Friday Forum is a bi-weekly advice column for educators seeking guidance on educations issues. Please join the discussion – we want to hear your stories and suggestions, too!

Q: I wonder if anyone has fresh or creative ideas for me.  I have been using the Success at the Core videos for professional development with my staff.  However, I am always looking for new ideas to help deliver my message.  What are the best ways to use videos in your professional development work? – Obadiah

A: Obadiah, there are a few main ways I’ve used videos in professional development work. I have three tips that can help you and others:

1 – Video as inspiration. I’ve shown my colleagues videos such as the brilliant TED Talk, “Ken Robinson says schools kill creativity,” to inspire conversation about doing education differently. I think this is a great one to inspire divergent or creative thinking in professional development. It might also help educators to be more open to new, fresh ideas. I also really love to show the RSA Animate version of Dan Pink’s TED Talk, “The surprising truth about what motivates us.” This is a great one to spark productive conversations about student engagement (especially this time of year when student engagement often seems to wane). Finally, I saw an amazing video recently on PBS.org about project-based learning at King Middle School in Portland, Maine. There are many similar videos at Edutopia, as well. Videos such as these can spark great conversations about completely different ways to teach science (or other content areas).

2 – Video for analysis of teacher practice. Any of the Success at the Core videos would be great for this. A group of teachers or administrators can view a video with a particular instructional lens or while using a special rubric (maybe a TPEP rubric?). The most important piece of this work is probably not the viewing nor any rubric scoring. The key aspect of this type of video study would the conversations that take place afterward. I have had some amazing conversations with colleagues about instruction after observing a teacher in action, either in person or on video.

3 – Video as part of a lesson study cycle. In this model, a professional learning community (PLC) would choose a particular strategy that the group wants to practice. Let’s say, for example, that the group is science teachers who want to work on having students conduct investigations to explore their predictions. This group would view the Success at the Core video, “Exploring Predictions” found under the Teacher Development Instructional Strategy of “Conducting Investigations.” After watching the video together, the group might have a conversation similar to the one discussed in #2 above. The key difference here is that the analysis step would be followed with team lesson planning centered on effective implementation of this strategy in all classrooms. Taking it to the next level, these teachers might even observe each other teaching their collaboratively planned lesson and use their observations to revise and improve the lesson.

- Tyler

How do we balance our lives “inside the classroom” with life “outside the classroom?” I’ve been thinking about this a great deal lately with friends getting ready for retirement, others caring for their aging parents, and some with small children still at home. The ability to balance a career in education with the rest of life is a constant challenge.

Part of the answer for me has been to blur the lines between the classroom and my “real world.” I have taught for many years, and I think my students would all agree that I often bring my life into the classroom. I make connections between life and math.  While mathematics is the language we speak and the set of skills we display in class, the context for this language and skillset is life: its problems, challenges, opportunities, and triumphs.

I once gave my students a warm-up problem that involved moving a huge pile of wood – a task I had faced just the previous day. Students were told  how long it took me to move a small portion of the wood and how long I had to get the whole pile moved. They also were able to calculate the amount of wood in the pile. The question I presented to them was this:  “Did I have enough time to get the entire pile of wood moved?” Students wrestled with the problem as I had, and I watched as one by one they came to their conclusions. They were engaged in the mathematics, not because it was something to be learned or demonstrated, but because it was a tool to help them answer a question – a real question that had real consequences.

One of my fellow teachers (who happened to be in the market for a new car) had his students wrestle with different car buying options. Which car was the best deal, he asked them?  What choice should he and his family make?  The class considered this problem over several days, incorporating new information, considerations, and modifications.  By the time the teacher actually made the purchase, his students were well versed in monthly and down payments, interest rates, and extended coverage cost — and all of the mathematics that go with these real-world concepts.

Students can also bring their lives into the mathematics classroom.  With our help, they can make personal connections.  In one of Success at the Core’s Teacher Development videos, Supply and Demand Made Relevant, viewers get to see and hear how teacher Mark Egger helps build bridges between math ideas and students’ lives. As we watch students talk about supply and demand in their own terms, we get to witness authentic moments when math suddenly becomes more than a series of numbers and equations. It matters.

