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Golub, Jeffrey N. (2000). Making learning happen: Helping students to reflect on their work.  Portsmouth, NJ: Boynton/Cook.

Focus: reflection.

Don't mistake motion for progress; i.e., keeping students busy doesn't necessarily result in learning.  

Definition of conscious learning: "the kind of learning that enables students to assess the current level and quality of their language performance and then work to improve that performance deliberately, enthusiastically, and with commitment.  Such learning cuts across all grade levels and all disciplines".

We must make the invisible visible; that is, make students consciously aware of the level and quality of their performance so that they can begin to gain a measure of control over it.

The importance of reflection: it is not enough to simply produce a project; students must be made consciously aware of what they did to produce the artifact.  However, simply telling students the answer doesn't produce reflection. 

How can you make reflection happen?  First, you must reduce the risk factor involved in reflection.  One way to do this is to have the majority of your activities and students work be "rehearsals".  Of course, there should also be occasional "performances". 

Another technique that encourages reflection is, just before students hand in a work, to have them answer a series of questions (e.g., What did you like best?  What was the most difficult part of this assignment for you?  What parts of your writing are you still concerned about?).

One can employ a "constructivist" technique that consists of intentionally giving ambiguous directions for an assignment and then allowing students to ask questions to clarify the directions.  Students will be very motivated to clarify the assignment.

Ask students for evidence that something happened.  Allow them to justify their evidence.

After completing a class activity, hand out an index card to each student.  Ask them to respond to a question by writing only on the front side of the card.  Then ask, quotation wanted you learn from this assignment/activity?"  After they've answered, have them turn the cart over an answer this question--"How do you know that you learned whatever it is that you listed on the front of the card?"

All of the aforementioned activities involve reflection-- that is, students stepping back and looking at the activities they have just an pleaded and gleaning insights and other evidence of learning.  Thus, students are making the invisible learning that has occurred visible to themselves.

Responsibility for Making Meaning

1. First, students experience the text.

2. Next, they reflect on the reading and then discuss it with classmates.

3. I want to make students responsible for the meanings they construct, so I then ask questions like "How do you know?" And "Where did you get that idea?"  Students either defend an elaborate their tour for tensions, modify them, or abandon them.

Constructing and Negotiating Meaning

Make students aware of the phrase "constructing and negotiating meaning".  You can do this by handing out a parable students and then asking them to write the moral of the story (this is constructing meaning).  Then group students in pairs and have each pair create a moral together (this is negotiating meaning).  Lastly, have students present their morals to the class.

If you want students to create and negotiate meaning, then do not give students "the answers" (your opinions).  If you do, from then on they won't participate but will simply wait for you to tell them the answer.

The Three Questions Activity

1.  Introduce a reading

2.  Ask each student to write down three questions they have about the reading

3.  Form students into small groups

4.  Ask each group to generate answers to their questions

5.  Lastly, have each group appoint a recorder who summarizes for the class.

The Movie Activity

Ask students to imagine that there when depicts a series of scenes from movie.  Ask them what the next scene will show.  Then have students cast the movie (using persons other than actors if preferred, and previous as well as current actors).

Don't Say It Activity

Ask students questions and have them write their answers instead of calling them out loud.  Then go around the room and have each student respond in turn.  If the students hear an interesting answer, they are to write it down.  Lastly, students can question other students as to why they chose particular answers.

Single Word or Phrase Activity

Write down a word or phrase from the chapter that captures the essence of the chapter.

BUILDING A SENSE OF COMMUNITY

A teacher in "a coordinator of the communication environment."  The classroom is a communication environment-- people talk in there.  it's the teacher's job the court made or manage that talking, to design things to encourage students to talk about things worth talking about, and to ensure that all of this talking takes place in a supportive and cooperative climate. 

There are two critical elements involved in such an environment:

1. Creating a climate of engagement

2. Building a sense of community

Most books assume it is always the student's fault if misbehavior occurs or the assignments are not completed.  But maybe, just maybe, if students are not doing what you want them to do, what you're asking them to do is not worth doing.

Quote: "If the horse dies, dismount!"  That is, sometimes lessons are activities don't work out.  It happens.  You can reflect on it later, but right then the most important thing is to "dismount" and jump on a different horse.  Classroom management problems occur when teachers are unwilling to dismount a dead horse.

Engagement

I don't know how to "motivate" students.  Engagement, however, is different-- it happens when students participate actively and enthusiastically in a task even if not threatened with a grade or awarded with goodies.

A large part of successfully managing a classroom is to provide activities that are challenging, engaging, worthwhile, and fun.

An important part of construct classroom community is to make students visible.  And community cannot be developed as long as students remain invisible and unknown to their classmates.  Therefore, use community-building activities early in the semester.

Scavenger hunts, creating "wanted" posters, writing profiles and delivering "something important" show & tell can all make students "real" to one another.

The Velveteen Rabbit

This children's story has an excerpt about "what is real?" That is useful to read to students.

DEVELOPING STUDENTS' SPEAKING AND LISTENING SKILLS

Oral communication is a process, it's a relationship, and it's a transaction.  The activities of this section help make the invisible oral communication skills visible to students.

