Teacher Talks: How to Use Formative Assessment as an Engagement Technique

Compiled by Kate Wolfe Maxlow

Here in Hampton City Schools, Virginia, we know that the best classroom activities serve more than one purpose. For this article, we looked at how our amazing teachers use formative assessment not only to guide their instruction, but to move from simple student compliance to high levels of engagement. (What's the difference between engagement and compliance? Check it out here.)

We asked our all-star teachers to explain how they use formative assessments to hook and motivate their students.

Toymeka Rogers, Kindergarten

• Formative assessment technique: The following activity was utilized to assess student’s understanding of story elements; the main characters, setting, and key events. I used the student’s writing notebook to do a daily quick check for each of the story elements.  Quick Check 1, students drew and labeled 2 main characters from the story. Afterwards, students turned and talked to share their drawings. Day 2, students had to draw and label the setting. Day 3, the students drew and wrote a sentence about a key event in the story. 
• How it informed instruction: The teacher can evaluate which students are able to listen and comprehend a story. The activity is a great tool to note if a student can recall and retell the details and main components of a story.  In addition, the data from the observation will help the teacher determine which students are ready for story maps to build on comprehension and organizing information. The teacher can also determine which students needs more practice and support with identifying the main components of a story. 

Angela Dandridge, Grade 4

• Formative assessment technique: I used Plickers, which my students love. When answering questions from the Standards of Learning reading slideshow, they get a copy of the text to annotate and a card with a unique code. After we read the text, I post the questions 1 at a time. They use the cards to answer the posted question. Once everyone chooses an answer, my app reads their choices. It's all private, but I post a graph of selected answers which we then discuss why we might have selected the choices.  
• How it informed instruction: I get instant results and can see which students chose which answer. I am then able to see who needs help in which SOLs or might be confused when questions are asked in particular ways. I then use that information to reteach to the whole group or in intervention.

Elaine Cosme, Elementary School

• Formative assessment technique: During 3rd, 4th, and 5th grade Math Blitz, the teachers developed a treasure hunt that was done outside. Students were put into teams and they had to find various geometric figures and define the figures. Using their chrome books, they took pictures of the items they found and we may them into slide shows.
• How it informed instruction: Instruction was reinforced by what has been taught in class. When students had questions, we the teachers were able to explain what they didn't understand and help them find "answers" to their questions. All of the students enjoyed the activity and couldn't believe how many things they could find right outside of our school building!

Anonymous, Elementary School

• Formative assessment technique: I often use dry erase boards and markers to engage the students.  I have found that the desk make amazing dry erase boards.  I will present a problem, thought, idea, or concept related to the subject matter and students must work through them on their desk while I circulate through the room seeing who has a grasp of the material. Students can then present what they or their partner did or listed to the rest of the class. This provides an opportunity for students to work with a table partner. 
• How it informed instruction: I can note what the students are doing as they are working either together or independently and quickly address them when we jump back in the absorb portion of the lesson.  

Donna Phan, Elementary School

• Formative assessment technique: My Favorite No--two problems were chosen for students on an exit card. Cards were put into piles of yes/no by response.  I chose my favorite "no" response to analyze  with the class. 
• How it informed instruction: I could tell by the few number of no responses that the students understood the skill that day.  When I used it again later in the week, I saw that the number of "no"s in the pile were greater, therefore, they didn't understand the skill for that day.

Samantha West, Middle School English

• Formative assessment technique: I use Emoji Exit Tickets at the end of a lesson to gauge student understanding. I pass out a pre-printed ticket to everyone, which has ~15 emojis. I ask students to circle 1-3 that reflect how they felt about today’s lesson in terms of them understanding, then I have them write 1-2 sentences explaining why they circled those emojis. Lastly, before they leave they drop their ticket in one of my hanging pockets labeled Got It, Almost, Kind Of, Nope.
• How it informed instruction: First I see how many Got It and Nope tickets I have. If I have lots of Nope and Kind Of tickets, that tells me I need to spend more time on this topic and maybe adjust my delivery. If I have a lot of Got It’s then that tells me I did my job :)

Anonymous, Middle School History

• Formative assessment technique: Kahoot was used to access what student's understood about President's Day, Christopher Columbus, and Independence Day. 
• How it informed instruction: The data I collected was used to plan instruction for those reporting category and determine which students were ready for an assessment and which students required more intense instruction. 

Laurie Coleman, Middle School Science

• Formative assessment technique: Kahoot! It is an easy activity that requires little set up time. They don't have to get out of their seats and it wakes them up.  
• How it informs instruction: I like using it as a break in the class. We will do it and I will be able to gauge the student's knowledge. I download the data and look at it while they are working independently so I know who needs extra help. 

Jennifer Miguel, High School English

• Formative assessment technique: Tableaux--Students worked in groups to come up with a key scene from a work of literature. They had to create a tableaux of that scene. They had to show body postures, facial expressions, etc. There is a handout that is used to pre-plan--which scene, what the character's are thinking, their motivation as well as a evaluation after--whose was the best and why.
• How it informed instruction: It gave me an idea of who understood the key events in the story. If they picked something unimportant, I knew they didn't get the point. If they couldn't show the scene effectively, I knew they didn't understand characterization, etc.

Anonymous, High School Science

• Formative assessment technique: I have been using Edulastic for SOL review. We are doing a different unit each week, and we spend the first 20 minutes of class (after our warm-up) on review. Students log on to their account and complete the assigned Edulastic Assignment. 
• How it informed instruction: I am then able to see what areas my students are strong in and what areas they need more remediation in during this time of SOL preparation. We also read through the questions as a class and discuss the answers. 

Managing Your Project-Based Learning: The Phases Approach

by Kate Wolfe Maxlow

One of the reasons that teachers often shy away from Project-Based Learning is the worry about time. When we do training sessions on PBL, that's the main question participants ask: How do we fit this in?