As life continues to evolve and change for me, the pressures of “work” and “life” are diminished when I can make the connections between the two.  My dad, who is 90, recently said, “I have lived long past the 60 years my doctors gave me.” That statement gave me pause as I considered what he meant. I shared his statement with my students who then wrestled with  the concepts of a life span 150% longer than the doctors anticipated and 15% above the average life span of adult men in the U.S.

My students today face different issues than my students did twenty years ago. And yet, while the content of their life challenges may have shifted, helping them to balance their lives inside and outside of the school walls remains as important as ever. Perhaps, as my students and I strive to keep this balance, together we will attain the steadiness that such even distribution promises.

Since I began teaching English Language Learners (ELL) in 1997, I’ve continuously pursued the answer to this question: “How can I make sure my students continue to work toward grade-level standards while simultaneously acquiring a new language?” My pursuit of effective instruction for ELL (and really all students) has led me to complete Sheltered Instruction (SIOP) training twice, become a key trainer in Guided Language Acquisition Design (GLAD), and acquire National Board Certification in the area of English as a New Language.

I’ve learned that, to meet my students’ learning needs, I need to embed support structures into each lesson so that they can access core instruction. I also need to find ways to include all of the language domains – listening, speaking, reading, writing, and viewing – in every lesson.  Susana Dutro, a founder of the organization E.L. Achieve, recently presented a keynote speech at the annual Washington Association for Bilingual Education (WABE) conference. Dutro elaborated on the point that ELL students need to be taught language structures in order to communicate their ideas and understanding about content knowledge. A helpful synopsis of the information she shared can be found in this handout from Dutro of E.L. Achieve.

What do these language structures look like in real classrooms? I found a great illustration in Success at the Core’s Teacher Development video, Student-to-Student Assessment, which illustrates how seventh grade teacher Barbara Cleveland artfully embedded both language structures and domains throughout a math lesson.

My ELL students, who are learning a new language need the opportunity – in a low-risk setting – to practice content vocabulary and talk with peers about what they understand. Teacher Cleveland sets up students to do just that when she sets clear expectations for reviewing homework in table teams. She provides an example and non-example for high-quality, student-to-student feedback. Verbally and on a document camera, she models sentence starters, “What I didn’t understand about this problem was____,” and, “I didn’t get the work done, but I would start the problem by doing _____” to scaffold students’ success in sharing their ideas. She shows cultural responsiveness to students when she provides an entry point for all students to participate in the activity, even students whose parents were not able to help them with the homework or whose challenges at home kept them from completing it.

To set up teams for successful sharing of their math ideas, Cleveland has taught students a clear, step-by-step procedure for communicating with one another, which includes: reading the question aloud; sharing how they solved it and any problems or concerns they had in the process; passing their papers around the group; and advising each other on anything that needs improvement. Listening to students’ discussions, I can clearly see that the teacher has taught them social norms on how to ask others to clarify their ideas. I also see students using math terminology, such as “repeated addition.” At one point, Cleveland refers to math vocabulary that is posted on an orange card on the wall – a great visual support for students as they search for words to communicate their ideas.

In the video, when one student shares that the language of the math problem tripped her up, Cleveland reminds students of a content reading strategy that she has taught them: focusing on the main parts of the word problem. She has students put their heads together to review the strategy, circling and underlining parts of the problem, at their table teams.

I’ve found that support structures for my ELL students can naturally unfold throughout the course of the lesson when I intentionally embed them in my core instruction. I’ve recognized these support structures in other lessons featured in Success at the Core videos. Check out this alignment document that I created to call out these connections.

Take a look, and let me know what you think. And please share other resources you’ve found helpful in helping ELL students succeed!

Teaching is highly complex, sophisticated, and rewarding work …We are very proud of the effort and energy our teachers devote to serving our students well.

These words, from the University of Washington’s Center for Educational Leadership, greet students, teachers, parents, and guests upon entry to our school. I never want anyone to take for granted the complexity of our profession and the expectations demanded by it.

At Ferrucci Junior High (and across the Puyallup School District), strengthened instruction aimed at bettering student achievement is at the heart of our improvement and renewal efforts. Yet, with the many pressing demands on educators today, it can be difficult to visualize what phenomenal instruction looks like. Each year, as we dive deeper into our school improvement initiatives, I often hear teacher say,  “I just need to see it.” In response, we frequently go back to our base: Success at the Core.  (Note: My assistant principal and I first introduced Success at the Core to our entire faculty two years ago. We began by watching “Analyzing Data in Small Groups,” the featured video from the Analyzing Data strategy in the Teacher Development materials section.)