Simultaneous Interviews

Ask for three volunteers.  Arrange them in a triangle.  Students B and C conduct interviews simultaneously with student A, and student A must keep up with both conversations. after demonstrating, break the students into groups of three and have each group perform the activity, occasionally rotating student "A".

Simultaneous Monologues

Ask for two volunteers and arrange them facing each other. Each thinks of the story about a personal experience to tell the other.  then they simultaneously tell their stories to the other, each attempting to tune out their partner and concentrate on their own monologue.  break students in the pairs and have them perform the activity.

The King and his Servants

Ask for five volunteers.  Arrange them in a line facing the class.  You point at one student, who must immediately begin telling a story.  When you point at another student, he or she must instantly continue the story being told by the first student, and so on.

Tell Us About

Each selects a partner.  Distribute the "tell us about" handout.  one person in each pair will select a topic from this handout and begin talking about it.  Their partner will practice the three listening skills of focusing, drawing the person out through questioning, and listening without judging.

Playing with Tongue Twisters

This handout works on articulation.  Students first work in pairs before volunteering to read some of the tongue twisters in class.  lastly, have students create their own tongue twisters.

Giving Directions Clearly:  The Airport Activity

One student plays the part of a control tower giving instructions to a pilot trying to land in a severe fog.  A blindfolded "pilot" is negotiated around various "obstacles" (e.g., wastecans, chairs).

One Way vs. Two-Way Communication
A student is given a geometric design and must communicate it to another student who cannot see the design.  To me vacation is one way-- classmates cannot ask questions.

Then repeat the process using two way communication.

The Giving Directions Clearly Writing Activity

Students each select a partner.  One member of the payer sits at a seat on one side of while the other sets in a seat on the other side. Distribute the handouts.  each rights directions to the other as to how to complete some of the geometric figures.  several "rehearsals" are then followed by a "performance".

The Demonstration Talk

This exercise focuses on oral directions.  Each student selects a topic for a demonstration (e.g., carving a pumpkin, bathing a dog), prepares the demonstration, and delivers it.  presentations are evaluated in three areas-- voice, organization, and delivery.  Students are given a rubric before the activity.

LEARNING IN A SMALL-GROUP DISCUSSION SETTING

Rules for Brainstorming

1 "the more ideas, the better"

2 "the Wilder the ideas, the better"

3 "'hitch hiking' is encouraged"

4 "no evaluation of ideas during brainstorming " 

Tips

• Each brainstorming session should last three minutes

• During the first few sessions, emphasize only the number of ideas

• Practice as a group before doing more extensive work in small groups

Descriptions of Group Activities

• "Cooperation squares" game
• "Moon Survival" exercise
• Fish bowl variation
• "Alligator river" problem
• "Maze" Game

SPEAKING OF PARTICIPLES AND GERBILS

Dear John

The "Dear John" letter challenges students to punctuate a letter in two different ways to create opposite meanings:

"Dear John, I want a man who knows what love is all about you are generous kind thoughtful people who are not like you admit to being useless and inferior John  you have ruined me for other men I yearn for you I have no feelings whatsoever when we're apart I can be forever happy will you let me be yours  --Gloria"

Final Exam

In response to that "abandon all hope" look on students' faces class on the first day of grammar class, he gives them their "final exam".  It's from a book called "measuring growth in English" (1974) by Paul Diederich.  It consists of seventeen multiple choice items all dealing with a single sentence.  As soon as students are finished taking the exam they review each item and discuss the answers.  Then students are shown the second part of the exam, which involves rewriting the sentences as many ways as possible.

Three Goals

1. Students should leave class at the end of the semester knowing more about basic grammar and usage than they knew when they entered.
2. Students should be made aware of, and have opportunities to practice with, alternatives to traditional grammar (e.g. sentence combining and sentence modeling strategies).
3. Students should be encouraged to play with language through creative activities.

Basic Knowledge

Students give presentations throughout the semester dealing with grammatical terms.  presentations must use at least two of the following eleven elements:

• Musical
• Literary
• Colorful
• Visual
• Edible
• Movement
• Cartoons
• A game
• A newspaper
• Scissors, glue, and tape
• Fantasy or make believe

Alternative Strategies

• Write a poem about a grammatical term or element
• Write a love letter to a particular verb tense
• Write a complete letter to a particular verb tense
• Assume the role of either a prosecutor or a defense attorney.  Write your opening statement to the jury, summarizing the case against a prisoner-- a dependent clause.
• Design in magazine ads selling a verb.
• Write it obituary notice for a grammatical term, including a summary of its accomplishments and like.
• Yesterday's newspaper headline about a grammatical term.

Word Play

Play with:

• Similies
• Metaphors
• Puns
• Riddles
• Cliches
• Euphemisms
• Ambiguities

See Richard Lederer's book The play of words:  fun and games for language lovers (1990) for games.

So What?

For summative evaluation, he asks students to write a reflective paper a which they respond to two questions:

• So what?

• Now what?

Alternately, he phrases the questions this way:

• What did you learn?

• How do you know?

LESSON PLANNING: PUTTING IT ALL TOGETHER

The World's Simplest Lesson Plan

1. Where do you want to go?
2. Why do you want to go there?
3. How will you get there?
4. How will you know when you have arrived?