I like to think about it like this: when you workout, do you get the biggest bang for your buck when you work out for 20 minutes every other day, or 60 minutes once a week? It's pretty well accepted that it's the former. Spaced exercise tends to keep us in better shape than one long session.

It's the same way with PBLs. You don't need to shut down your entire classroom for a week or two in order to do a PBL. In fact, it's probably better if you don't, because then students can easily become overwhelmed and not have enough time to do the deep thinking and processing required to complete a bang-up project.

Instead, consider leading up to your PBL throughout an entire unit, or even throughout a quarter or the year, so that by the time you get to the actual implementation phase of the PBL, students are raring to go and can get it completed quickly.

Let me give you an example. One year, my fourth grade team decided to create a museum about the history and geography of our home state, Virginia, that would culminate in a giant museum fair the same day as our PTA event at the end of the first quarter.

Our study of Virginia geography and early history spanned the entire first quarter. At no point did we shut down the classroom. Instead, we peppered in smaller projects throughout lessons. When we learned about the geography,  students made salt dough maps. When we learned about the resources of the regions, they made raps and a few students took the initiative to ask our Instructional Resource Teacher to film them and help them turn their song into a music video. We wrote stories from the point of view of the American Indians before the arrival of the settlers, which students typed up, illustrated, and then made into books.

The actual preparation for the museum itself only took about 2 days. During social studies class, the students drew up a plan for who would bring which of their projects, how to display them, who would man the various stations, and what these docents would say. Everything else was already done by that point. It ended up being a huge success, because it had been implemented in chunks throughout the entire quarter.

Need more ideas?

Another project that we did ended in a reverse career fair. Once again, the build-up to it took almost an entire quarter. I started by having students think about a future career they would like. Then, as part of their English class, I had them research the median income for that career AND how much post-high school work would be required in order to achieve that career. Some people who wanted to be police officers switched to brain surgeons once they saw the salaries, then switched back once they realized they would be in school for a really, really long time to accomplish that.

We didn't stop there, though. Once students had their median income, over the course of various mathematics lessons, they built budgets based on their desired careers and potential monthly salaries. They had to factor in the type of house and car that they wanted, groceries, gas, entertainment money, etc.. Some of the students once again refined their career choice.

We kept going. In another lesson (this time in writing) they actually created a resume as if applying for a job in their chosen career. They had to brainstorm and list their educational background (after researching what technical schools or colleges they would need to attend based on their career choice), internships they would have, their skills and strengths. Then they wrote a cover letter.

For the actual PBL itself, the reverse career fair, students dressed as they would for their career. They printed copies of their resumes. Parents came and mingled around, acting as potential interviewers with the students. For instance, "I see you want to be a veterinarian. Where did you go to college? Why do you think you're qualified for this job?" Students distributed their resumes and gave answers based on their research.

Again, we didn't shut down our classroom for two weeks to do this PBL. It was woven in through an entire quarter in small pieces where it made sense with what we were already doing. That allowed me to keep up with my curriculum and pacing. It allowed the students not to get overwhelmed and to think about their choices and refine them as they went. I was able to provide feedback as they went and no one was scrambling at the end because they'd put everything off until the last minute.

Consider how you can phase in your PBL like this. You don't have to do it all at once. In fact, the sooner that you introduce it, the more you can make connections to it throughout the learning. For instance, I once watched a geometry teacher start a unit on geometric probability by saying, "At the end of the this unit, you're going to create a carnival game that uses geometric probability to make the game fun enough to play while ensuring you don't lose money because it's too easy to win." As he went through the mathematics instruction, he would be able to occasionally stop and say, "And you'll use this same process later in the unit on your project..."

You can even use your PBL as your hook in the beginning of the year. For instance, if you're eventually going to have your students write and perform a one-act play, you can tell them at the very beginning of the year. Let them know that you'll work together during the first quarter just to explore various genres of plays. Maybe during the second quarter, they'll work on their outline. During the third quarter, they'll work intensely on the writing of the one act, and during the fourth quarter, they'll work on practicing and planning for the actual event. You can have them work on their one-act whenever they finish their other work early, as well as scheduling maybe 10 minutes a few times a week to get with their group and discuss. By the time you get to fourth quarter, they're going to have a mostly-finished product and you won't have to completely shut down your classroom.

Hopefully, those give you some ideas for how to implement in a way that will actually work for you, your students, and your curriculum.

Kate Wolfe Maxlow is the Professional Learning Coordinator for Hampton City Schools in Hampton, Virginia. She can be reached at kmaxlow@hampton.k12.va.us.

Taking the Project-Based Learning Plunge: A Starter's FAQ Guide

by Kate Wolfe Maxlow

You've made up your mind. Yeah, your students have to do well on the end-of-year standardized assessment, but you know that's not enough. You want YOUR students to be critical thinkers, solving problems together. Making the world a better place. Believing that

they can make the world a better place.

So, you research some different instructional models and decide that you're going to dip your toes in the Project-Based Learning water. You love that it allows your students to implement what they're learning in a real-world situation, that it gives them choice and voice in their own learning. And bonus: it's basically how most people in the real-world work every day, so you're actually preparing them for life beyond PreK-12 education.

But you're a savvy educator and have a few questions before you start. Good for you. Let's talk about some of the most common ones.

1. Does the research even support Project-Based Learning as an effective instructional method?
First of all, if you haven't read this blog on the limitations of educational research, go do that real quick. You probably noticed one important thing: Educational research usually uses standardized tests (which are notoriously full of lower-level multiple choice, non-authentic items) to determine the effectiveness of a strategy.

I'm going to be honest here. If your main goal for the year is to get through a curriculum that's a mile wide and an inch deep and test it with out-of-context problems that really only get through, at best, the Application level...Project-Based Learning might not be the instructional method for you. Likewise, if you're at the beginning of a unit and you just need students to get some fact and skill fluency, direct instruction is probably your best bet. There's a time and a place for different instructional models.

