Teach Like a Champion - Doug Lemov Chapter Four

Chapter Four:  Engaging Students in Your Lessons

Drawing students into the work of class and keeping them focused on the learning,

Notes:

22.     Cold Call – In order to make engaged participation the expectation, call on students regardless of whether they have raised their hands. (Pg 112)

·      Allows teacher to check for understanding effectively and systematically

·      Increases speed in terms of pacing and rate of covering material

·      Allows teacher to distribute work broadly around the room and that all are likely to be called upon

·      Allows teacher to distribute work around the room more authoritatively as it establishes that the room belongs to you.

·      Cold Call is:

o   Predictable – students react by being prepared for the obvious

o   Systematic – they come without fail, to everyone

o   Positive – goal is for students to get the answer right, not learn a lesson by getting the answer wrong

o   Scaffolded – questions involve a careful progression of difficulty

Cold call brings a level of accountability to a classroom that I like.  It creates an atmosphere of learning where dialogue is the expectation.

23.     Call and Response – Use group choral response – you ask; they answer in unison – to build a culture of energetic, positive engagement. (Pg 125)

·      Accomplishes 3 Goals

1.     Academic Review and Reinforcement

2.     High Energy Fun

3.     Behavioral Reinforcement

·      Five Types of Levels

1.     Repeat

2.     Report

3.     Reinforce

4.     Review

5.     Solve

All students respond to teacher signal (verbal and nonverbal)

This technique seems a bit elementary to me.  I can see how it would increase the energy in a classroom but ….  I haven’t watched the dvd yet, maybe seeing the technique in action will change my opinion.?

24.     Pepper  - Use of fast-paced, group-oriented activities to review familiar information and foundational skills. (Pg 131)

·      Great warm-up activity

·      Game atmosphere

25.     Wait Time – Delaying a few strategic seconds after a teacher asks a questi0n and before you ask a student to begin answering it. (Pg 134)

·      Answers are more reflective (use of evidence likely to increase)

·      Length of correctness of student response increase

·      Number of failured responses decrease (less “I don’t knows”)

·      Number of students to volunteer increases

Wait time is always a good thing in the classroom and I work hard to incorporate it into my questioning.  Still, that extra second ticks by ever so slowly. 

26.     Everybody Writes – Set your students up for rigorous engagement by giving them the opportunity to reflect first in writing before discussing.  “I know what I write.”  (Pg 137)

·      Increase the quality of the ideas discussed in class

·      Expand the number of students likely to participate

·      Increases the ration since it causes everyone to answer

I love this technique and use it frequently in the classroom, though now that I teach tech the kids are writing on their blogs instead of in their notebooks.  Writing provides students the opportunity to express ideas freely without judgment. 

27.     Vegas – The moment during class when you might observe some production values:  music, lights, and rhythm, dancing.  It’s the commercial break in the lesson. (Pg 141)

·      Reinforces not just academics but also one of the day’s learning objectives

·      Upbeat

·      Short

·      On the point

·      Once it’s done, it’s done

If there were a technique I could embrace and be good at it would be Vegas.  I think kids like these little interjections that remind them of the lesson’s objective.