Making It Stick: Chapter 1

After reading Chapter 1 of this book, I am still very impressed. I like the style of the book a lot. It integrates stories about different skill sets, not just school related knowledge. It discusses being a pilot and baseball in order to make a point about learning. I will first post a short summary of this chapter, then I will discuss possible implications in the classroom. I am in no way an EXPERT on this topic, and as I read I may have to edit these implications, however this is how I am grasping that I can relate this information in my classroom.

So far, this book is sounding similar to many things I have heard in recent Professional Development and other readings.  In my classroom I am already using some of these strategies, but am I teaching my students how this is helping them learning? 

Some of the implications on teaching would be to continue using the following strategies. 

•Low Stakes Quizzing should be introduced to help student’s metacognition. For Example: 

•Exit Tickets

•Questioning After Reading

•Students should learn how to use self quizzing.  For Example: 

•Accountable Talk and Student Questioning 

•Student Created Tests/ Quizzes

•Teachers should space out practice of topics to keep students at the level of mastery.

•Spiral Curriculum

•Math Tubs/ Stations

•Topics should be related to other topics and interwoven throughout the curriculum.

•Subject Integration

•Complex Projects

•Students should use information to solve hard problems.

•Problem Based Learning

•Complex Thinking

•Differentiated Problems

Teachers should stop stressing rereading for review, teaching concepts in isolation, and allowing students to simply restate the text.

One thing I know I can improve on in my classroom is to teaching my students to learn from mistakes, and not to treat them as failures. Many of my students get frustrated when they get a problem wrong, rather than looking at what mistakes led them to get the wrong answer. I am hoping to integrate a new section into our problem of the day called Meaningful Mistakes. We will review fake student mistakes and determine what the student understands and where the student needs clarification. When students are more comfortable, I will allow them to submit their "meaningful mistake" dry erase boards and we can review them as a class.

Well, that is all for today!

Coming Soon-- Chapter 2: To Learn, Retrieve