John Hattie, author of Visible Learning: A Synthesis of Over 800 Meta-Analyses Relating to Achievement, doesn't look at the numbers specifically on project-based learning, but he does investigate the effects of its cousin, problem-based learning, and has this to say about it:

"Dochy, Segers, Van den Bossche, and Gijbels (2003) found an overall negative effective for problem-based learning compared to a conventional learning environment on knowledge (d = -0.78) but noted that problem-based learning had a positive effective on skills (d = 0.66). It was the case that students taught using problem-based learning had less knowledge but had better recall of the knowledge they had."

A d = 0.66 is equivalent to an average of a 25 percentile point gain for students who engage in the strategy. (Want to know more about effect sizes? Check out what Marzano has to say about them here.) Meanwhile, direct instruction, the most common instructional method, only has an effect size of d = 0.59 (a 22 percentile point gain for students engaging in the strategy).

Inquiry learning, also similar to project-based learning, has similar research backing it up. It's bad for memorizing a bunch of facts; great for critical thinking and having students actually remember what they learn.

So, where does this leave us? Don't waste precious instructional time doing a project-based learning unit on things that aren't really important for your students to remember. Use project-based learning on the skills that will have the most impact on students' future lives--the ones that you want them to remember forever.


2. How on earth will I have time to do a project-based learning unit?
Yep, these take a long time. They take even longer if it'll be the first time your students have collaborated together all year. That doesn't mean it's impossible, however.

First, choose a standard that you know can't be taught with direct instruction alone (for instance, creating a work of art or doing an experiment or better understanding the judicial system). If possible, pick a time when you know students don't tend to get much work done anyway, like right before Winter Break or after their standardized test; that way, you'll feel less pressure to force-feed them mounds of curriculum. Plus, most projects are inherently motivating for students, so they'll actually be more likely to actually work instead of just zoning out.

Next, keep your project small. Don't plan to have students write, direct, sew costumes for, and create backdrops for a play in which they turn all five acts of MacBeth into a rom com for your first project. You and your students will get bogged down in the details and there's the risk that none of you will ever want to try it again. Instead, have them update one scene from MacBeth into a modern form, such as a graphic novel, a plan for an app (Out, Out Spots!), or a music video. Make sure it's something that can be done in a week or less.

Now, determine what about your project you'll need to front-load. For instance, it's not a good idea to have students make videos during this project if you've never taught them how to make videos. They'll get bogged down in the mechanics and your project will drag on and on. If you know that's going to be an essential part of your project, get with your librarian or instructional technology teacher well before the actual project to teach students those kinds of skills.

Note that you might also have to teach students how to collaborate with one another. Don't assume they know how to do it. Direct instruction and multiple choice assessments have been such a mainstay in our education system for most kids' entire lives...when combined with the screen-obsessed culture that plagues most of our houses, most of our young people today need some explicit instruction on how to interact with others productively.

3. Will PBL actually motivate my students?
Maybe? Probably? You know, I'm not sure because I don't know what your project is. If you design a project around a driving question that's meaningful to them in a personal way, they're a lot more likely to find it motivating. For instance, a project around the driving question, "How can we package ice cream more efficiently?" will probably only motivate your true geometry and ice cream lovers, but a question like, "How can we increase the availability of nutritious and delicious foods in America's food deserts?" might grab them a lot more.

4. PBL doesn't seem like anything new. Haven't we done this before?

You're right! It's a really old concept. You can probably consider the design and building of the pyramids at Giza as a form of project-based learning. John Dewey, educational thinker from the early 20th century, was a huge proponent of project-based learning type methods, saying, "Education is not process for life; education is life itself."

What is new is trying to fit project-based learning into our current standards-heavy curriculum. When you have a ton of content that students need to memorize, it can be challenging to have them go deep into exploration of a specific theme or project. Not only that, but with the way that technology has changed in order to allow us to collaborate more effectively, the management of PBL has changed significantly as well. It's no longer just about teaching students how to work together effectively in-person; we have to teach them how to add comments to a Google doc, organize their materials online, etc..

Rarely is anything in education new; instead, think about it as refining and old process for the new world that we're living in.

In Summary

PBL is a solid instructional model that can help to engage students and effectively prepare them for real-life. It's time- and energy-intensive for everyone involved, and the smart educator will plan a PBL specifically for a unit that is most likely to engage students.

Check back soon for an article on how to chunk PBLs into manageable pieces.

Kate Wolfe Maxlow is the Professional Learning Coordinator for Hampton City Schools in Hampton, Virginia. She can be reached at kmaxlow@hampton.k12.va.us.

Who are you Digitally? An Educator's Guide to LinkedIn, Twitter, and Facebook

by Kate Wolfe Maxlow

Here's the thing: if you're an educator, people will Google you. Your students, their parents, prospective employers will all be checking you out digitally...and the higher you go in leadership roles, the more likely people will be to look you up online.

While there's no way to escape the Google search bar, there is a way to control what people see when they look you up.  Google is the most popular search engine, and it has certain algorithms.  It's going to pull from certain websites first, and the good news is that it's often going to be the ones that you can control first.

For instance, this is what you get when you Google me: Kate Wolfe Maxlow.



Unless you're making headlines that get clicked on a lot, Google is often going to post links for major social media sites first. It especially likes LinkedIn, Twitter, and Facebook, which is why we're going to discuss those in this article. The question is: how can you ensure that you're putting your best digital foot forward?

1. Make sure you have a LinkedIn Profile.

What is it?
LinkedIn a basically an online resume that also has some social media functionality. It's supposed to help professionals connect with one another, and it has some direct messages capability if you want to reach out to someone.

