Ground Control Instruction
Dos Rios Elementary * November 16, 2017
Structuring Lessons So Students Struggle Productively and Collaborate
Originally titled “Turning Teaching Upside Down”
In this Educational Leadership article, math educator and writer Cathy Seeley remembers the logical, straightforward way she was taught to teach math: explain the concept, guide students as they work with examples, and then have them apply what they’ve learned as they work independently. The problem with this pedagogy is that it “may set students up for frustration and failure,” says Seeley, “especially when they’re faced with challenging problems they haven’t been taught how to solve.”
The alternative is what Seeley calls upside-down teaching – teacher-structured but with students doing most of the work. Here’s how it works: the teacher presents a problem students don’t already know how to solve, provides support as they wrestle with it, and then joins with them to connect their solutions to the mathematical goal. As students work, the teacher circulates, asks questions to clarify students’ thinking, and makes strategic decisions about which students should share their work, and in what sequence. The upside-down lesson reverses the conventional I-We-You sequence. Now it’s:
- You tackle a problem.
- We talk together about your thinking and your work.
- I help connect the discussion to the lesson goal.
“The focus is on students coming up with ideas, solutions, approaches, and models,” says Seeley, “even as the teacher facilitates the discussion…” It’s important to create a climate where it’s okay to make mistakes, students listen to each others’ contributions, and the ultimate solution is a group endeavor.
Why is this approach effective? Because, says Seeley, “constructively struggling with mathematical ideas can engage students’ thinking and help them learn to persevere in problem solving.” Upside-down teaching also helps students develop a growth mindset – the belief that they can get smarter through effort, strategy, and persistence.
The key to launching such lessons is a “low-floor, high-ceiling task” – with multiple entry points so all students can access the task at some level, and also plenty of depth. As students work, the teacher circulates and might say:
- How did you decide to divide by seven?
- Can you draw a picture of what you just said?
- Let me know when you’ve decided between your three different models.
When the class comes back together, students present their findings and the teacher asks clarifying questions, facilitates the discussion, makes good use of errors and misconceptions, and finally makes explicit the connections between students’ work and the mathematical goal of the lesson. Seeley describes four examples of upside-down lessons, with a video of each:
- Second graders watch a video of the Cookie Monster grabbing an unopened package of cookies, eating several, and putting the package back on a kitchen counter. “What did you notice about the video?” asks the teacher. “What did you wonder?” The question: How many cookies were eaten? Students work in pairs, the class reconvenes, and the teacher highlights different approaches and summarizes with a subtraction equation. http://bit.ly/22dMIic.
- A sixth-grade teacher shows students she can achieve the perfect shade of purple paint by mixing 2 cups of blue paint with 3 cups of red paint. Students are challenged to figure out, and model with colored cubes and drawings, how many cups of red and blue paint would be needed to make 20 cups of perfect purple paint. http://bit.ly/1Od4lbH.
“Turning Teaching Upside Down” by Cathy Seeley in Educational Leadership, October 2017 (Vol. 75, #2, p. 32-36), http://bit.ly/2gb1rup; Seeley can be reached at cseeley@utexas.edu.
Making Math Matter
Mathematics Teaching Practices: Implement Tasks That Promote Reasoning and Problem Solving
See download at bottom for full article.
Reading Rockets - Contributed by Ryann Miller
The Gradual Release of Responsibility:
Showing Kids How and Giving Them Time to Practice
Part Two
We’ve adapted the gradual release framework to include five components of comprehension strategy upon which we elaborate here.
Teacher Modeling
· Teacher explains the strategy.
· Teacher models how to effectively use the strategy to understand text.
· Teacher thinks aloud when reading to show thinking and strategy use.
Guided Practice
· Teacher purposefully guides a large-group conversation that engages students in a focused discussion that follows a line of thinking.
· Teacher and students practice the strategy together in a shared reading context reasoning through the text and co-constructing meaning through discussion.
· Teacher scaffolds the students’ attempts and supports their thinking, giving specific feedback and making sure students understand the task.
Collaborative Practice
· Students share their thinking processes with each other during paired reading and small-group conversations.
· Teacher moves from group to group assessing and responding to students’ needs.
Independent Practice
· After working with the teacher and with other students, the students try practicing the strategy on their own.
· The students receive regular feedback from the teacher and other students.
Application of the Strategy in Authentic Reading Situations
· Students use the strategy in authentic reading situations.
· Students use the strategy in a variety of different genres, settings, contexts, and disciplines. (Fielding and Pearson 1994; adapted by Harvey and Goudvis in 2005a)
In the past few years, we have come to understand that modeling should be short and sweet. Kids’ waving hands and whispered comments have sent us this message loud and clear. If all we ever did was think out loud about a piece of text, kids wouldn’t listen for long. So we model for a few minutes, just long enough to get our point across, and then quickly engage kids in guided practice. Most of our instructional time is spent in guided practice because that is where we can best support kids as they move towards independence. We ask kids to talk to each other frequently throughout the lesson, process the information, and share their thoughts and opinions. As soon as we sense they are ready, we send them off to practice collaboratively and/or independently.
Strategies that Work: Teaching Comprehension for Understanding and Engagement, 2007