Time the Great Equalizer

Time in every classroom is precious. Every teacher should be thinking about how they use it. This consideration is especially important for EL students. One thing related to time that I want to talk about today is wait time. At the end of the post I will teach you the QPS strategy that you can use tomorrow in your classroom.

Stop and think

Wait time is the practice of pausing during instruction to allow students think. Sometime it may seem natural to ask a question and quickly call on an eager student willing to share. However, that isn’t best practice especially if you have EL students in your class.

This is for a couple of reasons. The first being processing time and the second being student confidence.

If a student is not a native English speaker, the student may have to process the question in another language first. This puts them at a disadvantage if they would like to answer the question, but aren’t given the opportunity to. Since the call and response is so quick an EL student is always playing catch up in the conversation.

The second reason is related to the first but slightly different. Since an EL student may take longer to gather their thoughts, they may be less likely to respond in front of peers for fear of making mistakes. So how do we more students the time they need to think?

Use QPS.

• Question
• Pause
• Scan

When using this strategy ask the question. Pause for at least 5-10 seconds and possibly longer. While waiting for volunteers scan the room inviting students to think and share.

Hopefully this strategy will help more students think and interact in tor classrooms.

What the Grade?

Giving students a simple A, B, or C letter grades, percentage points, or even a completion check. Has been proven to be the least effective way to help students learn. The most effective way is providing feedback for students to improve. The purpose of assessment should be on what skills students have learned or showed proficiency in. This is good for the teacher teaching the student and the students themselves. Also other specialists that work with the student. If everyone is able to see what that student can do in a class, it makes it easier to diagnose where problems could arise with student work.

One recent example of this is I had a conversation with a math teacher about a student who seemed to be struggling in the class. When I went to meet with the teacher, I asked probing questions i.g., what is the student struggling with, can the student solve the problem, etc. The problem wasn’t the teacher, but the system which gives an artificial corresponding letter grade with a subjective point total. Ultimately that point total can magically be put into a 0-100 scale. Of course most teachers and students grow up in an archaic grading system such as this but we can do better.

This situation pushed me to try and figure out a way to improve my teaching and ultimately student learning. A few weeks ago I came across this post by Caitlin Tucker.

I am personally trying to move away from this system to a performance based grading system where the students will have to self assess their work and provide evidence for their learning based on certain skills and standards for that unit. This will give me the opportunity to provide feedback individually and the students will be able to see where the are improving or what specifically needs to be improved.

This has been a messy process of me analyzing prioritized standards that my district has created for 6-8 ELA. Then trying to break down each of those standards into smaller chunks that my students and I will be able to measure based on different assessments. For some of the skills I will incorporate language that is commonly used in WIDA language rubrics. These rubrics and assessments are used to assess EL students language development.

As of right now I am still in the process of figuring out what will show understanding for each skill or standard. I am open to allow students to create their own assessment, but I think some more traditional options through or a google form could be used. As I continue through the process this will continue to change.

Another area that I am working on is deciding on what rubric should be used to show growth. I have thought about a more traditional three or four point rubric. However, I recently saw a one point rubric which really made an impression on me for its simplicity.

I think it’s time for for educators, parents and, students to shift their mindset on the issue of grades. I think it has the ability to enhance the learning experience for teachers and students.

Planning for ELs

Have you ever thought to yourself, I wish I knew how to reach my English Learners (ELs)? No matter what I do, they don’t seem to understand anything. If you have ever been in that position, it is not uncommon. I ask myself this or a similar question almost daily. But as an educator I can’t stop there so i need to plan better. One of my jobs as an EL teacher is to teach students academic language to be successful.

When planning lessons for ELs the learning experiences should try to include as many language modalities as possible. Below is a guide from Lincoln Public Schools in Lincoln, Nebraska.

Asking those three questions above helps provide an outline of the lesson which will help plan for the academic language used in the lesson and the activities that will be used to help create engaging learning experiences.

“The limits of my language are the limits of my world.” Ludwig Wittgenstein

We are the bridge to support our ELs academic language learning. If specific focus is not given to the language that is used in all content areas, ELs will not reach their full potential.

In a blog post by Doug Lemov (author of teach like a champion) he highlights how a teacher has students replace general words used to describe a scene from Othello with more academic vocabulary just by having it written on the board  and having the students refer to to it for their verbal responses.

How simple is that. It probably only took thirty seconds to write on the board, but think of the impact it will have on their learning. The students are already analyzing a complex story so why make it more difficult by having the students refer back to their memories those words.  They are in the process learning those words. Learning is messy.  If you aren’t making mistakes, you aren’t learning fast enough.

1. Plan for that academic vocabulary and concepts that cross content areas.
   
2. Organize the learning experiences.
   
3. Use as many language modalities as possible.

Lincoln Public Schools ELL Instructional Strategies

Planning for ELLs with SWRRL