What's the bare minimum I should do?
You don't have to pay for a LinkedIn Profile (though LinkedIn would love it if you did and will bug you to do so). At the very least, have a decent profile pic, your major jobs in the educational field, and a quick summary about yourself that epitomizes your main accomplishments and major beliefs about education, using links where it makes sense. For instance, I have a link to my book on Amazon and to a project I did with the Virginia Department of Education. I want people to be able to easily click on those when they search for me. You can see my LinkedIn Profile here.

You can also post updates like you would with Twitter or Facebook, but it's not really necessary unless you're working as a consultant or a similar job where you're doing everything you can to connect to other educators.

How often do I need to update it?
I go in about once a month or so and check out who's invited me to link with them. I go in about quarterly and update my profile. If you're on the hunt for a new job, you probably want to go into your account more more often.

2. Create and Keep Up Your Twitter Account

What is it?
Twitter is social media site that allows you to post short thoughts (280 characters or less per "tweet"), "retweet" others' thoughts, and reply to others' tweets. There's also some Direct Message capabilities. You can attach links or images to your tweets for more impact. You can also "tweet at" people by including their username in your tweet. For instance, you would tweet at me by including @LearningKate in your tweet. Twitter will tell me that you tweeted at me, and now my followers as well as yours will see your tweet.

You can also use hashtags that allow others to find your tweets more easily or participate in Twitter chats. For instance, you might at #lovemyschoolday2018 to your tweet, and then anyone who searches for that hashtag will easily be able to find your tweet.

What's the bare minimum I should do?
Before my second kid, I used to do Twitter chats and direct messages and all of it. Bar none, Twitter chats are the best way to increase your Twitter followers.

Now I prefer sleep. Here's how I stay on top of my Twitter game while doing the bare minimum:

• I use Tweetdeck.com. Tweetdeck allows you to schedule tweets in advance and easily search for people or topics you want to keep track of. You can also manage multiple accounts from Tweetdeck, so you can manage both your personal account and your organization's account without having to log in and log out. You can see my Tweetdeck below. It has my notifications, my scheduled Tweets, and my home organization, Hampton City Schools

• I go in once a week, usually on Monday, and schedule my Tweets for the rest of the week. Twitter usage spikes during morning and afternoon commute times, so I usually schedule my tweets for random times from 6am-8am and 4pm-7pm. These scheduled tweets are usually thoughts or links to this blog with evocative questions. You can see examples if you check out my Twitter feed, @LearningKate. This only takes me about 15 minutes to set them up for the week.
• I mostly only follow other educators from my @LearningKate account and it's the one associated with my actual name. This ensures that when people Google me, that's one of the first things they see. It also keeps me up-to-date on the latest happenings in education.
• Every morning, I go in while brushing my teeth or drinking my coffee and I scroll through others' Tweets. If I like something, I retweet it. If I can think of my own comment to go with it, I add it, but if not, I don't stress about it. I only heart things that I really like and want to easily be able to find later. This takes me about 5-10 minutes.
• If I were an administrator or teacher, I would take at least 1 pic of the young people in my school or class each day and have a set time that I post it. For instance, when I get into the car on my way to go home, I would know that before I start the car, I post my picture.

3. Lock down your personal Facebook account.

What is it?

Facebook is a social media site that allows you to post pictures or thoughts, interact in groups, create events, and much more. Most adults these days are going to have a personal Facebook account, and you might also run one for your organization.

What's the bare minimum I should do?

While you might also have a page for your organization, the most important thing about Facebook is to make sure that it's locked down. What does this mean?

• Consider using a pseudonym that's similar enough to your name without allowing your students to find you. The most common version of this I see is the First Name Middle Name version (for instance, I was Kate Elizabeth for awhile).
• Go through ALL your old profile and cover pics, because the default settings for these is usually Public. If you have old profile pics from college with you engaged in questionable activities, you might want to remove them.
• I personally don't post much other than pictures of my kids. What you choose to post on Facebook is every educator's choice, but if you're going to move into educational leadership, the best choice is not to post anything remotely controversial. Even if you've locked down your account, screenshots are all too easy these days and can be passed around even if people don't have access to your account.

What other thoughts and ideas about establishing yourself digitally? Post them in the comments below.

Technology Collaboration is the Real Workplace Readiness Skill

by Paul Lawrence

On a recent trip to New York, I was lucky enough to have the opportunity to take my family on a tour of Google Headquarters.  They've converted the old Port Authority building in Chelsea and turned it into a real wonderland with a Back to the Future themed floor, napping tents, a 24 hour free Starbucks and about 12 free restaurants where you can eat everything from Mexican to a bowl of pho.

In addition to these attractive amenities (my kids all decided to become programmers on the spot), a remarkable thing about this space was a complete absence of personal offices.  Everyone was expected to sit and work and conduct their business in these communal areas (with the most amazing free snacks!). The theory at Google is that isolation is counterproductive to creativity.  People do their best work when they interact and share ideas.

When we consider that an amazingly successful company like Google has literally designed collaboration into their office space, shouldn’t we begin to also consider including the same collaboration into the work practices of our students in our classrooms?

Here are three technology resources that you can use to plan your next group activity.

Free Rice                                                          

Have students make a difference by practicing their math, chemistry, anatomy, geography, foreign language, vocabulary, grammar, humanities and even for the SAT. “For each answer they get right, 10 grains of rice is donated  through the World Food Programme to help end hunger.”

Cooperative learning idea: Students can go on Free Rice and calculate how much rice they donated as a group and create a graph to show their weekly results. This can be an ongoing project throughout the year. Groups can compare and contrast their results.

 

 

Blabberize                                                       

Blabberize is a free tool that makes photos come to life! Students upload a photo, create a mouth and record whatever they would like their image to say!

Cooperative learning idea: Students can take turns talking. This tool can be used to give a history or science report. Students could describe an animal’s adaptations by making the animal they researched talk!

Inkle                                                            

Inkle is a fun digital storytelling tool for students. Rather than having students use Microsoft Word, change things up by having them create a digital book. Students will love adding images to make their story come to life!

