How To Do The How To

Finally, the authors bring the reader to the point of explaining one of the "How Tos." The writing break is structured to allow the teacher to take a break from the instruction treadmill. It also allows the students to reflect upon the things that are happening in the lesson. The authors create the image of the teacher taking a step back, stopping the out pouring of content and letting the kids take a break from the same content. They posit that most often we'll find that less content is actually more when there is time for reflection through writing. That writing-to-learn (WTL) will result in a greater level of understanding of the lesson material being presented.

   If we agree that this is a good thing, then next we must ask ourselves the when and why. Remembering from the last post Edgar Dale's cone-of-experience model, that students retain between 10 and 30 percent of what they read, hear and see, it stands to reason that we must examine our standard classroom activities. Examine them for what they try to do:

1. Sling content at receptive (don't we wish) minds.
2. Make the most of the perceived retention time limit.

The authors believe that sprinkling writing and sharing breaks into the lesson plan at 20 minute intervals will bring up retention levels to the 70 to 90 percent range.That is a strong claim. Let's see how it can be done.

The authors favor a step-by-step approach with what seems to be a rather long and drawn out teacher planning component. I'll try to boil it down to basics for the sake of brevity and the limit of 500 words.

Step 1: Decide when the writing breaks will occur. This sounds like my good grasp of the obvious is raising its head again. This is not as simple as it may sound because our attempts to transfer knowledge to the sea of inquiring minds with which we are confronted on a daily basis takes many forms. We use lectures, videos, assigned readings, large-group discussions, etc. Each is a different delivery method. Each has its positives and negatives. Each has a different level of effectiveness based on the content area being explored.

A good rule of thumb is to consider that average secondary school attention spans (in the general education classroom) range from fifteen to twenty minutes. A better rule to consider is that the APS teacher evaluations require lesson segments to be no more than twenty minutes in length. Hmmmmm....some enlightened self-interest is surfacing.

Now that we buy into the twenty minute rule consider this example. Using the Promethean Board flip chart process produces Powerpoint-like slide sets in which we can deposit text and graphics as well as embed videos. Students should be allowed to view graphics for a minute or two before being asked to write about what they see. Each slide then, should be presented in a measured pace. Use the IBM sales presentation method:

1. Tell 'em what your gonna tell 'em
2. Tell 'em
3. Tell 'em what ya told 'em

That will gain you the measured time to work up to the writing break. I will also let give you a handle on how many slides and how much content you can fit into this type of lesson segment.

Obviously videos, lab demonstrations and other forms of presentation will conjure their own unique timing patterns to fit differing teaching styles. The authors give the reader the freedom to go forth and discover and modify them as needed to fit the various content areas.

Step 2:  Once the timing situation is under control the direction of the writing break must be considered. The topics should be narrow and the students should be provided with easy-to-respond prompts. Some suggestions are:

• what piece of information stands out and why?
• what are you thinking about right now?
• what does this remind you of?
• what questions do you still have?
• rate your understanding of the material on a scale of 1 to 5.

That last one scares me. It sounds too much like a formative assessment aimed at me the student teacher.

These are general questions. What kind of specific questions can be formulated for your content area?

Finally, bring kinestheics into action. Form the students into different pairs for each writing break. Make them move around. Have them immediately share with their break partner. Remind them that clear, ledgible handwriting is the ticket for continuing these writing breaks.

Oh, don't forget to work the room to gage understanding and root out lack of engagement!