Doug Lemov's field notes

For the last couple of years we’ve been partnering with an organization in Chile called Aptus. They’ve taken TLAC materials and not only translated them but developed training and support systems to develop teachers throughout Chile.

Recently they taped a few of their own champions to give teachers local examples to study and happily they sent a few examples my way. We watched them at a team meeting at TLAC Towers this week and found we loved them. I thought I’d share two videos in particular.

The videos are in Spanish but have subtitles and are easy to follow, so even if you only speak ingles they are definitely worth watching. You’ll still take away a lot. But then again if you’re in the US and looking for videos en español, estos seran muy utiles.

Both videos are of Josefina Maino, who teaches math at Colegio San Juan de Lampa, a school in Santiago run by Fundacion Astoreca, another great organization.

The first clip shows Josefina’s impeccable Cold Calling.

In the course of reviewing how to solve an equation, she Cold Calls seven students. She’s moving quickly enough to keep students on their toes but her tone is perfect: warm and supportive with a hint of a smile but brisk as well.

Every student she Cold Calls answers right away. You can tell they know to expect the Cold Calls and that they maintain a state of constant attention as a result–not just listening to what Josefina asks them but to what their peers say. In fact the video is one of the best examples my team and I have seen of ‘unbundling’: taking a single question and breaking it apart into a series of smaller questions to spread around the room, involving everyone and causing them to have to listen to one another to know what’s next.

You can see more evidence of their engagement in the moment when Josefina asks for hands to solve the problem and almost every student volunteers. They’re eager to participate because she’s gotten them all involved.

If you think Josefina’s first clip is ‘superbien,’ though, wait til you watch this second one, which we loved, if possible, even more.

In this clip Josefina demonstrates “narrated Wait Time.” She gives her students time to think about a harder question but she wants to make sure they use the time and are prepared to answer so she counts off hands to make sure they know that she sees who raises their hands and values it.

We all loved her elegant response to the 16th student to raise his hand. “The last shall be first,” she says, calling on him to answer. He struggles a little but with a warm smile she supports him–and his classmates do too… they track him politely; there’s no calling out. In Josefina’s class it’s safe to struggle. She reminds him to answer in a complete sentence and prompts him with a whisper, whereupon he shows himself worthy. Her handshake for him afterwards is priceless. It brought down the house at TLAC Towers. What a beautiful example of high expectations and caring at the same time!

Te agradecemos mucho, Josefina!

aptus, chile, cold call, fundacion astoreca, josefina maino, tlac en espanol, Wait Time