Cooperative learning idea: Students can collaborate and create a Choose Your Own Adventure story! Each child adds a paragraph to the story and at least two options for readers to choose from. They insert images by adding the link to an image they like online. This Web 2.0 tool is free and the children’s work can be saved and shared.

In addition to these fun ideas, there are hundreds of ways for students to collaborate on work using the G Suite Apps for education.  Check out this site to get started.

Like anything else, you are going to have to guide your students through this new workflow.  Consider assigning roles to group members and giving students specific rubrics, checklists and deadlines to help them organize their time.

If we want to prepare students for success in a 21st Century workplace like Google, we can start by giving them the opportunities to develop skills like cooperation and compromise that are required for success, in the safe spaces of our classrooms.  

Paul Lawrence is the Director of the Information Literacy Department for Hampton City Schools, Virginia. You can reach him at plawrence@hampton.k12.va.us

Are Your Students Engaged...Or Just Compliant? Here's How to Tell

by Kate Wolfe Maxlow

Picture it: you're teaching your heart out with your carefully crafted slideshow. MacKenzie, as usual, sits in the front of the room, nodding along eagerly. As you make another brilliant point, you see her furrow her brow thoughtfully and write it down.

William, meanwhile, sits in the back row, digging through his backpack for another pen. This is a first...is he going to take notes? Nope, he's just using it to keep doodling on his notebook.

You decide it's time to get William's attention, so you call on him and ask him to repeat what you just said. Surprisingly, he does so word-for-word, and to your further astonishment, he adds a pretty insightful question at the end. Hoping for some classroom discussion, you ask if anyone else in the classroom can answer. Crickets.

You call on MacKenzie, who, despite making eye contact with you for much of the lecture, looks startled. "Um..." she murmurs. "What was the question?" Baffled, you walk over to her desk and realize she hasn't been taking notes at all...she's outlining her potential outfits for this Friday's dance.

What's going on?

Compliance vs. Engagement

On the surface, it seemed like MacKenzie was engaged and William wasn't, and it turned out to be the opposite. But that's the crux of it all: compliance and engagement aren't the same thing.

MacKenzie modeled compliance. She made eye contact. She nodded at all the right times. She wrote things down. On the surface, she did everything you would expect a fully engaged student to do. Her brain, however, was fully occupied with the merits of silk versus taffeta. Students who are compliant exhibit the desired behavior at a surface-level without actually engaging their minds.

William, meanwhile, displayed none of the usual signs of engagement, yet turned out to be listening, processing, and pondering on the topic at hand. Though he didn't look it, William was engaged the whole time. Students who are engaged are actually processing the current lesson.

Three Levels of Engagement

Almarode and Miller (2013) outline three levels of engagement.

1. Behavioral Engagement: Students are compliant with rules and instructions. This means that if you ask students to get out a sheet of paper, they do. It's a great first step. But it's not enough. Too often we settle for Behavioral Engagement, but it doesn't necessarily mean learning is taking place.
2. Emotional Engagement: Students are actually invested in what they are learning. They're enjoying it and valuing it. Of course, you can still have students enjoy themselves without actually learning. I remember doing a wonderful lesson my first year of teaching on the moon phases. I gave students Oreo cookies and had them take bites out and glue them onto paper. Students LOVED it. They were definitely behaviorally and emotionally engaged. And then on the unit assessment, most of them still got the moon phases question wrong.
3. Cognitive Engagement: Students' minds are actually thinking about and processing the task at-hand.

Combining the Levels of Engagement

If you want full student engagement, you have to plan for all three levels. In a classroom where the teacher has stopped at Behavioral Engagement, you might see students enter quietly. They'll diligently circle answers on their Do Now worksheet for the first five minutes of class. Then when the teacher starts to review the answers and calls on students, they will sit there, silently, until the teacher finally picks someone, who then might murmur something about "Answer Choice B?" When the teacher asks why the answer is "B," she once again stares at a sea of blank faces.

On the other hand, some teachers spend a ton of time crafting amazing experiments, projects, or centers for their students, but neglect the Behavioral Engagement piece. They instead end up with a chaotic classroom (not the organized chaos kind, either) in which students also have trouble engaging cognitively, even though they might be having the time of their lives.

In other words, you have to think through and plan for all three levels.

How do we do this? One way is to use the AbCD Learning Cycle. Don't spend too long on an Absorb activity before you navigate students into a Connect/Do activity. Make sure the Connect/Do activity is interesting and requires students to actually wrestle with the content they just absorbed.

Collecting Evidence on Engagement

Once you've developed your awesome plan to truly engage students, you then have to consider: how will you know they're actually engaged cognitively? As our fictional (yet all-too-like-real-life) student MacKenzie proved earlier, some students have mastered appearing engaged without actually hitting the level of Cognitive Engagement.

We can't peek into students' brains to see what they're actually thinking, which means we have to develop tasks in which they show us. Otherwise, we tend to default to measuring only Level 1: Behavioral Engagement.

Therefore, teachers must stop throughout lessons and give students opportunities to share what's in their minds. Whether it's a turn-and-talk, a quick write or a quick draw, answering a poll on their tablets, or just writing an answer on a good ol' fashioned whiteboard, we need some way to measure students' cognitive engagement.

You'll find that you can often measure their emotional engagement at the same time. Students who sigh and reluctantly turn to talk one another generally are not emotionally engaged. If your students write one sentence for their quick write and then put their heads down to catch up on much needed sleep after last night's basketball games, it might be a sign that you need to do something to crank up the emotional engagement.

Final Thought

Even the best teachers have days where they don't hit all three levels of engagement. I recall plenty of days when I went to try something new, and the lesson fell flat. For whatever reason, I failed to pique students' interest that day, and I could tell from my Connect/Do activities that their minds were not on the task at hand. It happens!