Our staff continues to be enthusiastic about the possibilities that tools like Success at the Core provide for deepening and enriching classroom instruction. As a result, we’re inspired to craft additional and continuous professional learning experiences. And as our knowledge and practice have evolved, teacher leaders expand on that learning by directing much of the work in their grade-level and department teams. Some examples of our professional learning work include:

• Teacher participation in a lesson study process. The lesson study process has become a regular and expected practice at our school. Teachers partner with colleagues to explore a strategy of their choice from SaC’s Teacher Development materials. They collaboratively incorporate that strategy into a specific lesson, observe one another delivering the lesson, and then provide feedback to each other. Because reflection and dialogue are important to adult learning, they follow the lesson study with a written reflection. We then debrief the process as a larger staff.
• Work on common formative assessments. To open our school year, teacher leaders planned and presented professional learning for colleagues from the Using Data Effectively and Common Formative Assessments modules from SaC’s Leadership Development materials. In their regular team meetings, teachers now work on developing common assessments, as well as the routines and protocols for discussing student progress against defined standards. As a result, teachers are able to modify and adapt instruction with greater intention and specificity.

Washington State’s new teacher evaluation law has given us the lens of Charlotte Danielson’s instructional framework through which we now explore SaC’s various Leadership Development modules and Teacher Development strategies.  (For more on this work, see my recent Core Connection’s blog post, “Teacher and Principal Evaluation: Professional Growth through a Common Language.”) The high-quality videos and supporting materials allow us to put language around specific teacher moves and evidence of student learning, key elements in building teaching and leadership capacity.

Our ongoing use of Success at the Core enables my staff and me to:

• More effectively implement and sustain our instructional improvement agenda;
• Authentically increase and deepen teacher collaboration across disciplines and grade levels;
• Increase student participation and engagement in worthy learning tasks; and
• Continually and persistently push for improved teaching practice in appropriately challenging but non-threatening ways.

I’ve designed this accompanying alignment document to help you envision how SaC resources have been woven into all elements of our School Improvement Plan. I’d also encourage you to read the blog post “What School Leaders Can Learn from Business.” It illustrates how a Washington state junior high principal, Obadiah Dunham, has utilized Success at the Core resources to advance school improvement efforts at his school.

What can you share about best practices in collaboration? I want to hear more!

Friday Forum is a bi-weekly advice column for educators seeking guidance on educations issues. Please join the discussion – we want to hear your stories and suggestions, too!

Q: Can you provide a few examples of resources to help me meet the needs of my diverse learners and ELL students? – Ailene

A: When I think about English Language Learners’ (ELL) needs versus the learning needs of non-ELL students, many ideas come to mind. I’ll focus on two key needs. First, ELL students need visual and kinesthetic supports to help them make meaning of the new content that they are learning while simultaneously acquiring new language. This can look as simple as a teacher using gestures, realia, photographs, sketches, models, or diagrams as he or she presents new language and concepts. These non-linguistic representations are most effective for ELL students when labeled with key vocabulary and when students have continued access to the visual supports during the course of study of the unit.  In the Success at the Core video Fraction Manipulatives, sixth grade math teacher Erlinda Fazio gives students ample opportunity to use hands-on models to explain new math concepts. Students also make a record of their math understanding by drawing pictures of their fraction representations in their math journals for future reference.

Since ELL students’ task is to learn new language, they need opportunities to practice the five domains of language acquisition- speaking, listening, reading, writing, and viewing in every lesson, even in the content areas. They especially need structured opportunities to practice speaking the language they are still learning. A few examples of supports that help ELL students practice new language are sentence frames, cloze activities, pair share, songs or chants, and cooperative learning roles.  In the Success at the Core videos The Big Brain: A Cooperative Learning Protocol and  Student to Student Assessment, seventh grade math teacher Barbara Cleveland provides structured opportunities for students to talk about their math ideas with one another.  Another great video resource I’ve found shows a second grade teacher providing students with opportunities to practice all of the language domains throughout the course of a unit on fairy tales, while they prepare to interview the Big Bad Wolf during an in-class talk show.  Lastly, a video that shows a first grade teacher in a dual language classroom giving students the opportunity to use pair share to share their predictions with a partner in Spanish is another useful resource.

