Thursday, July 29, 2010

Teach Like a Champion - Doug Lemov Chapter Three: We Techniques

Chapter Three:  Structuring and Delivering Your Lessons

I/We/You - otherwise known as Direct Instruction, Guided Practice, and Independent Practice.  With I/We/You responsibility is gradually released from student to teacher.  A teacher must pay attention to both the manner in which work is released to students but also to the rate at which cognitive work is released.
This chapter is a long one so I'll break them down by techniques.


We Technique – Portion of the lesson completed together as teacher and student.

16.     Break it Down – Respond to a lack of clear student understanding by breaking a problematic idea into component parts. (Pg 88) 
·      Provide an example then ask for another
·      Provide Context – Effective only if student knows the word or component.
·      Provide a Rule – often prompts student with correct response.
·      Provide the Missing (or First) Step – Best as cues.
·      Rollback – Repeat the student’s incorrect response.  This is often sufficient to get a student to instantly recognize their error.
·      Eliminate False Choices – review insufficient choices and discuss errors.
·      Breaking it down too often comes naturally.   The problem with this coming naturally for me is that I don’t allow the opportunity to think of responses in advance, which doesn’t allow me to precipitate misunderstandings to a particular lesson.  Advance planning will lead to stronger lesson development!

17.     Ratio – Push more and more of the cognitive work out to the students as soon as they are ready with the understanding that the cognitive work must be on task, focused and productive.  The goal is to get more students to participate. (Pg 92)
*  Always focus on upping your ratio in the classroom
·      Unbundle – Break questions into smaller parts and share the work to more students and force them to react to one another.
·      Half-Statement – Express half of an idea and let the student finish it.
·      What’s Next – Ask about the process, not the product.
·      Feign Ignorance – Turn the tables and pretend you don’t know.
·      Repeated Examples – Push
·      Whys and Hows – Push for more.
·      Supporting Evidence – Support opinion.  This is more cognitive than providing opinion.
·      Batch Process – Students respond in discussion.  Limit this discussion by interjecting.  It’s volleyball, not soccer.  (Soccer team passes to each other continually, need teacher guidance for appropriate discussion)  Three than me.  Must teach habits of discussion first.
·      Discussion Objectives – Focus discussion on the most productive and rigorous points only.

18.     Check For Understanding – Used to determine when and whether students are ready for more responsibility and when they need material presented again i.e. Two parts:  check for understanding (gathering data) and do something about it right away (responding to data.)  (Pg. 97)
·      Requires teacher to think of the answers to questions as data in terms of:
o   Data Sets – Reflect on questions in groups
o   Statistical Sampling – Sample the entire room, all levels
o   Reliability – Don’t stop at just one answer
o   Validity – Align questions with what students will be accountable for at the termination of the lesson or unit.
·      Observation –Observation by circulating the room and checking written response is an excellent way to check for understanding.
o   Easier to do when responses are standardized in a particular format (notebook entries, packets.)
·      Respond to Data Quickly – The shorter the delay between recognizing a gap in mastery and taking action to fix it, the more likely the intervention is to be effective.
o   Reteach using a different approach
o   Reteach by identifying the problem step
o   Reteach by identifying and explaining difficult terms
o   Reteach at a slower pace
o   Reteach using a different order
o   Reteach identifying students of concern (small group)
o   Reteach using more repetitions
·      Checking for understanding is key during any lesson and perhaps one of the most necessary techniques if students are to get anything from instruction.  I’ve always been a fan of student notebooks for observation techniques.  They give me the opportunity to check on every student and then quickly confer with that student to their level of understanding.  Doing something about that understanding is imperative.  However, I never realized the importance of speed to correct that misunderstanding in this step.  Though I correct most misunderstandings immediately, I appreciate the reminder here.

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