Teach 15 Reflect 4

So how do we make students really reinforce concepts and ideas we spend our precious class time showing, leading and/or guiding?  How do we make sure they are reflecting on the lesson objective, using the practices  - that they are making connections?  It is an interesting question - I often ask how do I make sure my students understand the concept and embrace their learning - but perhaps I should be asking how do I make students reflect?

Thinking about student reflection was part of a speech from Naomi Harms at a professional event I recently attended - she spoke about the need to only do 15 minutes of teaching, lecturing, practicing, working, etc and then 4 minutes where the students reflect.  That reflection can happen any number of ways - but the key is to allow that time.    And I am now working hard to set up my daily teaching to make sure students are reflecting, and that they are really embracing their learning.

It may seem like a modest change, but after reflecting on it I am hopeful that it can have a large impact in my students.  I think this reflection can have a large payback - the investment is small, about 8 minutes per period - but if students can make their connections in those few minutes then the impact will be much greater than 8 minutes of more lecture, or more practice, or more anything,

Seriously only 4 minutes reflection for 15 minutes of attention, seems too easy.  But when I think about myself - even now as an adult I struggle to pay attention and connect ideas when a lecture or speech is more than 15 minutes straight.  I am shifting my classroom, I had provided time to make connections but never said "Reflect on this," or "Discuss this with a partner," etc.

So I am going to add it and see how the first month goes.  Nothing ventured.....
Finally I just want to thank Juda, JAM'M, WTI and Morgridge Family for making the conference possible - hearing Naomi is making me think about my teaching and work on making it better.  So it was a good day.

Curriculum Mapping

So we had in-service this past week and used the time to work on curriculum mapping.  Working on a plan to teach the Common Core Standards (CCSS) through out our K-12 building. Aligning what we are teaching/how we teach to the new national standards.  It seems like time well spent because we finally found some software that allows a teacher to not only plan by unit and topic but also includes the ability to have learning targets (the daily "stuff" of teaching).

Thus curriculum mapping goes from an overall tool to a daily tool, so as I work on lessons I can build them there in the software (BYOC, is the software).  I can store links, sheets, ideas all to a Learning topic (versus a unit).  This then becomes a way for me to create plans that work by learning goals.  I am excited because curriculum mapping at unit and topic level just becomes a way to say you checked against standards, the previous program we used did just unit and topic and I rarely looked at it.  I was always too busy making lessons.  Now I can make those lessons in the curriculum mapping software and then that can be looked at and refined the next year.  These learning topics (the daily lessons) are tied to unit and topic with standards and makes me really focus on the standards.  Tie that standard focus to the new mathematical practices and there is a framework to really become proficient at CCSS.  My hope is to finally have a place to do continuous improvement on a lesson!

This hopefully will be the tool I use to tie daily teaching to lessons.  My goal is to quickly rough in the topics/units into the software so I can really work on learning targets.  Then I can decide the best way to teach concepts for understanding & high level thinking.

Is this "pie-in-the-sky?"  Maybe...  But at least the software has a way to look at it and have it be useful on daily basis....   Because the only way to get better is one lesson at a time....