Using Metacognitive Strategies to Increase Student Reading Engagement

By Jackie Figliulo 

Whether asking students to engage with class-assigned texts or books of their choosing during independent reading, I’ve always struggled to get students interested in being readers.  And why should they be interested?  Because-the-teacher-said-so works for very few students.  Then when a text challenges students, its subject matter is “boring,” or their cell phones are mere inches from their itching finger tips, because-the-teacher-said-so just simply won’t cut it.  

Enter metacognitive strategies.

Telling students to think about their thinking piques their interest as we start our class each year.  Showing them that we all approach and experience a variety of texts in our own way allows them to understand there is no one way to be a reader and a thinker. Showing students it’s ok to not know everything and to ask questions is a valuable part of being a reader.  Promoting metacognitive strategies in class also tells students that their individual experiences matter and are valuable.  
     

In my English classes, I most intentionally employ metacognitive strategies during independent reading.  Students bring a book of their choosing to class on Fridays and are instructed to read for a given amount of time (25 minutes in quarter one, 30 minutes in quarter two, etc).  Once they’ve read, they complete a metacognitive reflection, answering five out of seven questions that applied to their reading experience that day.  Each quarter we make improvements to the reflection sheets so that students can use them in ways that make most sense to them as critical thinkers.

Now, how can I assess students’ thinking and reflections in a meaningful way? The metacognitive conversation.  

Each quarter, I return the students’ reading reflections all at once.  They get to look through their reading experiences from the last ten weeks and reflect on their progress, problems, and evolving thinking.  Using their own reflections as evidence, students prepare for our summative assessment:  the metacognitive conversation.  

Students must prepare for the metacognitive conversation by answering six to seven questions about their reading for the quarter.  They must reflect on what they did throughout the quarter and then set goals or propose solutions to their reading road blocks for the following quarter.  The day before our formal conversation, we review the procedure, expectations, and evaluation [see assignment sheet], then choose two student facilitators to guide the discussion the next day.  In order to participate, students must have their reflections and admittance slip (completed questions).  During the conversation, students discuss their thinking, approaches to the text, problems they encountered, and make recommendations to each other about text choices or methods.  At the close of the conversation, students complete a self assessment of their performance during the discussion.  Their reading reflections, admittance slips, self assessments, and my notes make up their final grades.  
The metacognitive conversation is a valuable, focused evaluation of one of my overarching quarter learning targets: students will be critical thinkers of texts and their own thinking.  It allows students of all reading levels to show growth and be measured on their own personal progress.

Another benefit of using metacognitive strategies and this method of assessment is the community it builds in our classroom.  I come to know how my students think as individuals and can use that to inform and differentiate my instruction.  Additionally, students get the chance to relate to one another as academics, not just as peers sharing the same space each day.  

I continue to struggle with intentionally embedding metacognitive strategies in all parts of our curriculum.  I hope to create a classroom where individual, critical thinking becomes the class norm, not just something we do on certain days.  However, the metacognitive conversation days give me hope that my students and I are at least on our way!

Please feel free to come observe a metacognitive conversation at the end of May (exact date, TBD) periods 2, 3, 6, 7, 8! :)

Student Voice: Hands on Learning

By Mark Heintz

I have been going around school stopping students at random to hear what they feel teacher's do that impacts their learning.  It is so important to continually ask the population we serve to get their feedback on what helps them master the content and skills we are trying to teach.  The responses have been so insightful into what works for each of the unique learners that enter our classroom and can continue to drive the methods we use to instruct them.  Once I captured the student's voice, I tracked down the teacher to share and get their input on the practice that was highlighted. 

The student I asked in the video highlights the way Mrs. Glosson uses Play-Doh to help demonstrate difficult topics in Biology. 

Here is Mrs. Glosson explaining why she uses Play-Doh to help students learn.  

Blending Reading and Writing to Understand the Content

By Mark Heintz

This semester I put more emphasis on students reading to gain an understanding of the content and writing to prove their understanding of the readings and content.  Throughout the semester, I shifted my teaching style to center on students reading and writing daily.  This shift came my students giving me feedback and their writing and my own reflection on the time it takes to develop the skills of academic writing and understanding of primary and secondary sources.  Since the shift, the amount of daily feedback each student received on their progress towards these skills has increased and their understanding of the content increased.

For the past week lessons, the following were my content objectives:

• List five ways rulers continued to use religious ideas to legitimize their rule. 

• List three supporting details that explain how the Spanish, Dutch, French, and British empires rose in both hemispheres.  

