Moving at the Speed of Creativity by Wesley Fryer

The Art & Science of Teaching by Dr. Phil Warrick (part 2 of 2)

These are my notes from the afternoon presentation of Dr. Phil Warrick on “The Art & Science of Teaching” on April 2, 2012, in Oklahoma City. This is a workshop hosted by Deer Creek PS. MY THOUGHTS AND COMMENTS ARE IN ALL CAPS. My morning notes are available.

What do we know about effective feedback?
timing: as immediate as possible
amount: less is more (a few key points)
to whom: individual, small group, whole group

Can be selective about what elements you want to focus on depending on the day/week
– sometimes you start with whole group, and move to small and individual
– the smaller the group, the more effective the feedback is generally

specificity: avoid comments like “study harder”
effort and preparation: give feedback on effort and preparation not talents, build growth mindsets
word choices: every word from a teacher matters, choose yours carefully

Grading and Feedback Study
– group 1: assignments with just grades
– group 2: got feedback only
– group 3: grade and feedback combined
– unfortunately, “the grade ‘trumps’ the comments if used together’
– we have a culture of grade grabbing in many schools
– research found it’s much better to provide feedback alone / without grades

Reflect on this: What types of feedback are students getting in your school? What ideas will you take back…

MY COMMENT: AS A SUNDAY SCHOOL TEACHER AT OUR CHURCH, IT’S INTERESTING (AND PROBABLY A PROBLEM) THAT STUDENTS RECEIVE VIRTUALLY ZERO FEEDBACK ON THEIR WORK OUTSIDE VERBAL FEEDBACK IN CLASS
– RARELY IS ANYTHING WRITTEN
– NOTHING IS ASSESSED
– FEEDBACK IS ALWAYS GROUP-DIRECTED, NEVER INDIVIDUALIZED UNLESS BEHAVIOR IS WELL OUTSIDE OF ACCEPTED NORMS

We’ve addressed these components that are routine in every lesson: rules and procedures, communicating learning goals, providing feedback

Now we’ll address tracking student progress and celebrating student success
– have students track their own learning progress
– 14 experimental-control studies conducted at Marano Research Laboratory
– this practice is associated with a 32 percentile point gain in student achievement
– example of student tracking personal performance in test scores

Different examples of students graphing / tracking their own grades/progress

Celebrating student learning
– “hall of awesomeness”

Fastest way to sell parents on new strategies: Kids like them
– this works for coaches, if kids like you as a coach they will shut down their own parents who might complain
– think about student tracking graphs in this context
– if you understand what you’re doing, it’s easy to sell parents: It’s about quality instructional practices based on academic research (40 years of research)

MY COMMENT: I’M WONDERING WHERE THERE ARE POINTS OF DISAGREEMENT BETWEEN EDUCATIONAL SCHOLARS / ACADEMICS AND MARZANO’S MAIN RESEARCH CONCLUSIONS / PRESCRIPTIONS

Tom Osborne used to go to high school football clinics and take notes
– he was always learning
– that is why he is so good

Can download

Create Teaching New Knowledge “combination notes” page
– regular notes in left column
– right column: symbol, picture or graphic
– bottom: summary

strategy is “summarizing and note taking” not just note taking

most effective teachers teach in small pieces: we call it chunking
– we violate chunking so much that I know my content well, my chunks are larger
– I have to remember what it’s like to a be a first time learner

a factor that can guide your decisions on chunking

Primacy-Recency Effect
– during a learning episode we remember that which occurs first
– second best that which comes last
– and least that which comes just past the middle

This is also called “Serial position effect

THIS IMAGE IS VERY SIMILAR TO THE ONE PHIL SHARED TODAY:

Also think about the quantity of new knowledge you can introduce and provide quality feedback

Pacing is also very important
– keeping pace
– changing pace
– this is one of the ARTS of teaching
– you have to know when you are going too fast or too slow
– you will FEEL it
– routines help teachers change and adjust pace
– think-pair-share, close partners, reflective journal…

Summarizing and note taking

MY COMMENT: I FOUND PHIL’S COMMENT THIS MORNING ABOUT ‘OTHER LANGUAGES’ OF TALKING ABOUT INSTRUCTION

Avid has some great note taking strategies
– if you’re not using them, your most struggling learners are likely getting lost

MY THOUGHT: DO WE HAVE NICE GOOGLE DOC TEMPLATES FOR NOTE TAKING STRATEGIES?

