Turn and Talk is a powerful tool in the classroom. Done well it can cause the room to crackle with energy and give students the opportunity to rehearse and develop ideas in a smaller setting before sharing them with the whole group. Watch, for example, how the energy in these three Turn&Talks (that’s Denarius Frazier, BreOnna…
I recently joined Kate Jones, teacher of history in Abu Dhabi, and author of five books including the Retrieval Practice collection and Five Formative Assessment Strategies In Action, on her show on Teachers Talk Radio. In talking about Retrieval Practice and other topics we hashed out an idea for ‘hybrid” retrieval practice, using questions that…
About a week ago I posted a clip of Bradi Bair Cold Calling with her math students at Memphis Rise Academy in Memphis, TN. I wrote about how she observed which students had the best answers and used that to make her Cold Call an honor. This was a great way to build a positive culture…
I’ve spent much of this week watching the first batch of video from school year 2021-22 classrooms. Watching classrooms with everyone masked is a bit disconcerting at first but it’s remarkable how quickly things feel closer to normal. Familiar interactions and relationships don’t take long to seem… well… familiar. And already there’s so much to learn….
A few days ago I came across the above outstanding illustration created by Luke Tayler, a geography teacher in Bahrain. It captures in graphic form the power of timing the name during Cold Call. The basic idea is that when students know you might Cold Call and you use a structure of question-pause-name for your question,…