Shifting Our Focus from
Teaching to Student Learning
Why do we need to consider changing the way we
think about student learning?
Connie Kopcsak
Whitfield County Schools
Dalton, Georgia
Agenda for J. Frank White
Academy
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World Café
Review agenda and E. Q.
“Shift Happens”
Reflections
Levels of Engagement
Qwizdom assessment
Research-based practices
Engagement survey
Essential Question
How can we make our current
lessons more engaging?
What is Learning-Focused?
• Framework for thinking about, planning,
and delivering instruction using
exemplary practices with a focus on
learning
• Research-based instructional practices
Learning-Focused Paradigm:
WHETHER students learn something well
is more important than WHEN they learn it.
Current Typical School Paradigm:
WHEN students learn something is more
important than WHETHER they learn it well.
Strategies That Most Impact Achievement
Rank
Strategy
Effect
Size
Percentile
Gain
1
Extending
Thinking Skills
1.61
45
2
3
Summarizing
Vocabulary In
Context
1.00
.85
34
33
4
Advance
Organizers
.73
28
.65
25
5
Non-Verbal
Representations
(Marzano / ASCD, 2001
US Department of Education: 2002)
Overview 13
Components of an
Acquisition Lesson
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•
Essential Question
Activating Strategies
Vocabulary Strategies
Teaching Strategies
Summarizing Strategies
Typical Lessons for Coverage
What Is The Objective Of The Lesson ??
Preparation
Active Teaching
Massed Guided Practice
Closure
Acquisition Lessons 3
Acquisition Lessons for Learning
What Is The Essential Question Of The Lesson ??
Activating/
Previewing
Distributed Guided Practice or
Distributed Summarizing
Teaching Strategies
Summarize & Answer
Essential Question
Acquisition Lessons 4
Let’s summarize what we learned…
Numbered heads
Find a neighbor beside you and decide who
is #1 and who is #2.
(You have 20 seconds to find your partner!)
#1
Tell #2 something new you have
considered or thought about this
morning regarding instruction.
#2
Raise your hand when you have your
partner’s answer.
#2
Tell # 1 one thing that you have
learned this morning.
#1
Raise your hand when you have
your partner’s answer.
Components of an
Acquisition Lesson
•Essential Question
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Activating Strategies
Vocabulary Strategies
Teaching Strategies
Summarizing Strategies
What Is An Essential Question?
Concepts or skills in the
form of questions
Purpose:
• Sets the focus of the
lesson.
• Helps teacher gather
evidence of learning
(assessment).
Key Points
• Posted in the
classroom.
• There is only one
essential question in a
lesson.
• Organize courses,
units, & lessons around
questions; the content
of lessons answers the
questions.
• Based on curriculum
• Allocate time to answer
Acquisition Lessons 19
Writing An Essential Question
• Make the teaching objective a question.
• Students should be able to answer the question at
the end of the lesson.
• What questions will foster further inquiry
understanding and transfer of learning?
• Write the question for the lesson and then, if
necessary, rewrite the question for the students.
• Question cannot be answered with yes or no.
• Create connections for the learner with the content.
• Be careful of questions connected by “and”.
• Keep it simple!
Acquisition Lessons 23
Essential Questions …
• What is foreshadowing?
• How does foreshadowing help you
understand a story?
• What forces contributed to the structure of
earth’s surface?
• How do you graph linear equations?
• What is the difference between least
common multiple and greatest common
factor ?
Acquisition Lessons 20 & 21
Unit
Essential
Question
Lesson
Essential
Questions
Let’s summarize what we learned…
On your board, answer the following:
What is the purpose of having an Essential
Question (E. Q.) for your lessons?
Components of an
Acquisition Lesson
• Essential Question
•Activating Strategies
• Vocabulary Strategies
• Teaching Strategies
• Summarizing Strategies
Activating
• What?
– Hook and link
• Why?
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–
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Activate prior knowledge
Motivate
Preview key vocabulary
Prepare for learning
KWL Outlines
KWL Outline 1
-K-WThink I Know… Think I’ll Learn…
KWL Outline 2
-KI Know
-WThink I Know
-LI Learned…
-LLearned
Activating Strategies 4-10
Wordsplash
Leaves
Plants
Green
Sun
Trees
Activating Strategies 11-12
Anticipation Guide
_________
_________
• The sequence tells you the order
of a story.
• The middle comes before the end.
__________ • The sequence of a passage tells
_________
_________
the reader what comes last but not
what is first.
• The sequence of a story tells you
the beginnings, middle and end.
