Doug Lemov's field notes

 

 

 

 

 

 

Love this clip we shot last week of Maggie Johnson’s 8th grade English class at Troy Prep, and for a tiny little reason.

The clip opens with Maggie’s class coming out of three minutes or so of independent work to start class- a Do Now with questions asking students to interpret key passages from a chapter in To Kill a Mockingbird. We’d taped the lesson to watch Maggie doing Close Reading with a challenging text and we got lots of that. But the first twenty seconds of this clip  offered a hidden gem.

“Pencils down when you hear the beep,” she says, referring the timer that’s about to go off and signify the end of independent work.  “No countdown today.”

Maggie is transitioning her kids from one highly effective system to another–she’s replacing a teacher-narrated countdown with a simpler, faster and more mature system where in her students merely come to attention at the beep. I love the clip because Maggie’s countdown system was very effective and sometimes it’s the things that go well in our classes that we hold on to hardest. Sometimes for a fraction too long. Or that’s the risk at least.  In Maggie’s case, she realized, despite the effective system already in place, that either:

1) Her students were in 8th grade and ready for a bit more autonomy and self-management or

2) That eliminating the countdown would be faster and less disruptive to the work they’re doing or

3) both.

So we see her upgrading her systems–from good to great, or from younger to more mature, or from fast to faster.

As she does so there’s a bit of “gradual release” as she helps them achieve success the first time around–“Here it comes. Be quick; be silent.”  And there’s a great winning smile full of genuine positivity.  And then they’re off and running with a Cold Call about the Do Now.

Great work by Maggie that raises the question- what system do you have that works well and might be ready for an upgrade–to greater efficiency or for greater autonomy for students who’ve shown their ready?

Systems and Routines; Timer; Countdown; Maggie Johnson, Video