CORTNIE BELSER'S MSED PORTFOLIO
Engaging Students in Instruction
To deepen their understanding of content and skills, the most meaningful ways to drive connections and learning is to present opportunities for students to engage in instruction as the form of instructional strategy.
Table of Contents
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Introduction to Engaging Students in Instruction
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Student Choice and Student Jobs
Introduction
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In addition to weekly routines, I utilize a variety of instructional strategies to encourage learners to take ownership of meeting their learning goals. When students can be an active part of the learning process it not only demonstrates their own higher-level comprehension of content and skills, but it also reinforces the connections between knowledge and skills. For students who need additional academic support structures, instructional strategies not only guide learning but offer students a breath of tools that they can use beyond my classroom. In order to engage students in instruction, I focus on how to fulfill student needs through increasing student choice and differentiation. While student choice increases investment and engagement through active participation, instructional strategies that engage learners also operates by meeting the academic needs of students. As I build in routine strategies in instruction, it is essential to provide a multitude of methods that allow students to demonstrate their understanding and how they apply this new learning. When students' academic and social needs are addressed in instruction, it impacts their ability develop a deeper understanding of content and its connections to their personal experiences and goals. As a reflection of my teaching philosophy, I integrate strategies during instruction that model effective communication and collaboration among students. This not only encourages students to be critical thinkings and leaders in the classroom but offers instructional strategies as a lens to cultivate college and career readiness skills.
Student Choice and Student Jobs​
I am consistently integrating opportunities during instruction for students to self-select or decide how they will engage in the learning experience. From self-selecting a guided response prompt to working in groups to student jobs selection, I allow students to reflect their interests in instruction. This serves as a instructional strategy as it facilitates a learning experience where students understand that deeper meaning stems from their active participation in the teaching and learning process. The structures for peer collaborative teaching are formal and informal as I build instructional planning to support positive group work.
The slide above is a sample of one of the ways I engage students in instruction through student choice. First, the assignment allows students to work with a partner and independently. Thus, while the stop n ot is independent choice, the think-pair-share questions promote peer collaboration. As an instructional strategy, offering student choice that pushes academic engagement allows students to feel ownership of their learning.
The image shown above illustrates students collaborating to determine who will have specific class jobs for the following week. These jobs include facilitating the restorative circles, going over the warm-up, or tracking participation points. There are a wide range of student jobs so that all students, with various social or behavioral needs can feel like an essential asset to the learning space. During this activity, I refrain from providing input on deciding student jobs to allow them collaborative planning to build class culture.
Made in America Discussion Board ​
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To deepen the text-to-self-to-world connections students develop throughout a unit, I utilize a whole-class discussion board to promote academic discourse. As this year's district priority, fostering academic discourse encourages students to extend their understanding of content knowledge to draw connections in meaningful ways through real-life experience and analysis. During instructional activities that call for students to engage with the discussion board, I have found that they are more willing to complete these assignments and practice the intended skill to be a part of the classroom conversation. This instructional strategy highlights how teachers can utilize the classroom space as the nexus of critical dialogue on cross-disciplinary connections and strengthen students' application of academic knowledge and skills.
This is the discussion board creates in the back of my classroom where students record their conversation moves and academic discourse on real-world connections to content and skills.
The PowerPoint to the right is a sample of how I utilize the Made in America board during instruction. To bridge academic conversations and transition students towards deepening their understanding, I provide guided questions as well as the conversation moves anchor chart to promote student-friendly yet academic language.
The image to the left illustrates how I encourage movement and positive peer communication centered on culturally relevant academic discourse. As an instructional strategy, I refer back to the discourse on the discussion board in class discussions and assessments. Additionally, student can use their peer's analysis as text evidence to be cited, which encourages learners to take ownership of their critical thinking.
Made in America Academic Discourse
The video above shows a closer look at the academic discussions students are having across classes about their analysis of a reading and video on community safety for youth of color.