• List supporting details that explain how the Manchu, Mughal, Ottoman, and Russian rose to power.

For the final, the students will be assessed on a stimulus based multiple choice exam and three short answer questions which mirrors the content objectives and the style in which the course is presented.

My students gain background information on the content objectives from a series of videos I made.  You can read about that process here.  The videos have freed time in the classroom to analyze documents and practice the writing. 

The students are reading and unpacking difficult documents like the ones pictured above. Two documents such as these can take entire period to analyze.  Each day they continually work towards mastery on these skills all while reinforcing their understanding of the content.   I am fortunate enough to have white board tables which makes it easy to read student samples and provide feedback. The students are able to ask individual questions about the documents and their writing. Since they write on the tables, I can easily provide feedback related directly their questions.  Furthermore, I can differentiate between poor writing skills or a gaps in their content knowledge.  Since they are writing so frequently, I am understanding their voice ways to fix it for each student.  After each day, I can pause the class to models of student work to emphasize a common mistake or praise progress.

The students are having to master the content knowledge to work through the documents and writing.  As seen in point C in the above sample, the student needs to draw more specific examples to prove their point.  It takes time to develop the ability to make claims about the past and defend them with historical examples that actually support the claim they made.  I am proud of the progress my students have made this semester! 

Making Pre-Test Review Interactive and Cooperative

Written by Quinn Loch

A couple weeks ago I was inspired by a review activity that AP environmental science (APES) students did at Prospect High School. In the activity, students were split into groups and assigned a topic in which they had to visually represent the most important concepts, diagrams, and terms within their topic. Students used neon-colored wet-erase markers on the black science lab tables and had great results. A lab table one day, and a make-shift "whiteboard" table the next. Time to get some markers!

Neon wet-erase markers on science lab tables.

I decided to try my own spin on it and have groups of students rotate around the room answering one of six questions for one of six topics. After six rounds, each group will have answered one question per topic. I used big pieces of butcher paper for this unit - going to give wet-erase markers a try the next time.

This jigsaw strategy is nothing new, however technology can lend a hand in making the end products accessible for students outside of class. After each poster's topic was finished, one student from the group took a picture and uploaded it to a Schoology Media Album. This media album provided another resource for my students before their first big test.

Our Unit 1 Review Media Album

I asked my APES students at the end of the jigsaw activity if they liked it and I got an overwhelming "Yes." I told them that I had seen this done another way, where each group was in charge of single topic and on student responded, "Oh yeah, that'd be cool too"!

My goal is to pool these resources both on paper and on schoology throughout the year, so that when the AP review starts in April, we'll have lots of resources to draw from.

Orchestra Observation

By Mark Heintz

I recently observed Maura Brown and her orchestra class.  It was amazing!

Maura told me that her starting routine is common practice amongst almost all orchestras around the globe, but it was still inspiring.  The first few minutes of class were spent having students readying themselves.  Students fine-tuned their instruments as they changed their state to be ready for the lesson.  Finally, a student leader stood up and directed the entire orchestra.  It was incredible to see such student ownership over the readiness of the class. Ever since witnessing her starting routine, I have been puzzling out how to adapt my instruction to mimic hers. I wish I had the courage to begin my class the way she did.

The lesson focused on two goals.  One pertained to the introduction of learning a new scale. The second was to build background knowledge for an upcoming piece of music.

To accomplish the first goal, Maura gave the students the new scale and they practiced as a whole class. Then, the students split up into elbow partners, people right next them, to watch, listen, and provide feedback.  The feedback each student was supposed to be on the proficiency of their peers ability to perform the scale.  The students gave this feedback orally.  They took turns and after the first listened, the students provided feedback to their partner.   Maura realized they needed specific guidance in the way to provide feedback. She augmented her instruction by redirecting the class to provide a specific piece of feedback from a list of three choices.

It was great to see formative assessment in action AND actually see how changed instruction! It was great!

The second part of the lesson centered around students reading about Faust and then watching the opera music they were about to perform.  After the students read about Faust and the opera, they posted to a Schoology discussion blog.  Maura attempted and was successful in getting students to feel the emotion in the music they were about to play.  It was great to see the power of building background knoweldge in helping students play a piece of music with greater passion and emotion.  

Building Background: IF IT WERE MY HOME

By Mark Heintz

This post is on the power of building background knowledge through the use of the website: If It Were My Home.

