closing up.
Our learning groups are given various check lists they must complete during the week. This allows them to choose which activity they prefer to work at a given time. It is up to them to complete all the work.
The one thing I would like to work on is creating more new task to create more engagement. In other words they may like doing "A" all the time but let's get them to like "B" as well by tweaking and creating it into an activity they enjoy learning.
I'm Sheryll Purdy at Trix Academy
ReplyDeleteIn the age of Covid having a "thinking" classroom challenge. I have kept the focus on a learning centered classroom where my scholars have time to process and apply the concepts being taught. One of my favorite questions is, 'How else could you have worked this out?'. 'What is another way?' is also a favorite question I ask my scholars a lot. Giving my scholars time to process other ways to think and solve problems is an important skill to give my scholars. I encourage problem solving across all areas including their personal lives and congratulate them when they show good problem solving skills.
I have taught kindergarten for the last three years and I have loved being able think about the high levels of engagement in my classroom over the years and what I would like to implement. Three high levels of engagement that were in my classroom where:
ReplyDelete1. learning with groups in a group setting- I have done centers for ELA and math in my classroom and it has been a great way for students to collaborate with one another.
2. clear and model expectations- as a kindergarten it was important to me to model and have clear expectations for every activity in our classroom. It helped the students feel confident in being able to complete the activity.
3. Social interaction- It was also important to me in my kindergarten classroom to have as much social interaction possible to help students in their social skills. It was so amazing to see the shy and timid students come out their shell during morning meeting/center/play time.
One characteristic I want to implement this year in my role as a reading interventionist is implementing authentic activities that will engage the students and make them excited to learn and feel confident in their ability to read.
The three characteristics of a high-level engaged classroom evident in my classroom practices are:
ReplyDeleteStudents engaged in the learning process. Students are actively working in groups and on task.
Teachers act more like coaches and support independent-collaborative learning. Teachers drop in and listen to students’ discussions and make suggestions.
Visual organizers are present, open-ended discussion questions, authentic projects, and tasks, are evident during instruction
This year I would like to see more open-ended discussions and visuals being displayed that the students collaborated on using group activities.
Traits I will be looking for in my scholars as evidence that they are working and thinking at higher levels are:
ReplyDelete* expressing ideas other students don't think of
* choosing their own way of demonstrating their understanding
* asking questions that may seem off-task or silly
* expressing their enjoyment about open-ended assignments
* preferring to talk about ideas rather than facts
* preferring to try new ways of approaching a problem rather than accepted ways
I will be challenging myself and my scholars to push beyond what is easy or comfortable and encouraging more creativity and thinking on a daily basis. I would like for this to become the norm in my classroom.
Heidi Hilt
AAA Fair Ave
The three characteristics of a high-level engaged classroom evident in my classroom practice are as follows:
ReplyDelete1. Collaboration-sharing information and where to find more info, discussing date/findings and coming to conclusions thru discussion and debate.
2. Personalized Responses-I love when students are able to choose options when demonstrating knowledge. This passed school year was a great time to allow student choice for product and demonstration of knowledge.
3. Authentic activities-Students are naturally interested in topics that relate to real life. During the passed year, we spent a lot of time discussing the demonstrations and daily wrongs that the students witnessed or related could relate to in their daily life.
I want to spend more time diving deeper into topics that are relevant and not feel the pressure to drive thru the curriculum. I also want to look for more ways to combine curriculum across subjects to make learning more congruent.
Alissa Davis - PLA@48
ReplyDeleteThe three characteristics of a highly engaged classroom that I feel you can currently witness in my classroom include:
1. Clear Modeled Expectations - My personal goal is to always know and communicate what I want from my students--from behavior to academics. This has the added benefit of being proactive and positive!
2. Culture of Emotional Safety - Building a classroom community is high my classroom values. My hope is that my students always know that mistakes are going to happen during the learning process!
3. New and Novel - This past year we had weekly Fun Fridays. This was typically a culminating activity, project, or experiment based on what we were learning through out the week. The students were engaged, excited about learning, and eager to see what Fridays would look like!
