Pedagogical Practices
Listed here are some of the pedagogical practices that I use in my own classroom and have done research on in order to promote a student-centered learning environment.
Brain Breaks
Throughout my primary experiences, many times something that I would need to do is take brain breaks but teachers could not find the time for them and many times, would say that the break was coming during our recess or lunch periods. However, since then, I have seen brain breaks and incorporated brain breaks in my own lessons and observations in meaningful and appropriate ways. When thinking about what to use as a “brain break” it is important to get a sense of the classroom and what your students are comfortable doing. According to Responsive Classroom’s Time for a Brain Break (2016), the inclusion of these breaks can help students develop “social-emotional skills they need to master more rigorous content.” Furthermore, with movement based exercises, student minds are also stimulated and energy is released in order for them to re-engage with classroom content and discussion. With things such as Go Noodle, or classroom energizers, students get a quick 5 minute break in which they get to move around and not focus on anything but themselves and their bodies. Go Noodle, is a website which contains a plethora of dance based videos in which students can “ get moving and become more mindful.” With these short clips, students are prompted to get up and move. If Go Noodle is not available to you as a teacher or student, energizers are also a good way to get up and moving. One that I always use is the wiggles [description below]. This exercise takes about 3-5 minutes and gets students excited and ready to learn while also not being time consuming or overwhelming to explain or execute.
Reference
Time for a Brain Break. (2016, September 06). Responsive Classroom.
Retrieved Februrary 24, 2021,
from https://www.responsiveclassroom.org/time-for-a-brain-break/
Pulse Checks & Class Starters
Each day is different for every student, so when thinking about ways to re-engage students, and know where they stand, pulse checks are a good way to informally and quickly analyze each student in the classroom while also giving them something interesting to engage in. Pulse checks can take place in a variety of ways. They can be in the form of a quick google forms survey, or can even be a turn and talk with a base question such as “If you could mix any two animals what would mix and why?” With questions such as these, students are all brought together by a common question that will be engaging for them and allow them to not only think critically, but also have a pause in their day to not think about every other pressures that may be going on in their lives. In many cases, teachers sometimes decide to use class starters based on the lessons they are teaching, however these pulse checks also allow for students to not necessarily think about what they are learning, but rather have a space to think about something fun or interesting before getting back into a more educational setting. According to The Bridge: Journal of Educational Research-Informed Practice, it is important to know that every student “learns differently and may have different needs.” Therefore, “having a variety of class starters is essential to cater for all students… allowing them to feel like they are making a meaningful contribution.” (p. 33) Class starters give students the opportunity to come into the classroom and know that there will always be something that will be there everyday. One thing that many people do not recognize is that class starters are not assessments that take a very long time. These are assessments and questions that take only a couple of minutes and allow students to get ready to engage with the day, content they are learning, or just think about something they may not usually talk about.
References
Simon, H. (2019, November 17). 25 Best 5-Minute Starters To Settle Language Students. Private German Tutor, Online French Teacher Qualified EFL Tutor. Retrieved March 24, 2021, from, https://theidealteacher.com/best-5-minute-starters-activities-to-settle
Stephens, K. (2014). Lesson Starters: An outdated idea or a meaningful teaching tool ? The Bridge: Journal of Educational Research-Informed Practice, 1(1), 33. Retrieved March 24, 2021, from, https://journaleducationalresearchinformedpractice.files.wordpress.com/2014/08/3stephens2014june.pdf
Morning Meetings
Trying to bring students together and ready to learn and engage with content in the morning can be a very overwhelming task if the plan is to jump right into teaching. Morning meetings can serve as a way for students to not only share what they may want to from the evening prior while they are away from school, but it also allows for the teacher, and for other students to feel ready for the day.
Morning meetings can occur in a variety of different ways but typically, a morning meeting is a time where the class can usually sit in the front, and all together to greet one another, go over the days schedule, and have students participate and engage with a brief message or activity written by the teacher. When students have the opportunity and time to greet one another in the morning, they are less likely to become distracted or disengaged with the morning activities. Furthermore, when going through the morning meeting and reading the schedule, it can give students with learning disabilities the ability to take a glance at their day as they may prefer more structure and may want to be prepped more. In thinking about activities to do with students, an example would be to engage kindergartners in looking at the calendar and working on what day of the week it is, and where dates occur. This can also be a time for them to think about the days they have been in school and use counting manipulatives to display how many days they have been in school. Though it is a quick task, it gives students the opportunity to learn in a low-stakes setting and get help from their peers. By making these meetings informal, students come into the classroom relaxed and get ready to learn. Nice, really clear and to the point.
