After reading Chapters 5 and 6 in Tools for Teaching by Fred Jones, add your comment to the following prompt on this post, not your blog. (Note: You must be logged into your Google account to comment.)
You've been there. You've prepared a lesson, "bopped 'til you dropped", then had the helpless handraisers give you a workout. During the guided practice portion of the lesson you had the feeling of exasperation - muscles tensing and a bit of adrenaline flowing - the sinking feeling as you felt like your lesson was a wreck as your students continually asked for help. Jones says that when we learn something with multiple steps or levels, it does not go into our long term memory. Thus, it is not unusual for students to get "stuck" when doing guided practice for information with multiple steps, levels or layers. His procedure for teachers to give corrective feedback to a student involves finding out where the student got lost and concisely explaining what they need to do next, nothing more. In his words, "be clear, be brief, be gone."
Will this model be useful for you in your field site classroom? What concerns do you have about using it? Do you think that this will change the behavior of your "helpless handraisers?'
To an extent, I believe this method could work really well in the classroom. It would save time, making it easier to help more students. The only concerns I have with using this method at my site school is that most of these hand raisers either don't pay attention when the lesson is being taught, so its not "short and simple", or they are just raising their hands for attention and are not even trying. Possibly this could stop the helpless hand raisers because if I am only willing to help with one task, they would realize I do not have the time to sit their and hold their hand throughout the entire assignment, therefore they must do the work themselves.
ReplyDeleteI don't think that this method would work well at all for kindergarteners. Even when you are "being clear" to them, they don't fully understand what you're asking them. Being brief and gone with children that are five and six years old does not work because then instead of raising hands, they will all be at the teachers desk asking questions which is more distracting than "helpless handraisers."
ReplyDeleteAfter reading this chapter, I believe that it would work in my classroom because there are many students in my class that often need additional assistance when we begin the guided practice. Usually, I try and explain the entire problem first, which confuses them, however I think that Jones's idea of being concise and telling them what to do next is great, so the students can focus on their next step, and nothing more. One concern is that some of my students are completely lost, so after telling them what to do, they may not know how to do it, or may need help on the following steps as well. I think it will help the helpless handraisers because they won't try to keep talking to me and making conversation, so once they are given instruction they will get right to work, and not keep raising their hands.
ReplyDeleteI think this model will be very helpful to me in the classroom because sometimes it is difficult to get to all of the students raising their hands in a short amount of time. With this model, I will be able to follow a routine that will quickly address each hand that is raised. The only concern I have using this method would be that the students would get help on the next step, but would also need additional help on the following steps. After addressing the students, I feel as if their hand would shoot right back up after the step that I helped them on was completed. Hopefully this will help the helpless hand raisers, and keep them focused after I quickly get them back on task.
ReplyDeleteI feel like this method would be useful for certain things, since I am in a kindergarten class the kids don't have long term memory like stated and the teacher has to repeat her self several times for it to stick into there heads.I think using this model would help them because it would get them thinking about the parts of the assignment that they don't understand which would trigger something in there brain saying, I Know this.
ReplyDeleteThe only problem that I have with this model is be brief. If the child doesn't understand the lesson after the teacher taught it for twenty minutes, then why would the child understand it after a ten second recap? I understand that being quick helps you keep the talking in the classroom down, but I think having a student understand material is worth a couple of kids whispering. I also think that no matter what you do you will still have helpless hand raisers in the classroom.
ReplyDeleteI believe that this model would work better in more of the upper level grades, rather than the lower elementary grades. In my Kindergarten class a lot of the time the kids who need help need to be guided through the assignment. However, with my 7th graders this model would work well since a lot of the time the middle schoolers I have just want to procrastinate their work.
ReplyDeleteI believe this method would work well in high school classroom because the students are more likely to comprehend what I am asking, or what is in our group discussion. Older kids would like something short sweet and too the point but if we are having a group step by step they should have no problem and really excel. Most of the time students are to afraid to raise there hand unless the fully feel as if they know the answer but with this method I feel as if almost the entire class will want to answer be they believe as if they know the question full heartedly. so , yes I feel as this method will really work.
ReplyDeleteFor me personally and the type of classroom I'm in, since I am in a special education classroom, I can't just "be brief", I have to explain in depth what I am doing and how the students need to complete it. My concerns for using this method would be that I did not explain well enough to my students the directions and the process to the point where they get stressed out and give up. I don't believe that this process will help with the hand raisers because my students ask questions over the simplest of things, they would have even more questions if I was brief with my explanation.
ReplyDeleteI believe this method would work well in high school classroom because the students are more likely to understand what I am asking. Most of the work my students do is online so they really don't need to the step by step because they do look most of it if they do not remember also we do a lot of research on animal disease.
ReplyDeleteBeing in a first grade bilingual classroom would be very useful for the ones that can't comprehend the lesson faster then others. However I usually don't have the "helpless hand-raisers" but I do have students that glaze out into space or play with friends and it is extremely difficult to make sure all the students understand what is being taught. When presenting a lesson or anything involving a step by step procedure, I have to make sure what I say is clear and brief so that I don't waste time only on one thing or even saying the wrong thing. Therefore I do agree that this model would be very useful and would change their behavior.
ReplyDeleteI believe this method would work in my field site classroom most of the time. Being in a third grade classroom, the kids want to be involved and need lots of recognition, so most of the kids just want recognition rather than needing help. I think this will make things clearer for the shy kids who don't raise their hands when they need help, but as for the "helpless handraisers", I don't think it will help.
ReplyDelete