Do Students Consistently Give you their Best? Or Do You NOT Require It?

High expectations is a phrase used often in education. Districts, schools and teachers are required to have such expectations and try hard to outline what those expectations are and what they look like in action.

I started thinking about my own work in the classroom for the past decade. I had high expectations of my students no doubt, but it usually had to do with my own prep.  I made sure my lessons were rigorous and that students were exposed to higher level thinking. However, there is one area I could have developed to ensure I CONSISTENTLY had high expectations of my students- student response quality.

Let me clarify what I mean exactly. I knew the answer I wanted my students to provide and I would take answers that were along those lines. Where I missed an opportunity for reminding students of my high expectations was in the quality of their response, which had to land exactly on the bulls-eye instead of just anywhere on the target. I could no longer give credit where credit wasn’t due. Would you give an A to a student that wrote the first letter of a sentence only? No! Would you give 100% to a problem partially worked out? No! So why do we allow students to respond with half answers?

I realized this missed opportunity when I started working for The New Teacher Project [TNTP] through one of their teacher programs called TEACH Charlotte based out of my hometown. They train future teachers using the work of Doug Lemov found in his book called,  “Teach Like a Champion.” One of the techniques Doug wrote about is what he called “No Opt Out.” The technique requires that students cannot opt out of answering a question 100% correctly. So that means, no half answers are allowed- man I would have been in trouble if Doug saw my less than perfect teaching implementation!

To provide an example, I will compare the old me without this technique to the new me with this technique. Let’s say I was leading a lesson in my classroom on Division of Labor. I ask a clarifying question to my students in order to determine if they understood the topic:

T: What is an example of a division of labor process in your own community?

S: A toy from the toy store came from a toymaker.

T: Yes, I see where you are going… [fill in the knowledge gap by providing a complete answer].

The student might have understood the topic on some level, but to which level exactly?  I should have capitalized on this opportunity to reteach or allow the student to provide additional details so I could properly assess how much of a knowledge gap existed.

Now that I have been exposed to Doug Lemov’s techniques, I know better. I should prompt the student to supply an answer with more detail by providing a cue or I might ask another student to provide a cue- I like to call this “Phone a Friend.” A cue could be a page number to find the answer, a synonym for a particular term used, or in this case a step in the process that was missed. This ensures not only the particular student providing the answer fully understands the concept, but the student providing the cue has to work at a higher level cognitively to think of a way to provide a cue to the answer without giving the answer away- killing two birds with one stone!

The key here is that I CANNOT move on in my lesson without going back to that original student for the full answer. This rehearses success for a student’s learning which can be quite motivating. So the interaction might look more like this:

T: What is an example of a division of labor process in your own community?

S1: A toy from the toy store came from a toymaker.

T: I see you gave an example of the result of a division of labor process and mentioned a contributor, the toymaker, to this result. [Student #2] can you remind [Student #1] about what else occurred in that process before it became a toy?

S2: Someone had to get the material to make the toy before the toymaker could make it.

T: Excellent. Thank you. [Student #1] I know its on the tip of your tongue! Let’s not forget about all the important people involved to make the end result of the toy. Try this one again… What is an example of a division of labor process in your own community?

S1: Oh right! Okay so someone had to go into the forest to cut down the tree to get wood for the toy. Then that person drove it to the warehouse. The toymaker used this wood to make his toy from a design he drew. He then gave it to a store to sell to us the customers.

T: Yes, now you got the process correct from start to finish. Nice work [Student #1] and [Student #2]!

As you can see, not only do I know that those two students have a firm understanding of the division of labor process, but I just provided an opportunity to solidify the newly learned concept by having one student explain it in detail to someone else (teaching a topic ensures you have a deep understanding) and then had the other student correct their misconception or incomplete answer. Now a students response can go from good to better and land on best all through your the support you build in your classroom.

You might want to try having one student cue by sharing the area of misunderstanding instead of leading them for what is missing. For example, “you forgot to mention how and where the toy started.” Now the student knows their mistake explicitly. The draw back of this response is that the student might not know where to go from here even though they now understand their mistake. This happens for two reasons: students cannot provide a clear cue or the original student has no additional details to share in their answer.

If this occurs, I or another student could simply supply the answer. But, remember, I must go back to the original student to ensure they have learned the difference between their response and a thorough, correct response. The tricky part with solely delivering an answer, is the original student might just parrot the answer without demonstrating if they truly understand. So requiring students to paraphrase a student’s response ensures they can explain it in their own words. This is a higher order skill where I consistently remind students of my high expectations for achievement.

Another aspect of this technique to remember are to provide wait time. I always want to jump the gun to keep the class moving at a quick pace. But, wait time provides think time. And think time produces more learners learning at the same time.

This technique has made the world of a difference in my classroom. I am more aware of the level to which students understand a concept and my students are able to demonstrate their understanding more often in class through these engaging opportunities to shine!

Are you ready for students to do the intellectual lifting in your classroom?

Are you ready for students to better demonstrate their mastery of a concept?

Then this technique is for you. Get started and come back to share how it went!