I hope these links will be of help to you. Please share any that you find in your search with me!

-  Heather

Teachers and principals must work together to find ways to authentically support and implement fresh ideas about teaching and learning in the classroom.

The required implementation of Washington State’s new teacher and principal evaluation law (E2SSB 6696) is rapidly approaching in the fall of 2013.  Several of my fellow Core Connections bloggers have offered their thoughts on this significant policy change. (See “Category Archive: Teacher Standards/Educator Evaluation.”)

While I’m frequently concerned when legislators, influential leaders, and policy-makers outside my chosen field of education establish mandates in the name of “reform,” the choices, resources, and spirit of implementation in crafting a meaningful evaluation process encourage me.  Washington’s new evaluation law—referenced by the acronym TPEP, which stands for Teacher Principal Evaluation Pilot – envisions a professional growth model in which teachers and principals have a vested interest in the success of one another in improving the learning conditions for each of the students we serve.

My school district has adopted Charlotte Danielson’s Framework for Professional Practice as our model for enacting the teacher evaluation provision of the new law.  For the past year, my teachers and I have been immersed in the language and rubrics of this framework, while exploring every opportunity to put these ideas into practice. At first glance, the four domains, twenty-two components, and seventy-seven elements of Danielson’s framework seemed overwhelming. However, within each of the four domains, Danielson highlights a pivotal component. Honing in on this component has helped me and my staff more intentionally focus our shared professional learning this year.

As we’ve done so, we’ve turned to Success at the Core resources as an important tool to help us collectively improve our craft. Here’s a sampling of the SaC tools my school district has used connected to both the Danielson framework (and especially the pivotal components) and the Washington State Teacher Evaluation Criteria.

Danielson Framework Domain 1:  Planning and Preparation

Pivotal Component: Setting Instructional Outcomes

Washington Teacher Evaluation Criteria: Providing clear and intentional focus on subject matter content and curriculum

Relevant Success at the Core Resource: Teacher Development Strategy “Using Models”

Danielson Framework Domain 2: Classroom Environment

Pivotal Component: Establishing a Culture for Learning

Washington Teacher Evaluation Criteria: Centering instruction on high expectations for student achievement

Relevant Success at the Core Resources: Leadership Development Module “Leadership Teams and Quality Instruction”; Teacher Development Strategies “Cooperative Learning” and “Guiding Self-Assessment”

Danielson Framework Domain 3: Instruction

Pivotal Component: Engaging Students in Learning

Washington Teacher Evaluation Criteria: Centering instruction on high expectations for student achievement

Relevant Success at the Core Resources: Leadership Development Modules “Leadership Teams and Quality Instruction” and “Instructional Expertise”; Teacher Development Strategies “Teaching as Facilitation” and “Categorizing Ideas”

Danielson Framework Domain 4: Professional Responsibilities

Pivotal Component: Reflecting on Teaching

Washington Teacher Evaluation Criteria: Demonstrating effective teaching practices

Relevant Success at the Core Resources: Leadership Development Modules “Using Data Effectively” and “Common Formative Assessments”; Teacher Development Strategies “Analyzing Data” and “Checking for Understanding”      

Corrie Freiwaldt, in her Core Connections blog post, “New Teacher Evaluations: A Road Map to Great Teaching,” provides another version of Danielson/SaC alignment. Check it out for more ways to use SaC in connection with work around Danielson’s Four Domains.

For evaluation to be meaningful, it must be based on continuous growth, reflective practice, and formative feedback. Success at the Core tools and resources have offered my staff a common language and common expectations for talking about practice in a manner that allows for continued, collaborative growth and for implementing powerful, high-leverage instructional strategies.

For the purposes of my work, I define the school culture as the implicit and explicit educational values of all the stakeholders at the school – students, teachers, administrators, parents, etc.. The structures of the school include things like bell schedules, after school programs, and the physical arrangement of the classrooms.  Common instructional practices include any research-based best practices that are used universally by all staff.  Getting the three circles to overlap – finding a sweetspot — requires constant attention from all members of the school community. Leaders in the school building must serves as a kind of GPS to guide this work.