I stumbled across the website if it were my home while I was creating a pre-reading activity.  In my creation of the activity, I attempted to find a map that compared the size of Taiwan to the United States.  The website allows the user to select a home country, which can be changed, and another  country to compare.  Once the countries are selected, the website overlays the second country selected over the home country.  The user can even input a zip code for more precise comparison.  here is Taiwan over Chicago.

 

The website is very easy to use and provides a great visual for easy comparison. Furthermore, the website provides comparison data as if Taiwan or whatever country were your home.

The data can be expanded by clicking the drop-down menu on the right-hand side.  Another great note about the website is all of the information is cited! Most of the information on the site is pulled from the CIA World Factbook.  It is so easy to access a lot of information about a country and relates it to the users home country, easily building background knowledge.

At the bottom of the page, there is a brief overview of the country selected and the website provides a list of books for further exploration! 

With this website, it is so easy to build students background knowledge of a less familiar country. I continue to use this because of the great visuals and plethora of statistics.  

Worth the Time

By Mark Heintz

The more I teach, the longer it takes me to get through the material.  In my first few years of teaching, I focused on completing activities. Let me emphasize the past sentence, I focused on completing activities.  I would lead the classroom and just get through the material.  If I was writing things on the board and students were packing up with a minute to go, I would still teach. Furthermore, I would continue to write down things for the students to complete a worksheet if the bell was about to ring.  I taught bell to bell.  I was a good teacher.  

An activity that used to take ten minutes, might take an entire period now. This is mainly because I actually teach the concept and/or skill.  I spend more time building or activating background knowledge, movement activities, writing, reading, allowing all students a voice, and ensuring all students have an understanding.  It takes more time because I am not as concerned about the teaching as I am the student learning that takes place. 

For example, look at the image below. For the activity below, I would model the first one with whole class instruction. Then I would have the class try the second one.  Finally, I would walk around the room and help students with the rest. If they didn't finish them, I would just tell them the answer at the end.  To get through ten statements, it would take about ten minutes.  

Now it takes me the whole period. I mostly do the same process.  But instead of me leading the completed task, I have students AirPlay their attempts and defend it. I still walk around and help students as they attempt it. But I am also looking for students responses that will help guide the class. As I talk to students and help them, I look for misconceptions and understanding that will benefit the whole class.  As they AirPlay, I make them defend their answer to the whole class. This a time-consuming process, but it allows the students to really show the understanding.  Although we might not get through as much in a day, what we do get through is incredibly powerful.

                       

Peer Observation: Round 2 (Post 3/4)

Period 5

Christina Barnum invited us into her freshmen biology class.  They used Socrative as a self-assessment tool before starting a lab.  Socrative engaged the students because it provided instant feedback on content that would be needed to complete the lab.  

Period 6
Carmen Ruiz-Bergman invited us into her AP Spanish class.  They were discussing and learning about the commonalities and differences between Halloween and Dia de los muertos.  Students had studied the traditions of Día de los Muertos, but did not really know the history behind Halloween. Therefore they were asked to research and record their findings in Notability in order to write a cultural comparison between the target culture and their community.  Some of the pieces they looked at were:

       

A.  la historia

B.  la corrida

C.  la tumba / los cementerios

D.  "Trick or Treat"

E.  Tradiciones

F.  Etc.

Schoology Question Banks and Feedback

By Mark Heintz

I have fallen in love!  My love is the Schoology quiz bank feature.  I teach sophomores world history, so I categorized my question banks by time period, then by topic (such as political), and finally by civilization.  The extreme organization allows me to easily repeat questions on later quizzes.

Here is what my classical political civilization question banks look like. 

As for each questions, I utilize Schoology's feedback feature.  Each question has an explanation to why the answer the student chose is right or wrong.  By using instant feedback, I hope to save time in class. I should not have to explain as many questions to the students. Also, the students can instantly see their misunderstandings of a topic and progress to the next attempt or quiz.  

Below each question, Schoology allows the user to input general feedback for an incorrect or correct answer.  Here I am pasting larger more general understandings of the topic.

 My intent with these questions and quizzes is to have students earn as close to 100% as possible.  I set up my first seven quizzes in a student completion checklist.  Students will have to pass each quiz with a 95% or higher to move to the next quiz.  I want my students to know the content, and I want them to know it so much they have to pass the checklist with a understanding of at least 95%.

 Each quiz has questions from the core set and then random questions from previous sets.  For instance, the Han Dynasty quiz has seven Han Dynasty questions and random questions from Greece, Rome and Persia.  My hope is to continue this process throughout the year. Eventually the students will see each of these so many times the content will be ingrained in their brain.

