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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: 8 science of reading strategies is by Teach Learn Grow.
I’m adding this tweet to Best Posts On How To Prepare For Standardized Tests (And Why They’re Bad):
Whiteboard Work: More Than Just ‘Show Me’ is from Ben Cooper. I’m adding it to SOME “BEST” IDEAS FOR USING MINI-WHITEBOARDS IN THE CLASSROOM. Bringing the Power of Debate to Math Class is from Cult of Pedagogy. Retrieval and Spaced Practice: Study Strategies That Must Be Combined is by Kate Jones. I’m adding it to The Best Resources For Learning About Spaced Practice.      A Look Back: How I Turned A Lesson On Writing Good Summaries Into A Game – It Worked!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.
 MoteOo / Pixabay
A week-or-two ago I published This New Edutopia Video That Turned Writing Argument Paragraphs Into A Game Has Given Me An Idea… In it, I discussed a strategy I was going to try in my English Language Learner World History class to help students learn to write better summaries, and involved turning it into a game. Well, I tried it on Friday, and unlike practically every other thing I try to do in the classroom, it went exactly as I had planned – and hoped! Students first got into their regular groups (comprised of between two-and-four students), and each group was given a mini-whiteboard, marker and eraser. I explained that I was going to put up a series of very short paragraphs, and they would have to choose which of the three answers was the best summary. A peer tutor would keep score on the main whiteboard. Here’s an example of one of the exercises:
You can find the handout of these exercises in one of my books, though I can’t remember which one. All of the handouts from all of them are available for free download. And you can always easily create your own. Once we had gone through four of them, and I had looked for opportunities to explain the characteristics of good and bade summaries, we moved to the next step. I asked everyone to opened their World History textbook to the chapter on Islam that we began last week. I explained that they would get ten minutes to read the page and then, keeping in mind what they had just learned, would need to write a good summary. I would determine how many points each summary was worth. Students read in their books (taking turns reading each paragraph out loud), and wrote their summaries. One or two groups finished early, and I told them they could get a head start on reading the next page. I yelled “Time’s up” and asked all groups (about eight of them) to hold up their boards. As I went to each group, I would hold their board so everyone could see and read their summary out load. I would then give each group one, two, or three points, and quickly explained the reasons why (maybe they copied a sentence from the page, or they did or didn’t include the real main idea of the page, etc.). A peer tutor wrote the point total next to each group member on the front board. The second round’s summaries were all better, and they were all very good by the time we got to the third page. We won’t “gamify” summaries for every chapter, it’s clearly worth doing now-and-then. This strategy can also be used to teach so many other writing techniques, too! I’m adding this post to: The Best Posts On “Gamification” In Education — Help Me Find More Best Posts On Writing Instruction
 Two Useful Resources On Better Questions geralt / Pixabay
I’m adding these resources to The Best Posts & Articles About Asking Good Questions — Help Me Find More: Hinge Questions is from DistillEd.
 This Is The Most Interesting Piece About Education Research That I’ve Read In A Long Time
Though I don’t quite agree with everything they say, this piece, Phonics is a fad, but it’s also good, so we should do it anyway, even though it will probably disappoint people, is the most interesting commentary on education research that I’ve read in quite awhile. It rightly points out that: The outcomes we like to measure, such as reading comprehension, depend on many personal and environmental factors, making it hard for a discrete change in schooling to make much of a difference. . . But that doesn’t mean that the small positive effects that in-schooling changes can make don’t add up. In addition to checking out that very readable post, I’d recommend you also read a commentary on it at Statistical Modeling, Causal Inference, and Social Science. I’m adding this info to The Best Resources For Understanding How To Interpret Education Research.  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): Assisting Students Struggling with Mathematics in Grades 3-6 Toolkit is from REL.
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