Recently, I facilitated a retreat with my school leadership team to analyze the impact of our work on continued school improvement. I wanted my team to:

1. Analyze how to promote quality instruction;
2. Explore practices that help leadership teams stay focused on quality instruction;
3. Develop a common understanding of the key features of quality professional development; and
4. Examine the goals of quality professional development and the strategies needed to achieve them.

As I prepared to guide my team’s conversations and analysis, I turned to Success at the Core.

To accomplish the first two objectives, I used the Leadership Teams and Quality Instruction Leadership Development module.  First, I wanted each team member to develop a personal definition of quality instruction. So, I had them read and reflect on Handout 3 from the module: “Quality Instruction in Middle Schools.”  After the reading and ensuing discussion, I showed one of the module’s videos: Meeting Students’ Needs Through Leadership Teams. The video allowed my team to see the approach teacher leaders in another school played in leading quality instruction.  We wrapped up our focus on quality instruction by defining the role our leadership team would play in promoting the best instructional practices.

Now that we understood our role, it was time for us to define professional development. We turned to Success at the Core’s Professional Development module for guidance. First, we watched the video Addressing Teacher Needs With Professional Development. Then we read and discussed the National Staff Development Council’s Definition of Professional Development (module Handout 2).  Using the definition, my team was able to reach a consensus on what types of professional development would promote on going professional growth. Using their common definition of professional development, in conjunction with the “Addressing a Professional Learning Need at Your School” handout (module Handout 5), my team was able to identify appropriate ways to provide professional growth for the staff connected to our upcoming initiatives.

In the end, I realized that Collins’ theories about what drives business success can also be helpful for cultivating strong leadership in schools. Success at the Core materials, used in conjunction with my understanding of Collins’ Hedgehog Concept, helped me guide my team through an efficient process that will allow us to develop a plan for continuous school improvement.

Friday Forum is a bi-weekly advice column for educators seeking guidance on educations issues. Please join the discussion – we want to hear your stories and suggestions, too!

Q: What are a few helpful resources that provide good examples of teacher evaluation criteria? Thanks! – Corrie

A: Want an honest answer to that question, Corrie?  For me, videos that provide good examples are the ones that inspire me.  The videos that give me real examples of practice I can aspire to, and that don’t make me feel crazy.  Examples that seem grounded in reality and that don’t paint a picture of unattainable ideals.

The rub with new evaluations is that they can entirely overwhelm me.  The number of things I am supposed to be doing—and doing “above standard” at any given time—can seem never-ending.  In addition, there is always fear lurking just below the surface that if one doesn’t perform daily with a stellar routine, my pay or my job might be on the line.  Melodramatic, I know, but real nonetheless.

Despite some lurking insecurities, I do think teachers should be held to a standard and I do want to improve.  Based on my classroom experience and feedback from my administrators, the videos that have most improved my teaching and expanded my thinking are: Shawna Moore’s “Guided Groups” and Shaw Middle School’s example of “Data Walls.”  In a packed public school class, I need to know what my kids understand (“Data Walls” helps with that) and then how I can differentiate to help them learn more on any given day (“Guided Groups”).

In last week’s New York Times, Jal Mehta wrote a thought-provoking piece, ‘Teachers: Will We Ever Learn?’ He holds that public education has been missing the mark for the last 40 years by trying to reform by adding assessment and evaluation, instead of attempting institutional change.  He believes that if we want real student growth, we have to “stop tinkering at the margins.”  Although I feel that is a real and valid critique, and maybe I am just tinkering instead of changing the world, what I love about videos like the ones from Success at the Core is that until the institutional change happens these free videos help me improve my teaching, hearten myself for large class loads, and feel inspired.

- Andrea

They were 100 strong – an audience of teachers sitting at cafeteria tables, waiting. They had come here at 4:00 pm, after a long day, to learn about the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) in Mathematics. The evening’s session was to focus on mathematical Practice #1: Make sense of problems and persevere in solving them.

I was part of a group of teacher leaders and coaches from two neighboring school districts in Washington state who’d come together to lead this session. We hoped to create a critical mass of thought and effort to promote understanding of the CCSS in our districts, with a first-year emphasis on the mathematical practices. Our job that night was to help the assembled teachers understand Practice #1; gain insight into how to intentionally address it in their classrooms; and stay engaged and awake enough to want to come back for focus sessions on the remaining seven practices! I was the “opening act.”