That's why it's so important to collect evidence of engagement throughout the lesson. If you find students sticking steadfastly to compliance and Level 1 and refusing to budge beyond, pivot and draw them back in...otherwise, you might find yourself teaching the same material again tomorrow.

Kate Wolfe Maxlow is the Professional Learning Coordinator for Hampton City Schools in Hampton, Virginia. She can be reached at kmaxlow@hampton.k12.va.us.

Instructional Models vs. Strategies vs. Techniques: What's the Difference and How Do We Use Them Together?

by Kate Wolfe Maxlow

Better conversations about instruction happen when we all use the same language. Too often in education, we use the same words to mean different things and different words to mean the same thing. Today, then, let's define some key terms for deciding what and how to teach based on your standards.

Let's first talk about the Instructional Model. Instructional Models are overarching approaches to teaching that involve a series of steps in a particular order that are designed to have students think and apply their knowledge in certain ways. For instance, a lesson using the Direct Instruction model is vastly different from a lesson using the Inquiry model, as you can see below:



You can read more about various types of instructional models (including the pros an cons of each) here. How do you decide which type of instructional model to use? Well, it really depends on the standard and how deep you want to go with it. For instance, if you're working on a standard that calls for students to design an experiment, then you probably need to use Inquiry Learning. But if your current standard is on memorizing multiplication facts, then Direct Instruction may be the way to go.



Once you've chosen your Instructional Model, next you're going to look at your Instructional Strategies. Instructional Strategies are categories of evidence-based actions that help students learn and be successful in multiple disciplines and real-life situations. Some of the most commonly considered "high yield" instructional strategies come from the work of Robert Marzano in his seminal book The Art and Science of Teaching. He includes strategies such as Learning Goals, Advance Cues and Organizers, Summarizing & Note Taking, Nonlinguistic Representations, Questioning, and Cooperative Learning.

Most of these strategies are not only good for learning in the classroom, but they're also useful in real-life. For instance, when I go to apply for a car loan, I probably need to have some questions developed (how long will it take me to pay off? how much of my monthly paycheck will it take?). I set goals for myself all the time in the real world (I WILL exercise at least three times this week), and most workplaces using a high degree of cooperative work these days.

You can see that these strategies, while not quite as broad as instructional models, are still more like categories of activities that actual activities themselves. For instance, you might decide that you want to use Note Taking in an upcoming lesson, but that doesn't necessarily describe the actual method you will use to have students take notes.


For that, you need Instructional Techniques. Instructional Techniques are the specific instructional activities that teachers use to engage students. For instance, you might decide to use Cornell Notes or Interactive Notebooks to engage your students in Note Taking. Or maybe you're going to use a Venn Diagram to help students organize information.

Can you mix and match Instructional Models, Strategies, and Techniques?

Yes! There's no one right or wrong way to put together a lesson. Some Instructional Models, Strategies, and Techniques DO tend to organically line up together (for instance, the Inquiry Model is often used with the Generating and Testing Hypotheses Strategy, which is often used with Graphic Organizers for collecting results.

Similarly, Direct Instruction often aligns well with Note Taking, which aligns well with something like Cornell Notes.


How do you use standards to choose an Instructional Models, Strategies, and Techniques?

Let's say that you're working with this Virginia Grade 8 English Standard: The student will find, evaluate, select, and synthesize appropriate resources to produce a research product. The Essential Knowledge, Skills, and Processes go on to describe how students should use primary sources, secondary sources, take notes, and evaluate credibility in creating their product.

So, which instructional methods would work best with this? You could choose Inquiry learning--the major purpose of Inquiry learning, after all, is to have students learn how to ask and answer questions. But you might also choose Project-Based Learning, because students are ultimately creating products. You might even use something slightly more esoteric like Jurisprudential Inquiry, in which students are assigned sides of a controversial issue and must find research to back up their assigned stances to convince a panel to agree with them over the other groups. 

Let's say that you decide to go bold and try out Jurisprudential Inquiry. Now that you've chosen an instructional model, you'll want to look at strategies. Without a doubt, you're going to want to use some kind of Graphic Organizer to help students take notes and organize their arguments. But what kind? Well, part of the Jurisprudential Inquiry process is using analogies to present the case for a particular side, so maybe you decide to use the Bridge Map (a type of Thinking Map) as your Instructional Technique on the day that you have students work on analogies in their groups.

The more instructional models, strategies, and techniques that you know, the more you'll be able to vary your classroom and choose intentionally choose purposeful activities that engage your students in meaningful work.

Instructional Models: All the -Based Learnings You Could Want (Plus a Few Others)

by Kate Wolfe Maxlow

You probably have a favorite instructional model, even if you don't realize it. Instructional models are overarching approaches to teaching that involve a series of steps in a particular order that are designed to have students think and apply their knowledge in certain ways. The steps in each model, and the order in which they are typically completed, generally support the larger purpose of the model itself. In some models, the goal is fact or skill fluency. In others, there's greater bent toward practical application. Still others are mostly about teaching students to think critically.

How do you know which model to use when? Well, it really depends on your standard and the type of learning you want to elicit from students. Some instructional models tend to be featured more heavily in some content areas than others, and new instructional models are springing up all the time.

Some of the most common are here, along with the purpose of each model, the steps generally involved, and pros and cons for using it in your classroom.

