My favorite way to introduce procedures is to plant procedure questions under each desk or lab stool. Then after introducing myself to the class and doing a couple of beginning of year activities to get to know my students, I have them look under their chairs for a question. The students then decide with their table group whether their questions are essential for the whole class to know. Then I teach other procedures as they come up in class rather than boring the class on day one.
I had been teaching for four years when I moved to a new city and took over a teaching position that was posted just three weeks into the school year. Rather than moving me directly into the classroom, my principal wisely asked me to spend three days observing other teachers in the school and developing my own set of classroom procedures for us to talk about before I took over the class. Not only was I able to get a sense of the school culture by observing other teachers, but I was also given a chance to carefully plan how to use class time efficiently and effectively. I learned the difference between rules and procedures so that I could respond appropriately to student behaviors. Students who do not know what they are supposed to be doing do not always make good choices about what to do. Providing routines and procedures for classes help students feel more safe and secure so that they can settle in quickly and start learning. Harry Wong described the importance of a good beginning in his book The First Days of School (2001). Subsequent publications also emphasize the importance of the first five minutes of class. In his latest book about how the timing (the when) of an event has just as much impact on the outcome as any other detail (the what), Daniel Pink also describes how beginnings are critical to the success of any endeavor. Great lessons and engaging activities lose their momentum when the first five minutes of class are not carefully structured and time is wasted. Take time to build relationships with students and to let them build trusting relationships with one another. In the end, time invested in teaching routines and procedures as well as building relationships will pay off by increased student motivation and achievement. Why not toss in team-building and class-building questions while also asking review questions? Students need to feel like they belong at their school and that what they contribute to the class is meaningful. We should do what we can to facilitate that.
A Glimpse Into My Classroom
Open with a Warm-Up, BellRinger, or Do-Now Assignment Students need to know that you have a plan for the day and that their time will be used productively. One of the best ways to establish this is to have an assignment on the board for them when they walk in the door. In the Photoelectron Spectroscopy (PES) video below, the first 8:00 minutes of class show the students working on the Warm-Up. Since I was still trying to set up all the recording equipment and get settled, that's a little more time than I usually like to spend on the Warm-Up, but an important interaction occurred from time 1:06 - 1:59, where one girl explains to three other students how she solved the problem on the board.
Share Good Things The class period before this one, I had a substitute teacher due to an unexpected trip to the emergency room. Starting off with Good Things was an important way for me to reconnect with my students before diving back into content. From time 7:58 - 13:49 we took a few minutes to share some positive events from outside of class time. Not only does this build relational capacity in our class, but studies show that thinking positive thoughts leads to more productive and creative thinking (Marzano, 2011). Sharing our Good Things helps put us in the right mindset for deeper, more collaborative learning.
I use the app Noteshelf to write on my iPad. Since I teach in shared classrooms, board space is not always guaranteed. Being able to AirPlay from my iPad is a lifesaver. PowerPoints or Google Slides saved as pdf files can be imported into Noteshelf. Often I hand over the iPad to students so they can show their thinking as they explain a problem.
Review Content from Last Class to Connect to Today's Lesson Since my class is flipped, a large-group discussion or lecture is rare. The lesson plan also had to change because a website I had used in the past to teach about PES has been recently shut down. Instead of using the site as an exploratory station, I had to guide the class through the concept all together instead. From 13:50 - 18:40 we reviewed concepts that students had already learned in previous lessons to create context for new ideas introduced after 18:40 minutes. According to the Six Essential Cs for Learning (Goodwin & Hubbell, 2013, p. 142-144), Connection, or being intentional about connecting new learning with prior knowledge, helps students gather discrete bits of information together to make sense of it. Coherence, or elaborating on the connections, patterns, and larger meaning of each part of the lesson, helps students retain information.
Image from Kagan Cooperative Learning (Kagan, S. & Kagan, M. 2009). Click the image above to read the article The Essential 5: A Starting Point for Kagan Cooperative Learning (Clowes, 2011).