The one area I want to improve upon is Social Interaction. It would be easy to say this was mostly due to COVID Restrictions, but candidly it is something I have not dived very deeply in to in the past. I see a lot of potential to expand on this moving forward, from peanut butter and jelly partners, to group collaboration with expected outcomes--anything to dig deeper than simply talk with your shoulder partner.
Jensen Cacciola- PLA Jones-Clark Elementary
ReplyDeleteThe three I identify that ensure high-level cognitive engagement in my classroom are:
1. Social Interaction- The moment you walk in my room you see students interacting with each other about the learning. I highly encourage social interaction because I know how important it is. The scholars learn from each other. I love seeing the students interacting and saying I didn't even think of that way to solve this problem, then they know more than one way of solving the problem.
2. Culture of Emotional Safety- My classroom is a safety net for all diverse learners. We always talk about how do you learn if you don't make mistakes and learn from them. I am always positive when discussing problems together to encourage self-esteem. I show them that teachers make mistakes as well and when I show I relate to them and tell my story in grade school that really helps build my classroom community.
3. Clear Modeled Expectations- I am always modeling what I expect from my scholars. This includes academics and behavior. When I do model expectations this gives my students accountability to academics and behavior which enforces a strong classroom community.
The one area I want to improve on this upcoming year is being New and Novel. I want to keep them guessing what each week will bring and keep them engaged to do the work and improve behavior. I want to include more fun this school year, not exactly sure what that means yet, but I definitely want to reward scholars for hard work.
I try to incorporate something from my background into our lessons frequently as well. Letting the kids know that we have things in common really helps initiate and build relationships throughout the year. When I'm explaining to the students how I tackled a project when I was in school, they know that I have been where they are at as well.
DeleteAshley Pierce - 7th Grade @ JRP (Indy)
As an instructional coach and one that also ended the school year teaching 3rd grade for about a month I am keenly aware of the characteristics that I feel are my strengths and weaknesses in and out of the classroom.
ReplyDelete3 Characteristics found in my classroom are:
1. Students personalize response
2. Modeling Expectations
3. Student Choice
I have found that all 3 of the above help me to hook scholar's into the activity and it is then imperative that I make sure it is an authentic activity to have the experience yield critical thinking and deep scholar engagement.
Taking over 3rd grade at the end of a very challenging year made it even more important to make sure that the activities are authentic and new. I think this making activities new and novel are a huge part of hooking and keep attention of scholars and teachers alike,. especially during those times of the year that teachers are feeling exhausted and drained. We often turn to our tried and true activities and forget to branch out and try something new.
The three characteristic that are already in my classroom are a culture of emotional safety, clear and modeled expectations, and social interaction using turn and talk partners and small group collaborations. The characteristics I would like to improve are choice and higher order questioning.
ReplyDeleteDiane Flanagan
ReplyDeletePLA@93
Indy
Three characteristics of a high-level engaged classroom that are evident in my classroom practices regularly are personalized responses, modeled expectations, and ability to choose.
ReplyDeletePersonalized responses - During bellwork and other class assignments, I incorporate questions to get to know the students better & so I can share those details about myself with them. In turn, this can create whole class, small group, or individual conversations with the students and myself depending on the current topic.
Modeled expectations - For each assignment we do, I model what the assignment is expected to look like in the Google suite app we're learning at the time. I only complete each step as we go, so students do not rush their work and try to do more than we have worked on together.
Ability to choose - Often students will be able to choose how they complete their assignment creatively and in what order they complete their required work. Once we have completed an initial few assignments in that particular application, students are able to choose their own topics to showcase their knowledge of the app.
One characteristic I would like to work on implementing more in my classroom this year is making sure my assignments connect with the students authentically. Last year I was able to do that with some cross-curricular connections, and while I think they went well, there is always room for improvement.
- Ashley Pierce (7th Grade @ JRP, Indy)