EOC 12th Week Progress Results
Where Do We Go From Here?
Progress Overview
During the week of November 7th, our EOC tested areas took a blind assessment to check for understanding and to identify where we (as a campus) need to provide our focus. It will come as no shock that our students have difficulty drawing conclusions, inferring, summarizing - bottom line using their critical thinking skills. With that in mind, following our data meeting with Dr. Hockenberry and Dr. Lemoine it was stressed that across the campus we need to make sure our lessons are addressing those areas.
Act, Assess, Analyze
Each of the tested areas has a particular TEK that addresses critical thinking, inferring, making predictions, and drawing conclusions. This TEK is not limited to those measured areas - each core content from K-12 has a TEK that addresses these skills, so, in essence, WE are all being held accountable for our students to have the ability to think. Not easy, I know - Henry Ford said: "Thinking is hard - that is why so few do it." It takes time, preparation, but in the end, it is certainly worth it for our students.
Some Critical Thinking Strategies that Align with the TEKS ( all content TEKS)
Popcorn Predictions
Before starting your lesson select/compose about 15 key sentences that offer clues as to what the story or lesson is about without giving away too much information. Type these sentences out on strips of papers and either post around the room or make copies, so each student gets one sentence ( it's okay if the sentences are repeated ). Students can then either pair up/group up and share their sentences, briefly discussing what the book/lesson could be about. After 1-2 minutes they move to the next - repeat - they keep "popping" to build on their predictions.
This strategy immediately gets students predicting, analyzing, and making connections before you've even started your lesson and/or reading.
Five Words
Before beginning a new read and/or lesson, select five important words/phrases and write them on the board. Using these five words/phrases and the title of your book, article, or lesson, give students 10 minutes to write their own story that includes these words/phrases. You could even take some time to have them read out aloud. This gets the students to thinking outside the box. Once the lesson is finished, revisit these stories and see which students came the closest to the actual storyline.
Two Truths and One Lie
We've all played this as an icebreaker at one time or another but think about it as a strategy to begin a lesson and/or a read. In this case, before starting the lesson, provide the students with a handout of preselected quotes and/or facts (10-15 quotes/facts) and two truths and one lie about the lesson material. Students are to decide which statement are the truths and which statement is the lie based on the quotes they are provided. This gets the students to using textual evidence to support their reasoning. This could get somewhat rowdy as students defend their choices. Rowdy but it can be loads of fun!!!!
Questions? Ideas? Assistance?
I am here to help and am constantly open to ideas that can be shared with others to move us forward. Don't hesitate to stop by.
As a good "Pirate for Learning/Teaching" - I must give credit to Rachel Lynette for these ideas - check out her blog Minds in Bloom for many more ideas. These are three that I have used personally so I know they are doable.
Email: kaylin.burleson@centerisd.org
Location: Room 302
Twitter: @busybteach