References
Responsive Classroom. (2019, January 2). What is morning meeting?
https://www.responsiveclassroom.org/what-is-morning-meeting/#:~:text=Responsive%
Classroom%20Morning%20Meeting%20is,for%20success%20socially%20and%20academically.
Zubrzycki, J. (2020, December 10). Researchers Link 'Responsive' Classes to Learning Gains.
Education Week.
https://www.edweek.org/teaching-learning/researchers-link-responsive-classes-to-learni
Flipped Inquiry
When thinking about ways to engage students in the classroom, one particularly interesting model that I was shown was inquiry-flipped instruction. In a traditional setting, students would be given a prompt or project to work on and work in a chronological order to get to an end product; but through an inquiry-flipped approach, students would think about an end product and what they want to display and work backwards in order to determine the smaller pieces. Throughout this inquiry based model, students have the opportunity to explore and make connections about what they are learning. For example, a student may be presented with a broad topic such as food, the student would then pick out what main areas of food they may want to explore (i.e American, central american, indian, etc) and write a compelling question for their assignment (How does food bring people together?) After figuring that out they would then create supporting questions to further aid their understanding of each area they are talking about and do research to find it (ex. What are the most popular American dishes? Where did specific dishes originate? Etc.). By doing this, students will have thought about what their biggest takeaways should be and will have done the exploring and questioning to make bigger connections.
Though this model may be more beneficial towards older elementary students, it can be applied to a variety of different lessons and can allow students creative freedom in expressing what they learned. Throughout this model, I think students are also able to ask more meaningful questions and take learning into their own hands.
Think- Pair- Shares
In thinking about ways to incorporate the universal design for learning into the classroom, the idea of incorporating think-pair-share into discussion can allow for rich conversation between students and engage in a deeper level of classroom discussion. The way in which think-pair-share works, is that students are prompted with an idea, conversation starter, or question, and are told to first think to themselves about this prompt. During this time students may choose to just think about what they are going to answer, or can also write it down in order to remember their ideas. After about a minute or two, students are prompted to turn and talk to their neighbor about what their idea was. This time, allowing for students to engage in their own conversations and build or relay ideas back to one another. After about 3 minutes, or until conversation seems to die down, students are then brought back together into a whole group and the teacher presents the question again, students in this phase are then able to share or may choose not to share what they or their partner discussed.
Though on a surface level, it seems as though it is just conversation about the same thing, in reality, think-pair-shares allow for students who are more intimidated in a larger classroom setting to express their thoughts and opinions to one or two other classmates, rather than the whole group. Not only will this allow for the student to feel more comfortable in answering the question, this low-stakes environment also allows them to listen to their peers, and for the teacher to formatively assess. Think-pair-share as a formative assessment can occur just by observing the students and asking questions as they talk to their partners. This can also happen in the larger group when hearing from students who are more inclined to speak and who are comfortable in doing so. Over zoom, this can occur in breakout rooms where students are able to discuss in small groups and then brought back into the larger meeting to answer the question.
In thinking about when to use this, it can be used in just about every subject area. Reading Rockets suggests using it in reading when discussing a chapter in a book or different characters. It can be used in math by going over each other's answers and the work that it took to get there. In social studies, it can be used to have discussions about events and can even be used to create debates. In science, this practice can help in sharing ideas and hypotheses.
References
Think pair share. (2017, December 11). Mantra4change. Retrieved April 14, 2021, from https://mantra4changeblog.wordpress.com/2017/12/11/think-pair-share/
Think-pair-share: Classroom strategy. (n.d) Reading Rockets. Retrieved April 14, 2021, from
https://www.readingrockets.org/strategies/think-pair-share#:~:text=Think%2Dpair%2Ds
are%20(TPS,2)%20share%20ideas%20with%20classmates.