– needs to summarize in their own words
– use this as a good change of state strategy
– limit their words to summarize

Strategy: Write a headline
– write a short newspaper headline to summarize the information

MY IDEA: TEACHERS LEARN EFFECTIVE WAYS TO CHUNK INFORMATION AND ENGAGE STUDENTS WITH SHORT ATTENTION SPANS

ONE BIG MISSING ELEMENT FROM PHIL’S PRESENTATION TODAY: HE HAS NOT MADE ANY REFERENCES TO THE REVISED BLOOM’S TAXONOMY

Traditional rules-based sumamries
T = trivia (remove trivial material)
R = redundancies (remove repetitive information)
G = generalize (replace specifics or lists with general terms of phrases)
TS = topic sentence (determine the topic sentence, which is the subject plus the author’s claim about the subject. You might have to make one up if there isn’t one)

T – RG – TS (TARGETS)

We’ve known graphic organizers work well
– advanced graphic organizers
– very effective for new material critical input
– help students organize their information in smaller chunks

graphical instruction can be very effective for recall

Previewing
– students work with content prior to actual formal presentation or critical iput
– important for those coming with little or no background knowledge

New learning occurs best when
– learners have a basic, personal connection with a new concept
– have an opportunity odo their own thinking and attach learning to their own experiences
– the brain is stimulated…. (more)

Brain looks for five main patterns: classification, causal, difference, similar, sequence

Common advanced organizers
– Story Maps
– K-W-L Maps
– Venn Diagrams

Graphic organizer resource sites:
http://freeology.com/graphicorgs/
http://www.eduplace.com/graphicorganizer/

Brain research
– sight, hearing and touch are responsible for about 90% of all new learning
– taste and smell: not involved in a lot

Nonlinguistic Representations
– students build their own models based on new learning
– allow them to develop the ‘graphic’ representation to solidify meaning
– helps students create mental images of their learning
– includes physical models

Kids will work harder doing an assignment like creating a storyboard than many other text-based assignments
– give students opportunities to show you what they know

This is about taking a new modality of new knowledge, not just copying a word from the textbook and writing a definition down

Review what we’ve discussed about teaching new knowledge and write an 8 word summary

chunk, engage, create, share, collaborate

1 more strategy: The art of Questioning
– great teachers are great questioners
– everyday form of instructional feedback
– great engagement tool
– comes in many forms

Most common form of inductive and deductive reasoning: GOSSIP
– gather facts and draw conclusions

art of questioning
– two way process

starts with planning for questioning
– effective questioning doesn’t happen off the cuff
– most impromptu questions are low level cognition

Controlling response rate in questioning

Research finding
– not all students are held accountable to respond to all questions (many students call on volunteers or the same students)
– student volunteers constitute a select group of students

(Sattes and Walsh, 2005)

Be aware of practices that decrease response rates
– if only a few students are responding, you’re losing learning opportunities

Rule 1 in the game of school: I will site in the back and keep my mouth shut as long as you don’t call on me
– don’t buy into that

I have the ability to control response rates in my classroom

if you use a raise your hand system, then chart who is raising their hand
– it’s just about 6 kids in a typical classroom

some strategies:
– put numbers on your student desks
– draw numbers out of a hat for responses
– put desks next to each other, strategically group them

What to say instead of “I don’t know:
– may I please have more info?
– may I have some more time to think?
– would you please repeat the question?
– where could I find information about that?
– may I consult an expert (use text/notes or ask additional questions)
– may I ask a friend for help?
– may I poll the class?
– may I have a clue or fifty-fifty?

MY COMMENT: THIS IS A GREAT POSTER TO PUT UP IN THE CLASSROOM

White boards for questioning
– use them regularly in your classroom
– when using smart boards and one student is up front, the rest of the class could use whiteboards

Now seeing videos of teachers managing response rate, what are they doing?

Research finding
– teachers typically wait less than 1 second after asking a question before calling on a student to answer

There are two wait times that must occur in good questioning
1- after the question is asked
2- after an answer is given

TWO wait times: this is SO critical for all learners who may not have as much confidence
– letting the brain marinate
– both promote student thinking

Kids are going to have to spend more TIME thinking in the classroom

Zone of proximity for teachers calling on students very important: we tend to call on those students closest to us
– need to use other strategies

When using video clips to highlight strategies, I have secondary teachers use elementary examples, and elementary use secondary

MY THOUGHT: I SUGGESTED TO PHIL THE MARZANO RESEARCH LAB SHOULD SPONSOR A VIDEO CONTEST FOR FOLKS WORLDWIDE TO CREATE AND SHARE INSTRUCTIONAL VIDEOS WHICH HIGHLIGHT THESE STRATGIES. THIS IS SOMETHING WE DISCUSSED DOING JUST WITHIN OUR REAC3H NETWORK AS WELL AS ACROSS OKLAHOMA.. IT’S SOMETHING WE’RE GOING TO LOOK INTO!

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One response to “The Art & Science of Teaching by Dr. Phil Warrick (part 2 of 2)”

  1. Linda Albert Avatar
    Linda Albert

    Dr. Phil. Thanks for innovative teaching!!Forms