High Impact Instruction Breakout Day 2

Midwest Leadership Summit @ St. Paul RiverCentre  

LESSON PLANNING 

"Thinking Prompts: Any device a teacher puts in front of students to prompt thinking, discussion, and dialog."

Effective thinking prompts are

• Provocative, complex, concise, humanizing, varied
• Catch emotions 
• Not necessarily controversial, but stirs multiple thoughts in different people 
• VARIED - do not use the same type of thinking prompt all the time

What Kind of Question are you asking for your discussion prompt?

Open or Closed 

Right/wrong or Opinion 

The more open ended or opinion questions you can form, the more rich the discussion and engagement will be. 

Level of Question asked (Jim Knight uses in lieu of Bloom's Taxonomy)

Knowledge

Skill 

Big idea 

• You should ask about 4-5 good questions per period during direct instruction 
•  Closed ended questions to affirm understandings - WKRP: Venus Explains the Atom

Playlist of videos used as discussion and inquiry prompts during session

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COMMUNITY BUILDING

Create a learner-friendly culture 
Changing the look of your classroom is an easy way to restart a different method of classroom management or instruction strategy.

What we say about the culture: The norms, rules, expectations within a classroom. The way everyone interacts during different activities in all part of classroom cultre.

Have power with, not over, your students. 

Use your power as a teacher to:

• Build connections, 
• Get to know a lot about your students, 
• Offer choices, 
• Meet one-to-one, 
• Admit your imperfections, 
• Continually ask, "How are my students' feeling now?" 
• Ask for anonymous feedback

Use Freedom Within Form

• Tightly structured routines and rituals
• Attention signals, timers
• Cooperative learning structures
• Dialogue structures 
• Structured choices 
• Cues - such as thinking prompts - for transitions

Identify & teach expectations