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A Look Back: Six Ways For Students To Be Powerful In The Classroom – What Are More Ideas?For the next several months, each week I’ll be republishing posts from the past that I think readers might still find useful. This post first appeared in 2022.
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The Ikea Effect (see Video: “How the ‘IKEA effect’ can motivate people to work [& learn] harder” ) – basically, we are more invested in something if we feel we contributed to creating it – is not big news to just about anyone. As many experienced teachers know, this holds true in the classroom, also. I was prompted to write this post because of a couple of things that happened this week. One, a student teacher who was observing my class asked me what I was saying to students who I had invited to briefly come to my desk after he saw they had been “off-task.” I explained to him that they had previously made some decisions about how they had wanted to conduct themselves in class (see Here Is How I’m TRYING to Create The Conditions Where My ELL Students Can Motivate Themselves (With A Little Encouragement)), and I was checking in with them to see if those goals they had set for themselves were still important to them. I told the student teacher that the important thing to keep in mind was not to challenge them to comply with my expectations but, instead, to challenge them if they wanted to act on what they said they wanted (see Irritation vs. Agitation). Two, I asked peer tutors (see Are Schools Overlooking An Obvious Strategy They Can Implement Immediately To Accelerate Learning? Peer Tutors!) for their recommendations (and reasoning for those recommendations) of Newcomer students who might be ready to be moved to the Intermediate ELL group. They took it very seriously and, though the names were the same I would have chosen, they pointed out a couple of improvements made by students that I had not noticed. And, importantly, though the peer tutors generally take their job seriously, they seemed to be even more attentive to it after I asked them for their suggestions. So, what are some other ways to create the conditions where students feel – and have – a genuine sense of power and ownership? One simple strategy for incorporating this “need for power” (as William Glasser describes it) is through the use of choice (see The Best Posts & Articles About Providing Students With Choices). I also talk about it in an excerpt from one of my books that appeared in Edutopia, Strategies for Helping Students Motivate Themselves. Asking for student suggestions and acting on them is another strategy. One way I do this is through a weekly Google Form (see I’ve Been Having Students Complete Weekly “Check-Ins” & I Can’t Believe I Didn’t Think To Ask This Question Until Now! ). Asking for feedback, and not responding to it, can make things worse. I’ve received some good suggestions, and make it very public when I act on them. Anonymous class evaluations have also been helpful (see Best Posts On Students Evaluating Classes (And Teachers)). Inviting students to tell me how much time is needed to complete a task/assignment or, if they are in the middle of it, how much more time they need. Some researchers have questioned the value of student input on pacing (see A Look Back: Study Finds That “Student-Centered” Activities Better Than “Teacher-Centered” Ones – Except When It Comes To Pacing). I used to feel the same way, and maybe I’m just more flexible during the pandemic, but I’m generally finding that students are setting reasonable deadlines. I think having many of my students act as mentors to other students also contributes to their sense of power and agency in class (see The Best Resources On The Value & Practice Of Having Older Students Mentoring Younger Ones). Sometimes they are mentors to students in other classes, and other times they are mentors to new students who have recently arrived in the United States. I’m sure I’m forgetting other ways to invite student ownership. What are additional strategies you use? I’m adding this post to: The Best Posts & Articles About Providing Students With Choices The Best Resources On Student Agency & How To Encourage It Best Posts On “Motivating” Students The Best Posts & Articles On Student Engagement
ADDENDUM: GUEST POST: WAYS TO CREATE A STUDENT-DRIVEN CLASS Bringing Student Voice to the Forefront is from NASSP. NEW RESEARCH SHOWS THAT “STUDENT VOICE” MATTERS      This Piece On How Lack Of Agency Is Driving American Politics Is Very Relevant To American Classrooms
My toddler theory of American politics is an insightful piece about American politics, and also has a lot of relevance to America’s classrooms. The author rightly suggests that people are frustrated with being told that what future is happening to them, and are desperate to gain a sense of agency. Of course, a sense of student agency, most easily supported through creating opportunities for student autonomy through choice and other ways, is an important way teachers can help students gain a feeling of power, too. For specific ideas on how to make that happen, check out: Six Ways For Students To Be Powerful In The Classroom The Best Resources On Student Agency & How To Encourage It Not to mention our most recent book, The Better Teacher’s Toolbox.
 Classroom Instruction Resources Of The Week
Each week, I publish a post or two containing three or four particularly useful resources on classroom instruction, and you can see them all here. You can also see all my “Best” lists on instructional strategies here. Here are this week’s picks: Six types of multiple-choice question is from Six Things. I’m adding it to The Best Ways To Use Multiple Choice Exercises. Sharpening Students’ Observation Skills Through Poetry is from Edutopia. I’m adding it to The Best World Poetry Day Resources – Help Me Find More. This writing format is to me, and comes from Beth Southern. I’m adding it to The Best Scaffolded Writing Frames For Students:
An Effective Strategy for Teaching With Videos is from Edutopia.  A Look Back: Strategies For Encouraging Students To Make Multiple “Touches” On The Same TextFor the next several months, each week I’ll be republishing posts from the past that I think readers might still find useful. This post first appeared in 2022.
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For many student, especially English Language Learners, it can be very valuable to review a text multiple times – especially in content classes. It can’t just be re-reading it, though, time and time again. BORING! Each “touch” on the text needs to be for a different reason and, ideally, done in a different way. Of course, this is also the idea behind “close reading” (see The Best Resources On “Close Reading” — Help Me Find More). Here’s sequence I often use in my ELL History and Government/Economics classes to promote this idea of “multiple touches” (by the way, I first heard this phrase by Kelly Young, who was a talented literacy coach who worked with our school and others) on the same text.
So, as you can see, students have to make multiple touches on the same text, but for many different reasons – first reading, copying down on whiteboards, game, coming up with test questions, and answering them. What are your suggestions for other ways to encourage these kinds of multiple touches?  Research Studies Of The Week Mohamed_hassan / Pixabay
I often write about research studies from various fields and how they can be applied to the classroom. I write individual posts about ones that I think are especially significant, and will continue to do so. However, so many studies are published that it’s hard to keep up. So I’ve started writing a “round-up” of some of them each week or every other week as a regular feature. You can see all my “Best” lists related to education research here. Here are some new useful studies (and related resources):
I’m adding this to The Best Posts & Articles About Why High School Exit Exams Might Not Be A Good Idea:
Research Bite #59: The impact of distractor processing on semantic memory retrieval is from Tips For Teachers.  More Recent Articles
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