• You can sequence settings in a
story.
Activating Strategies 13-16
Me
Text
___
___ 1. The Democratic Party is the oldest in the
United States.
___
Statement
___ 2. A political party is a social gathering held
for a bunch of politicians.
___ ___ 3. Because all presidents have primarily been
elected by two major political parties, the
United States is said to have a two-party
system.
___ ___ 4. Party members usually share the same
beliefs about politics and about the role of
government.
___ ___ 5. The Whigs were a political party that
required the long white hair wigs but when
men wearing wigs went out of style, they
disbanded.
Brainstorm
EQ: How do I get ready for the beginning of school?
First Day of School
Activating Strategies 17- 21
Draw a Picture or Diagram
EQ: How do I identify points on a grid?
Draw a picture of how to get to school
from your house.
Activating Strategies 22
Activating Strategies
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Recall
Make Predictions
Game
Humor or Mystery
Exploration or Experience
Role Play or Simulation
Video clip, Music, Literature, Art
Let’s summarize what we learned…
Numbered heads
#1
Tell #2 about one of the activating strategies
you could use in your classroom next
week, or share an activating strategy that
has been successful in your classroom
#2
Raise your hand when you have your
partner’s answer.
#2
Tell #1 about an activating strategy that you
have used or could use.
#1
Raise your hand when you have your
partner’s answer.
Components of an
Acquisition Lesson
• Essential Question
• Activating Strategies
• Vocabulary Strategies
•Teaching Strategies
• Summarizing Strategies
Teaching
• What?
– Cognitive strategies
• Why?
– Mentally engage the learner while
taking into consideration attention span
– Organize information
– Store information
Collaborative Pairs
• Collaborative Pairs is the base grouping and
organizational tool for a classroom… It is hard to get
lost in a pair.
• Research-Based Principles of Learning: Learning is
constructed by the learner and is first a social activity
before it is a cognitive activity.
• Actively engages students in the lessons.
• Students are individually accountable for their own
learning.
• Collaborative Pairs are used extensively in large group
acquisition lessons.
• Basic Strategy for Collaborative Pairs: Numbered Heads
Acquisition Lessons 24
Pairs Checking
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
A. Circle numbers.
B. Each student does their
own work.
C. When they complete a
circled number, stop.
Check answers with
partner. If agree, go on.
If not, correct then
continue.
Acquisition Lessons 25
Lecture/Large Group Lessons
• 1’s read about the lecture types on
page 29.
• 2’s read about the lecture types on
page 30.
• Share what you learned with your
partner.
Acquisition Lessons 29-30
Graphic Organizers
Graphic Organizers
for
Comprehension
Understand/Manage
Learning
Organize
Information/Ideas
Follow Steps in
a Process
Chunk
Information
Improve memory
Build Connections
Explore Relationships
Graphic Organizers 4
Effects of Using Organizers
“The average student studying with the
aid of graphic organizers and thinking
maps learns as much as the 90th
percentile student studying the same
material without the assistance of the
organizing ideas.”
Wahlberg, 1991
Fish Bone (Cause/Effect)
Causes
Economic
Geographic
Effect
World War II
Military
Social- Political
Causes
Graphic Organizers 8
Cause and Effect – Physical Education
Graphic Organizers 12
Graphic Organizers 12
Cycle Graph– Shooting a Basketball
Graphic Organizers 13
Graphic Organizers 16
Compare and Contrast Diagram
Concept: FRACTION
Concept:DECIMAL
How Alike?
How Different?
With Regard To:
Denominator
Converting
Denominators
Changing to
Percentage
Graphic Organizers 14
Story Matrix
Structure
1
2
3
Setting
Problem
Choices
Ending
Graphic Organizers 25
Matrix for Summarizing & Writing
Topic Tower
TOPIC
Aesop’s Fables
Aesop’s Fables have a moral
Detail
Detail
It is said that Aesop was a slave
in Greece long, long ago.
Detail
Aesop was smart.
Detail
There is no proof he wrote down
fables- he told others.
Main
Idea
Main Idea – Aesop was
responsible for the fables
Main Idea
Mnemonics
• Some view as “memory trick”
• Students are given a device to help
remember –store/recall –long term
memory.
• Student is given a framework – cues
and new information is associated with
it.