Graphic Organizers and Q.A.T.E.S. Responses
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While there are instructional strategies that I must implement to serve my ESOL students and students with disabilities, I often integrate graphic organizers for reading comprehension and analysis and organizing written responses in whole-class instruction as well. Since about 85 percent of my students are reading and writing at least 2 or more years below grade level, graphic organizers provide a guideline to scaffold inquiry-based thinking or build meaning during instruction. As a strategy to promote student autonomy, graphic organizers provide students with space to jot notes and feel as though this outline is not the final assessment. However, for some students, graphic organizers continue to be an organizational struggle that requires consistent support. In my classroom, I construct a variety of graphic organizers to assist student learning.
The student sample to the left demonstrates one graphic organizer I use consistently for students to build character analysis. In my classroom, I use the S.T.E.A.L. characterization method as an instructional strategy to increase student annotation and critical thinking of a text. STEAL stands for: Say/Speech, Thoughts, Effects on Others, Actions, and Looks. This is an instructional strategy that I use to reinforce the academic skill of annotating to draw connections and deepen comprehension and analysis, which will be beneficial in high school and beyond. I emphasize S.T.E.A.L. characterization analysis as it strengthens the critical thinking skills not only for students with disabilities or ESOL students, but it deepens all students' character analysis skills.
The student samples to the right demonstrate how I utilize graphic organizers to structure photo analysis in texts as well. Since many of my students struggle to build stamina for chapter texts or are learning foundation of phonics as ESOL students, I often provide photo and media as a form of text to engage learners. However, to reinfore all students performing rigorous tasks, I created this photo analysis graphic organizer so that students can deepen their understanding of a topic or theme through visuals.
The image above illustrates how I model graphic organizers on the board. For this graphic organizer, students had to create the handout from lined paper rather than a pre-printed one. In relation to instruction, I choose went include a graphic organizer and when students should create their own depending on the length and level of response needed for the writing activity.
Q.A.T.E.S.: In addition to graphic organizers, I utilize the Q.A.T.E.S. response as an anchor to writing short-answer responses in my class. QATES stands for: Question, Answer, Text-Evidence, Explanation, and Summary. This is an instructional strategy because it offers students an organizational outline for responding to short-answer and essay response prompts. As the school year progresses there are students who will choose not to write their responses using the QATES format as well as those who feel reassured by utilizing this practice. I have found that when I offer an acronym-based anchor for students to organize their thinking and writing, they will utilize these methods as certainty that they are performing to the intended academic expectation. In addition, these instructional strategies engage students in instruction through offering a consistent structure of learning that they can practice on their own or work with peers on a common instructional technique. I have found it beneficial to introduce instructional strategies that students utilize often so that they feel confident in their ability to apply these skills on their own.
The PowerPoint to the left is a sample of how I create Q.A.T.E.S. presentations after reading to engage students in instruction through whole-group modeling using the Q.A.T.E.S. response outline. To strengthen essay focus, as a standard of writing, my modeling allows students to understand how eat component builds upon the previous. As shown in later slides, I decrease my modeling to provide a gradual release for students to complete the response on their own.
The image to the right illustrates how I model or review student responses to QATES formative assessments. As a method to paragraph organization, QATES is the foundation for building strong writing skills for students. Therefore, it is essential that I am consistently demonstrating my expectation to students to maintain their investment in student growth.
The PowerPoint above accompanies the student sample work to the left that demonstrates how I integrate student choice through Q.A.T.E.S. responses. Each student self-selected their question to focus on and correctly labeled each box. As an instructional strategy the Q.A.T.E.S. response demonstrates consistent expectation of academic engagement that students have familiarized themselves with in my classroom.
As shown in the student work samples above, I consistently provide feedback on areas of growth for learners to understand where they are and assess where they need to be to reach the next standard or skill mastery. I continue to reiterate elements of the Q.A.T.E.S response because they are the foundation to build 5-paragraph essays and other more rigorous writing tasks. As an instructional strategy, my feedback above serves as next steps for individual tailored instruction to track writing progress.