Case Studies

• Purpose: Originally used in business and medical education, the case study is gaining popularity. In it, students are given: a (usually) real-world case study written from the point-of-view of a decision-maker who needs to solve a problem; a description of the problem; and supporting data. Students work independently or in teams to analyze the problem and data and devise a solution for that particular case. It's similar to problem-based learning, but the problem is more specific to a particular case.
• Examples: Students are given a patient with a list of symptoms and must use their knowledge of body systems to determine the problem and devise a solution; students review the data on discipline and suspensions in a school and determine what actions a principal should take; students review a proposal for a new affordable apartment complex and the impact it could have on both the environment and the poverty issue; students examine the decrease in the Oyster population in the Chesapeake Bay, using historical accounts to determine what caused it and steps to take.
• Most Common Steps: Students: (1) Define the issue; (2) Determine the goal of their analysis; (3) Uncover the context of the problem; (4) Consider key facts; (5) Brainstorm alternatives available to the decision-maker; (5) Make a recommendation to solve the problem and justify. Read more here.
• Pros: This method is heavy on the critical thinking and analysis and teaches effective problem-solving skills. It's generally engaging for students, and can take less time than problem-based learning. It shows real-world relevancy for the learning.
• Cons: Pulling together a case study and all the relevant documents can be a huge task for a teacher. Students are making recommendations based on the scenario but not actually implementing them.
• When to Use It: Case Studies are most often used in science or business classes, but can definitely be used in social studies as a way to analyze primary sources as well.

Challenge-Based Learning

• Purpose: Challenge-based learning was originally designed by Apple as a way of teaching students to use their learning, especially with technology, in authentic ways to benefit their schools and communities. It something of a hybrid between project-based learning, problem-based learning, and service learning, and at its height is done in conjunction with community businesses and organizations.
• Examples: Students create a social media campaign to increase Millennial visitation to community museums; students create a PSA on why students should use tap water instead of bottled water and track the number of bottles recycled each month at their school vs. the amount of water consumed from drinking fountains; students research the biggest ways in which their community leaves a carbon footprint and take steps to help the community decrease its carbon footprint.
• Most Common Steps: (1) Engage: Learners develop questions to develop an actionable challenge to improve their school or community; (2) Investigate: Learners research potential causes and solutions regarding their challenge; (3) Act: Learners choose a solution and undertake it, monitoring and evaluating the results.
• Pros: Because learners develop the challenge themselves, they have a high degree of ownership and interest. It's one of the highest levels of problem-solving; they have to not only determine the solution but also the problem itself. Because it often involves working with community organizations and businesses, students get real life experience that helps prepare them for the world outside of PreK-12 education AND they get to see the fruits of their efforts help to make their communities better.
• Cons: Because students help to define the problem, these projects can go any number of ways, which can make it difficult for teachers to grade given standards. Working with community-based organizations and businesses can also take a significant amount of time for teachers to create and sustain these relationships. Because students actually implement their often complex solutions, these projects can also take a significant amount of instructional time.
• When to Use It: This method works best with courses that have real-life applications. While younger students CAN engage in this method, it is particularly effective with older students because it allows them to work directly with community organizations and businesses, therefore making connections that will be helpful once those students leave PreK-12 education.

Direct Instruction

• Purpose: The purpose of direct instruction is to help students gain fluency with facts or skills. It's probably the most commonly used instructional method, and yet one of the only teacher-based methods on here.
• Examples: Teaching students to add/subtract; teaching students how to analyze a primary source; teaching students how to find the main idea of a passage; teaching students how to use measurement tools.
• Most Common Steps: Commonly known as the Madeline Hunter lesson plan, there are several steps. Not all of them have to be present in every lesson, and Madeline Hunter herself said that the steps can be presented in different orders. The main steps are: (1) Anticipatory Set (focusing students on what will be learned; activating prior knowledge); (2) Setting the objective or purpose (also called Learning Intentions/Success Criteria); (3) Input (presenting new information to the students); (4) Modeling (demonstrating to students how to complete the work); (5) Checking for Understanding (making sure students understand what was presented; reteaching as necessary); (6) Guided Practice (teacher supervises as students complete work); (7) Independent Practice (students work on their own; (8) Closure (teacher reviews objectives and wraps-up lesson). Read more here.
• Pros: It's the quickest, easiest way to help students become fluent with knowledge and skills. When done correctly, students know exactly what is expected of them.
• Cons: While it can be engaging, it often leaves little room for student choice or ownership of their own learning. The teacher can tie the learning to real-life, but the relevancy is not as strong as in many of the other instructional methods on this page.

Inquiry(-Based) Learning

• Purpose: To teach students to ask questions and find answers
• Examples: Science experiments, conducting research around a topic
• Most Common Steps: (1) Elicit student knowledge; (2) Engage students; (3) Students Explore a concept; (4) Students Explain what they learned; (5)  Teacher and students Elaborate on what was learned; (6) Extend the learning beyond the classroom; (7) and Students Evaluate their own learning. More on each step can be found here.
• Pros: Inquiry-based learning gives students a lot of choice and ownership over their own learning. Students generally drive the process, with the teacher acting as a facilitator to help them on their journey. Because of this, it can be very motivating for students who have been properly taught how to engage with this process. It's also great for teaching critical thinking skills.
• Cons: It can take awhile to teach this method, both in terms of teaching students how to engage in it, and then giving them time to explore and conduct their own research and investigations.  Many teachers jump too quickly to full-on inquiry, which can be overwhelming to students who have never engaged in this type of learning before. It's better to ease into inquiry learning, teaching students skills as you go. A helpful guide on different levels of inquiry can be found here.
• When to Use It: Inquiry(-based) learning is often used in the sciences, and can also be used in any content area in which students need to formulate questions and search for answers.