Mnemonics
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Acrostic Sentence
Acronym
Rhythm and Rhyme
Drawings
Physical Movement
Visualizations
Acquisition Lessons 33
Acronyms
• ROY G BIV
• HOMES
• FACE
Acquisition Lessons 35
Acrostic Sentence
• Every Good Boy Does Fine
• Please Excuse My Dear Aunt Sally
• My Very Earnest Mother Just Served us Nine
Pickles
• King Henry Died Drinking Chocolate Milk
• Kids Have Dropped Over Dead Converting
Metrics.
• ( Play Music At the Church) - steps of Mitosis
Acquisition Lessons 34
Drawings
Gallon
Gallon Man
Cup
Acquisition Lessons 36
Let’s summarize what we learned…
On your board, list at least
3 teaching strategies that
you learned about today.
Components of an
Acquisition Lesson
•
•
•
•
Essential Question
Activating Strategies
Vocabulary Strategies
Teaching Strategies
•Summarizing
Strategies
Summarizing
What is it?
Students reflect on the
material being taught and
answer the essential
question.
Why have students summarize
what they are learning?
• Summarizing is perhaps the key thinking skill
for learning
• Summarizing is a LEARNING STRATEGY
• Enables students to create a “schema” for the
information and remember it better and longer
• Teachers can use as a formative assessment
• Summarizing is key to knowing when and on
what to re-teach
• Student summarizing should be distributed
throughout a lesson, not just at the end.
Summarizing Strategies 2
Two types of summarizing:
1. Distributed summarizing
(occurs throughout the lesson)
2. Summarizing at the end of the lesson
(provides evidence that students can
answer the essential question)
Acquisition Lessons for Learning
What Is The Essential Question Of The Lesson ??
Activating/
Previewing
Distributed Guided Practice or
Distributed Summarizing
Teaching Strategies
Summarize & Answer
Essential Question
Distributed Summarizing
Numbered heads
Use of small boards
• Students are active in learning
• Each student writes down an answer
and can easily revise ideas
• Quick way to assess learning and
determine misconceptions
Acquisition Lessons 25
Summarizing Strategies
to Use at the End of
the Lesson
Summarizing Strategies 1
Summarizing Strategy: KWL
Know
Think You
Will Learn
Learn
(List what
learned –
(answering
the EQ)
Ticket Out the Door
Give prompt –
They can show
They can tell
They can write
They can post-it!
Ticket Out the Door
• Write and tell the order of three events in the
story.
• “Prove It” – write one fact and opinion that
you could get from the story (be sure to be
able to “prove it” from the text).
• “Give Me Five” – trace your hand and answer
the 5 Ws, one answer per finger.
3-2-1
Students write about the topic
• Explain three new concepts you learned
• Define two vocabulary words related to
this lesson
• What is one thing that is still unclear, or
one question you have about the topic
3-2-1
3 – situations where you need to find
perimeter
2 – ways to find perimeter of rectangle
1 – way you will remember the
meaning of perimeter
Summarizing Strategies 6
3-2-1 – adapted to 2-1
2 – details from the story
1 - main idea
Explain the connection.
The Absent Student
Write a letter to the absent student answering the
essential question.
Dear ____________,
Today we learned……..The most important thing we
learned was….. If you had been here you would
have really enjoyed…. I hope that tomorrow we will
learn ….
Your friend,
PS I’m wondering…
Learning Logs or Journals
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•
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•
Prompts
Today I learned…
Three things I wonder…
I know now….so I can…
New things I learned today include…
Summarizing Strategies 12
Venn Diagram
The Important Thing is…
The Important Thing about summarizing
is ________________________________
___________________________________
___________________________________
___________________________________
___________________________ . But the
Most Important Thing is ______________
_____________________.
Summarizing Strategies 10
Game – Million Dollar Pyramid or
Get a Clue
You will give your partner clues to
guess the following words…
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
distributed summarizing
ticket out the door
numbered heads
Abraham Lincoln
engagement
You will give your partner clues to
guess the following words…
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
Essential Question
activating strategy
strategic compliance
graphic organizer
lunch time
Key Points About Summarizing
• ALL students summarize!
• Students answer the Essential Question
• Teachers use it to assess and determine
re-teaching needs
• It must be planned. It doesn’t just happen.
• Allocate time for this and don’t skip!
Summarizing should be distributed
throughout the lesson, not just at the end!
Summarizing Strategies 3
One last thought….
Cover
1. To conceal by hiding or screening.
2. To place something on, over, or in
front of, so as to conceal
3. To provide an alibi or excuse.
4. To coat or sprinkle.
SUMMARIZING IS WORTH THE TIME
AND EFFORT!
In summary...
Complete the following statement:
Research-based instructional strategies
are like a (fill in the blank with your candy
bar) because....