It is so easy to add questions from previous banks.  Schoology allows the user to choose random questions, so each quiz will be different for each student.  Also, each time the student takes the quiz it will be different! With the feedback feature, the student should not have to go back to their notes to find the information on why or why not the question is right. The feedback will tell them instantly so they can progress through the quiz.  

Curriculum Changes-Mastery of Learning

By Mark Heintz


The Elk Grove freshmen human geography team added a document based question curriculum to achieve higher level thinking skills.  Over the last month of school, the team has been testing new ideas through student-centered document based instruction in hopes to get a great understanding of how to move forward next year.  The concepts and skills are driving a focus for next year in human geography centered around four main categories.

Content	Writing	Interpreting Texts	Interpreting Charts, Maps, Graphs
·        See each unit plan.	·        Write main ideas to examine and convey complex ideas. ·        Through writing, provide examples to support main ideas. ·        Through writing, analyze details.	·   State the main idea from texts. ·   Draw evidence from texts to support main ideas.	·   State the main idea of charts, maps, and graphs. ·   Provide evidence from charts, maps or graphs to support the main idea.
One summative multiple choice test per unit.	One summative writing per unit.  Each unit the skills will build upon each other.  The grade will reflect the students overall writing ability at the end of the semester.	One summative interpreting portion per unit as measured by providing the main idea and supporting details for the number of documents listed.  The overall category grade will be reflective of the student’s ability at the end of the semester.	One summative interpreting portion per unit as measured by a multiple-choice test.  The test will cover charts, maps and graphs.  The overall category grade will be reflective of the student’s ability at the end of the semester.
30% of the overall grade	30% of the overall grade	20% of the overall grade	20% of the overall grade

The team came to agreements that the semester grade would reflect student's current ability levels.  From the "testing" period, came a greater understanding of what students were capable of and what we as teachers could do to improve the student's mastery.  Over the semester, the skills would advance, requiring higher level thought processes.  Additionally as the year progresses, increasingly complex passages will be used as their abilities hopefully improve.

The work that we are doing is has been so rejuvenating for me as a teacher as we move towards a place where students are rewarded for mastering content and skills over time.  The students' learning is centered around interpreting texts, charts, maps, and graphs to learn content.  And then writing to express their understanding of content.  It is very powerful and the impact in the classroom leaves students tired from thinking so much.  

Another change is the instruction.  Since the team's focus is centered around a blend of skills and content, the instruction must mirror that.  That subject is for another post.

  

Active Learning through a Scavenger Hunt

By: Rachel Barry

I don't know about you, but I have a few students who get frustrated in their seats.  I can't blame them.  I love that I get to spend each class period walking around while facilitating instruction in my classroom.  This is why every once and a while I create activities that have students move around.  One activity that I have found to be successful is a scavenger hunt.

Here is a Scavenger Hunt that I made for my freshmen to review angle properties and relationships.  I print these pages on cardstock paper and randomly tape them up around the room.  The bottom half of each page is the math problem that the students solve.  Once they have an answer, they look around the room at the top half of each cardstock paper to match their answer with one that is up on the walls.  If they find their answer, they solved the problem correctly, and their next problem is the bottom half of the page with their previous answer.  If their answer is not on another cardstock paper, they check over their work to see where they went wrong.

Typically I assign partners based on student understanding and ability of the topic.  I have found that working in partners gives each student a voice, and also allows me to help struggling students in smaller settings.  To pair up students, I use formative assessment scores to rank the kids highest to lowest.  Then I cut the list in half and match the top student with the student at the top of the second half of the class.  I keep working down the list to create partners, adjusting if I don't feel the personalities of the students will work well together.  I find that this process pairs students that are within a reasonable Zone of Proximal Development from one another.  

Students record their work and answers on this worksheet.  I used to do this prior to students having iPads, and it worked fine.  However, with the integration of technology, students are able to take pictures of the problems graphics and write on the diagram to solve the problem.  I actually observed a pair of students doing this, and now encourage all of my students to do the same.  

So much of our math curriculum is structured.  Bringing in an activity like a Scavenger Hunt fosters learning in an active and engaging way.  I get to see students teaching one another how to solve a problem, thorough discussions on whether or not the answer is positive or negative, and many other enticing conversations amongst my students.  I find it incredibly beneficial in classes that tend to get off task because they focus more on each individual problem in front of them instead of getting overwhelmed with a whole page or packet of practice problems.