In this blog post for Meritas, I discuss how I incorporate the four essential protocols.
Of course, I grasped the basic
meaning of the phrase and thought I understood its significance, but it took me
years to fully realize exactly why those few words were so important to her.
Never did I imagine how vital they
would become to me as well.
In my twelve years of teaching,
I’ve come to understand that education is not instructing students what to think; it is about showing them how to think. It will never be about filling their minds with facts, but
about instilling a thirst for knowledge.
At Meritas, our approach to “the
lighting of a fire” is demonstrated through our four essential teaching
protocols:
· Essential Questions
· New Vocabulary
· Differentiation
· High-Order Assessment
It is through use of these
protocols that teachers are able to remove the focus on memorization and allow
our lessons to come to life. As a
result, our students truly interact with and understand the material.
The following outlines some of the
ways I incorporate the Meritas teaching protocols into my classroom:
Essential
questions
I begin
each unit by writing my essential questions on the board, and as the class
progresses through the material, students are expected to continually respond
to these questions, which have no yes or
no, right or wrong, answers.
Recently,
in a study
of non-fiction graphic novels, students were asked to consider how historical
events affect the individual and to apply their answers to our reading of Maus and Persepolis. Another
question I posted invited them to reflect on how the medium might change the
impact of the story or, as in the case of Maus,
the validity.
It
is my hope that my essential questions will encourage students to apply what
they are reading/studying to their everyday lives, to other classes, or to our
study of literature as a whole.
One way
that I assess each learner’s comprehension of the essential questions is by use
of an “exit ticket” at the end of class.
I do this by using Socrative, a free iTunes/android app, which students
download onto their smartphones or use on their computers. The exit ticket asks three
questions: 1. How well did you understand today’s material? 2. What did you learn today? 3. Can you answer
the essential question on the board?
The exit ticket requires a couple
of minutes to complete, and it discloses how well my learners understood what
we covered that day. Exit tickets
are a terrific way to evaluate whether my students are grasping the essential
questions, understanding the vocabulary, and benefitting from differentiated
instruction.
New
vocabulary
While there are many ways to teach vocabulary, I prefer teaching it in
context with each lesson.
One way in which I incorporate the
vocabulary of literary devices and rhetorical strategies is by separating students
into small groups and having them race to find as many examples as possible in
a text. With this form of assessment, students are not cramming to remember vocabulary
words, which they will forget the minute the quiz leaves their hands; instead,
they are utilizing the words, interacting with them.
Many students
struggle with new vocabulary, particularly those who are kinesthetic or visual
learners. I often work with these students one-on-one or in small groups. A simple technique that works wonders is
to teach students how to create a visual representation of the word. Teaching
students to create their own mnemonic devices helps them to move past the
memorizing/knowledge acquisition phase faster and more successfully, so that
they can move on to the higher orders of thinking. This is also a helpful
differentiation strategy.
Differentiation
I firmly believe that most teachers differentiate, even when they are
unaware of it; I attempt to make it a visible part of my courses because not
only does differentiation help with student engagement, it also aids in
retention of material. There are a
variety of options for differentiating English, from using a side-by-side
translation of a difficult text to requiring rewrites of particularly
complicated passages.
A recent example of
differentiation in my classroom is a Twitter assignment I created. Each student chose a
character from Hamlet, created a
twitter account, and then tweeted as that character throughout the play. It is
one of the most successful assignments of my career, particularly in terms of
student engagement. All four of my
English IV classes, with all levels from standard and ESOL to honors, were able
to interact on Twitter, and this forum allowed my students to write at their
own level and pace, with more advanced learners employing a variety of
rhetorical strategies. You can
read more about this assignment by visiting http://www.edsocialmedia.com/2012/03/to-tweet-or-not-to-tweet/.
High-order
assessment
Most assignments given in my classes require some form of analysis,
synthesis, evaluation, or creativity.
One of my favorite methods for assessing student comprehension of a text
is by assigning a reaction paper. These writing assignments are primarily based
on higher order reasoning, but must include textual evidence to support any
idea that the student introduces.
I find that requiring quotes from the original text forces each learner
to once again interact with the book or essay.
Another of my favorite activities involves student-teaching
components, where I ask my students to take turns presenting sections of an
assigned novel. At the end of
their short presentation, they must lead their class in a discussion of two
higher order reasoning questions (which they can find on the flip chart in my
room). By the end of the first
semester, the students have many of the questions from the chart
memorized!
In conclusion, Meritas’s four essential protocols are not foreign
concepts to most teachers. Perhaps we’ve not used the same vocabulary to
describe these procedures in the past, but by giving us a “common language” for
learning, Meritas is fostering an environment that will truly benefit each
student.
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