Jurisprudential Inquiry

• Purpose: To teach students how to examine an issue from multiple viewpoints, choose an opinion, and justify it with evidence. Students search for information, and present their views to a class-selected board of arbitrators, who then deliver a decision on the issue.
• Examples: Disposable versus cloth diapers; changes to the school curriculum; censorship; removing historical monuments, etc..
• Most Common Steps: (1) Orientation to the issue (divide students into teams, randomly assign each team a side to represent); (2) Identify and Define the Issue (teams research, read, interview, survey, etc. to learn more; (3) Synthesizing the Research into Arguments (students establish a stance, point out possible consequences of a position, teacher chooses an arbitrator board from all sides of issue); (4) Prepare Board of Arbitrators (prepare questions for presentations, plan strategy for running the meeting); (5) The Public Meeting (all sides present their case while Board listens); (6) Clarification and Consensus (Board arrives at consensus and the Board clarifies why they rendered their decision; (7) Application (students consider how what they have learned applies in real-life). Read more here.
• Pros: This method teaches students to look at all sides of an issue and how to research and debate effectively. It can help them develop informed opinions and prepares them to present information effectively. It's motivating for students if they care about the issue and shows the real-world relevancy of their learning.
• Cons: If students have never engaged in the jurisprudential inquiry method before, they will require substantial scaffolding the first few times they use it. Students might have to be taught to collaborate, and it can use a significant amount of time to complete.
• When to Use It: This works well with any topic that is hotly debated.

Problem-Based Learning

• Purpose: This is a student-driven instructional model in which the teacher gives students an open-ended, real-world problem before learning takes place, and then use their learning as they work to devise a solution. Depending on the scope of the problem, the lesson can last anywhere from one day to weeks.
• Examples: Students develop a way to stop other students from littering; students create a campaign to let others know about ethical issues in chocolate-production around the world; students develop an easily workable household budgeting spreadsheet and train community members on it.
• Most Common Steps: Students: (1) Examine and define the problem; (2) Identify what they already know about the problem and underlying issues related to it; (3) Figure out what else they need to know and how they can find out the information; (4) Determine possible ways to solve the problem and evaluate for effectiveness; (5) Choose a solution and implement; (6) Report what they found. More information can be found here.
• Pros: The use of a problem before instruction takes place can instantly hook students and provide a framework for all further knowledge. Work is usually completed in groups, therefore allowing students chances to collaborate and learn how to work productively together. It provides real-life relevance for topics and can help solve actual problems in the school or community.
• Cons: Teachers have to develop problems that students find interesting. Group work can be challenging if students are not used to it. Depending on the scope of the problem, it can take a significant amount of class time. If students are not used to being independent learners, the teacher will need to scaffold the work.
• When To Use It: Problem-Based Learning can be used in any classroom that has real-world applications...so therefore, just about all of them.

Project-Based Learning

• Purpose: The purpose of project-based learning is to have students apply what they have learned in a real-world context through the use of a performance or product-creation. These projects usually take multiple lessons and frequently combine multiple disciplines. It's more general than problem-based learning, in that students may or may not be solving a problem with their project.
• Examples: Students design and create a haunted house based on gothic literature; students design and create a carnival game based on geometric probability; students write and perform a play based on early 20th century factory conditions. More example projects can be found here.
• Most Common Steps: (1) The teacher asks a driving question (which is usually slightly more specific than an Essential Question), such as, "How can we create more environmentally-friendly toys for toddlers?"; (2) The teacher plans an Entry Event--an event to hook students into the topic and set the stage for the project; (3) The teacher designs the specs for the final product or performance, which can be more or less open-ended depending on the teacher's performance (for instance, the teacher can say: "Create an environmentally-friendly, toddler-proof toy" OR "Design a way to get kids to eat healthier at lunch."); (3) Students complete the project (can take days or weeks) with the teacher acting as a facilitator; (4) Students present the project in a real-world setting (usually involving the public); (5) The teacher evaluates the students' work using a rubric. More information can be found on the Buck Institute website here.
• Pros: There's a lot of student choice and ownership over their products. Students commonly work together in groups, so they're learning collaborative skills while also applying their knowledge. It makes the learning relevant for students, who will often retain the information better.
• Cons: It can eat up several lessons depending on how it is designed. Many teachers report that the first time they do a project, it usually ends up taking longer and being more complicated than expected; it can take a few tries before refining the project to a manageable point. Students often have to be taught how to work together and need classroom supports to stay on-task and finish within the allotted time. Also, materials for intended projects can be costly (consider using something like Donors Choose).
• When to Use It: This instructional method can be used for any content area; in fact, it's often cross-curricular.

Service Learning

• Purpose: Students use their classroom learning to complete projects that positively benefit a genuine need in their community. The National Youth Leadership Council distinguishes it from community service this like: "Picking up trash on a river bank is a service. Studying water samples under a microscope is learning. When science students collect and analyze water samples, document their results, and present findings to a local pollution control agency -- that is service learning." It's important to note here that usually, true service-learning involves an authentic way to help improve the community--so, not just having a bake sale to raise money to donate to have another organization do something about the need.
• Examples: Students devise ways to cut down on bullying in their school; students create books for younger students to take home to read over breaks; students design art work to make a part of town more visually appealing.
• Most Common Steps: Students (1) Conduct a needs assessment in their school/community on the topic and reflect on findings; (2) Plan a way to address the need, including determining the time, talent, and resources needed; (3) Implement their project; (4) Reflect on the effectiveness of the project at benefitting the community; (5) Present their project and findings to the public.
• Pros: This is one of the most motivating types of learning for students; they see instant benefits in their personal communities and are therefore more invested. It helps develop creativity and problem-solving. It teaches students not only to implement projects, but to reflect heavily on whether they projects have actually benefited others. It also teaches them that they have power to solve the problems around them.
• Cons: It can be time-consuming and sometimes difficult to tie some content to a service-project. The content that students use will be learned at a very deep level, but you might have to use other methods to get at the content not immediately involved in the project.
• When to Use It: Service Learning can work with almost any content area, though certain topics within each content area lend themselves better to service learning. Common topics are things like: helping the environment, poverty and homelessness, bullying, beautification projects, health and wellness, emergency preparedness, mentoring/tutoring, and historical/cultural preservation. Check out more ideas here.

Have you tried one or more of these methods? Let us know how it went by commenting below!

Kate Wolfe Maxlow is the Director of Innovation & Professional Learning in Hampton City Schools. She can be reached at kmaxlow@hampton.k12.va.us.