Get Up and Move! Connect with Classmates During Review Time After about 10 minutes of introducing new material (and 30 minutes of sitting on the uncomfortable lab stools), it was time to re-energize the room. Using the Kagan structure Stand Up, Hand Up, Pair Up, I asked my students to review the electron configurations from a previous lesson that we would need to use to make sense of today's lesson on Photoelectron Spectroscopy. Starting at time 28:05, when I mentioned it was time to get up and move, student responded enthusiastically. Once I gave them clear expectations for the activity, I was also free to check my attendance because in the rush of getting the recording started, I wasn't sure if I had actually submitted that yet. Moving my computer changed my first camera angle though, so after minute 29:00 or so, that portion of the recording (via the Swivl app) was unusable and I had to switch over to camera 2 and the screen recording. Note that giving our students a break to get up and move also gives the teacher a short break too for hydration, administrative tasks, and one-on-one conversations with kids. You may notice me encouraging and reminding students, but I am also not controlling every interaction because students need some autonomy and choice during a lesson. At 34:30 we return to our seats to begin digging in to the most complex part of our lesson. It was essential to get the oxygen flowing back into our brains before taking on the challenge of PES. This lesson involves much more sitting and lecturing than is typical for my class.
Guided Notes allow me to help students focus on higher level thinking. Click the image to access the slideshow used for this lesson.
Guided Notes Promote Student Concentration and Accuracy Providing students with guided notes (shown on the screen at 38:38) has been shown to increase note-taking accuracy and student test scores (Haydon, et. al. 2011). The advantage I have found is that it lowers the cognitive load so that students are free to concentrate on higher level content rather than writing every single word. PES can be a complex concept, but starting with simpler atoms and working our way up to more complex structures allows students to make sense of what they learn while connecting PES with other ideas from previous lessons about electron configurations, Bohr diagrams, orbital energy level diagrams (Aufbau), and the atomic emission spectra. Student concentration is obvious from minutes 37:01 - 61:05. Concentration is another of the Six Essential Cs (Goodwin & Hubbell, 2013). Coaching is also one of the Six Cs. At 45:40, I point out a detail on the graph that some students had not noticed before and you can see and hear them as they make adjustments to their work. Using the iPad for notes also leaves me free to move around the room and offer assistance and suggestions as students work through the lesson. One-on-one coaching would not be as easy to accomplish if I had to stay next to the whiteboard or computer.
Who Cares? Creating Relevance for Each Lesson The final C in the Six Essential Cs of Learning (Goodwin & Hubbell, 2013) is Context. Without making our lessons relevant to our students and giving them a context for how this information applies to the world around them, we lose a tremendous opportunity. From time 61:20 - 65:00, we discuss why this information is important to us in our everyday live. To close out the lesson I give instructions for next steps and students are free for the rest of our 96-minute class to choose their next activity, depending on what they need to accomplish next in their personal daily goals. My recommendation is to work on the pre-lab activity because it directly relates to the lesson we just completed.
This video was recorded on October 25, 2018 using the Swivl app, set to utilize Mutliple Cameras and Multi-Marker mode to capture more of the sound at each table. Some post production editing was accomplished using Camtasia to layer the iPad screen capture recording with the Swivl recording, but any other recording glitches or synching of cameras was not manipulated so as to give the most authentic possible glimpse of the lesson.
References Clowes, G. The Essential 5: A Starting Point for Kagan Cooperative Learning. San Clemente, CA: Kagan Publishing. Kagan Online Magazine, Spring 2011. www.KaganOnline.com Goodwin, B., & Hubbell, E. (2013). The 12 touchstones of good teaching: A checklist for staying focused every day. Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision & Curriculum Development. Haydon, T., Mancil, G., Richmond, Kroeger, S. D., McLeskey, J., & Lin, Wan-Yu J. (2011). A Review of the Effectiveness of Guided Notes for Students Who Struggle Learning Academic Content. Preventing School Failure, 55(4), 226-231. Kagan, S., & Kagan, M. (2009). Kagan Cooperative Learning. San Clemente, CA: Kagan Publishing. Marzano, R. (2011). Relating to Students: It's What You Do That Counts. Educational Leadership, 68(6), 82-83.