Scaffolded Instruction and Paired Verbal Fluency

Excellence in Education: Scaffolding Instruction

Scaffolding instruction, coupled with formative assessment, is a powerful instructional strategy. Scaffolding refers to breaking up the learning into chunks and providing the appropriate supports for each step. This past week I saw several teachers using scaffolding in different ways.

• Mr, Kuzma showed students a completed student project before they began working on it. By presenting a model, he could more effectively guide students through the various steps of the process.
• I saw several teachers use think alouds as they read text or contemplated their own posed questions.
• Mr. Konoza pre-teaching vocabulary. By frontloading the vocabulary (as opposed to sending the students into a reading or class without the necessary knowledge) with additional support (examples, analogies, antonyms, synonyms, etc) students were ready to continue in class.
• Ms. Miller’s use of a graphic organizer to teach US History to her self-contained class. By providing the students with the graphic organizer as a starting point, her students were able slowly progress from simple to more difficult.

Each of the examples reduced student confusion, clarified purpose, enabled students to stay on task, and creating student momentum by inspiring learners to want to learn more.

Ideas for the Classroom: Paired Verbal Fluency

1. Students partner up.
2. Students decide who will be A who will be B.
3. Teacher provides a topic for discussion. This could be a review, something they hold an opinion of, etc.
4. A is to talk about the topic for 60 seconds. (You can allow/outlaw use of resources).
5. B is then to talk about the topic for 60 seconds but he/she can NOT repeat what Student A said.
6. Then give the students some time to reflect on their conversation.
7. Student B is then given 30 seconds to add anything left untouched in the conversation.
8. A is then given the final 30 seconds.

This is a great way to maintain high expectations and to formatively assess students. The one-on-one nature is non-threatening and provides students with meaningful feedback.

Administrative Notes

Positive Referral Link: http://goo.gl/cZIXm7

We’ll be looking at how we can best extend flex into May. More to come…

We had our leadership team meeting last Thursday, your department chairs will soon be sharing the information from this meeting.

May 30 will be the Senior-Faculty Basketball game. Each class period will meet (just shortened). Again more info will be coming.

Wednesday morning will be our top decile breakfast. Congratulations to these hard-working students who have earned this honor.

With all of the rain forecasted for this week, I’m not even going to post this week’s sports schedule.

Quote of the Week

The process of learning is much more important for our kids to see than the product of our learning.

~George Couros

What I’m Reading

How Anxious Are Kids About Standardized Tests

Ten Thoughts on Grading and Assessment