Class Cards and the quick response
(Seminar interaction)

I was using the index cards once again to call upon teachers. With only about 15 minutes to go before the end of the workshop, I asked them what they thought was the student need we hadn't identified yet. (They had power, fun, freedom, and safety already written in the rectangles on page 2 of their seminar guides. We hadn't had enough time to get to the newest need, belonging, and were going to end with the fifth of the original basic needs.)

So, I started to call upon teachers for their opinion. And whether it was a combination of me not being clear in what I had asked or the fact that I hadn't provided them with enough time to formulate a response, the teachers called upon were clearly not prepared to do so.

I called the name of the teacher whose card was at the top of the deck. She raised a timid hand to identify where she was sitting. (My students don't have to do this because I learn their names and faces. During a seminar, though, there isn't time to do that so I ask the teacher being called upon to raise a hand so I know where to direct my attention.)

Teacher 1
A little surprised to be called upon:
Echo.

Rick
Calmly:
I asked, 'What do you think is the missing need on page 2?'

I then saw her turn to that page--wow, I guess I hadn't made that part clear--and ponder the possibilities.

Rick
Would you like more time?

Teacher 1
Somewhat relieved:
Yes, please.

Rick
Smiling:
You keep thinking. We'll get back to you.

I set her card aside so that I would remember to get back and then called the name of the next teacher.

Teacher 2
After a pause:
Ummmmm...
Another pause:
I don't know.

I then shared with them that my students don't respond with, "I don't know." It's an Old School message that just doesn't do us much good. It's too much of a dead-end street and a real interaction killer. My students know to respond with, "I don't know, yet." The psychological implication of the word "yet" is that the student is going to know in just a bit.

He then changed his response to I don't know, yet, and I set his card aside. I looked at the next card and called the name.

Bam! Instant response from this teacher.

No pause. No hesitation. Just a quick response which meant that he had not only heard my question but had taken the time to formulate his answer.

Rick
Showing obvious pleasure:
There you go. That's what you are going to get by the end of the month as you use Class Cards with your own students. For the first four weeks you're going to be swimming upstream. This is especially true if your students have never experienced Class Cards. It will be four weeks of you patiently, but firmly, teaching and reinforcing the skill of having a response prepared. But that will be four weeks well spent. Because by week five, you'll find most of your students will have developed the skill of not only having a response prepared but delivering promptly when called upon.

I then called upon the two teachers whose cards had been set aside. I got an opinion on the missing need from both of them.

Rick
Wanting to prove a point:
Okay. Here we go. I'm going to call names rather quickly. When you hear your name, don't raise a hand. Just tell us what you think is the need.

I then started calling out name after name after name. From each of the dozen teachers called upon, I received an almost immediate response.

Rick
With a nod of my head;
There you go. That's what it's going to be like. Responsive students who are engaged and thinking. And only because the students will have learned, having been called upon randomly and regularly for a few weeks, that they need to be ready with a thought.

It's a beautiful thing.

(For those of you playing the Student Need game at home, the missing need was..................love.)

Hum that tune
(Suggestion offered during seminar break)

Teacher during a break: To help keep my students from being too loud when we are walking by other classrooms on our way to lunch, I have them hum our school song. The whole time they're humming, they're not talking to each other.

Very kid-friendly.

I then shared her comment with the group when we resumed after the break. Although I said that I thought it was a fun idea, another teacher, who works with special education students immediately joined in by saying, Yeah. They always seem to come by my room when we're in the middle of a short timed math test. We can hear the humming and it kind of distracts my students.

I'm pretty sure she meant this not as a criticism but mere observation. After all, every coin has two sides. One side sees the humming as a harmless way to pass other rooms somewhat quietly; the other one sees it as a bit of an intrusion.

Let's just hope that the humming is taken as the fun-loving, light-hearted thing it is meant to be and not some act of disregard or show of disrespect. I know that if the hummers came by my room, I'd want to step outside and enjoy the passing parade. But, then, I'm a glass-is-half-full kind of guy.

Closure at the end of the day
(Suggestion offered during seminar)

As I usually do at some point in a seminar, I shared the research that states, "3 minutes of effective closure can enhance retention by 50 per cent." During the break that followed that thought, a teacher came up to me to share how she and her students deal with closure at the end of the day.

Teacher: I have my students spend the last fifteen minutes of each day writing entries about what they each learned that day in their Learning Logs. It's always been a nice way to end the day. I'm just wondering if that's the best way to do closure.

Well, any closure is better than no closure. And as much as I like the idea of students maintaining a journal of what they're learning, I'm not so sure that waiting until the end of the day to do it all is the best way to go.

Imagine if you were given an evaluation form at the beginning of an all-day workshop on teacher effectiveness. What would produce a more accurate picture of what you learned that day?

Recording a thought every hour.

Recording all of your thoughts at the end of the day.

I don't know about you, but I'm thinking a regularly scheduled entry would be better than trying to reflect back on the entire day when the session is over.

With that thought in mind, I recommended that she think about the possibility of not waiting until the end of the day to do all of the entries. That maybe her students could make short entries at the conclusion of the various learning activites and then be allowed to use the last 10 to 15 minutes to share with the class what they had recorded.

Not only would this be a more manageable way for underachievers to create a complete picture of what they had learned, they'd also have the ability to add entries as they heard their classmates share theirs. This would be possible, of course, because they would have already written the bulk of their observations before the actual sharing began.

Core Principle #5 states that your classroom is manageable for everyone. Writing a series of short entries while the info is fresh is more manageable that having to write them all as the day is drawing to a close.

Page 1.....Page 2