As an instructional coach, I hear time and again: “Show me what it looks like. Let me see it, so I can understand it.” Tonight, I answered that request, specifically focusing on visual examples of perseverance. I began the session with a video of an elementary-school child working through a word problem. The video documented the student struggling with the problem – for almost two agonizing minutes. When he finally came up with his answer (the correct one, I might add), our teachers clapped and breathed an audible sigh of relief.

When I asked the teachers to reflect on why the student succeeded, the two most common answers were: “The teacher gave him the time he needed,” and “The teacher didn’t help him.” Indeed, the video drove home the teacher’s patience. As I watched it – and reflected on the audience’s responses – I thought about how often I’ve come to the aid of a struggling student. In those moments, I often find myself asking whether I’m actually keeping that student from developing the perseverance needed to solve the problem. Clearly, I’m not alone.

After this discussion, we watched a TED talk by Dan Meyer, who talked about why many students struggle with mathematics and don’t persevere. He addressed students who don’t and won’t engage, and how to change the way we present problems to change the paradigm for their learning. In the video, Meyer states, “Students need to decide, ‘All right, well, does the height matter? Does the side of it matter? Does the color of the valve matter? What matters here?’ — such an underrepresented question in math curricula.” Teaching students to think about problems, rather than spoon feeding them the answers, will also teach them to stick with it. This is critical in addressing this part the CCSS.  When I watch this video, I am inspired to think deeply about my own curriculum – not the texts I use but the standards I’m helping students learn.  Meyer models how to create the questions and tasks that really help students grow and learn.

As the second video faded to black, the light bulbs came on over the teachers’ heads. The nodding heads around the room confirmed that the videos drove home the idea of persistence and empowerment in ways that discussion alone could not. With these videos, the stage had been set for my CCSS group of 100. The teachers were now ready to move on to “grade band” sessions. For the remainder of the evening, they focused specific, grade-level skills that would help them intentionally address CCSS mathematical Practice #1 in their classrooms. In these break-out sessions, the teacher leaders asked probing questions and provided concrete examples to help teachers really grasp the essence of this practice.

Now, I’m busy planning next month’s session, which will focus on CCSS mathematical Practice #2: Reason abstractly and quantitatively. Again, I’ll kick off the session with a video to illustrate the practice. This time, I’m planning to use aSuccess at the Core video, “Challenging Students to Discover Pythagoras.” And we’ll examine and discuss quantitative and abstract reasoning.

Over this entire school year, my colleagues and I will repeat this coaching process again and again, until we’ve covered all eight mathematical practices. Each time, we’ll be sure to include video examples to answer their persistent request: “Show me what it looks like. Let me see it so I can understand it.” I can think of no more effective way to bring this rich discussion about CCSS to life.

But was this moment of student engagement merely brought on by serendipity?

Not long ago, I was at a gathering of teachers, and the question came up, “Is it possible for students to be engaged and not learn?” Thinking about this question in more depth led me to think, “How do I really recognize student engagement in learning?” Student engagement in their learning is easy to see in so many Success at the Core videos. One of my favorite videos showing students engaged in their learning is Steven English’s eighth grade science lesson featured in the video, “Facilitating Academic Discourse.” The video first captures a conversation between two students as they consider their understanding of what was happening in the science investigation. Later in the video, during the whole class discussion, students engage in an animated discussion about what, in fact, was the manipulated variable in the investigation, backing up their stances with examples from the investigation gained by reflecting on their own understanding.

As I reflect on the poetry lesson in my classroom, I do believe that students were similarly engaged in their learning, and I believe that this was the result of my careful lesson planning. Here are eight aspects of the lesson that I believe facilitated the student engagement that I witnessed – and that I think can be applied in a variety of classrooms:

1. Get clarity: Create clear, attainable learning objectives.
2. Go easy – at first: Do a low-risk activity for practice, and make it accessible for learners of all skill levels.
3. Plan your groups: Carefully craft student groups that facilitate group cohesion, and consider factors such as balanced group behaviors and language proficiency levels.
4. Get families involved: When parents contribute thoughts and ideas to what is happening in the classroom, relevancy increases for students.
5. Accentuate the familiar: Tap their background knowledge – about their hometown, their best friend or anything that boosts relevance to the lesson.
6. Go hands-on: By creating opportunities to manipulate word cards, for example, and physically moving them in a pocket chart, the students brought their poems to life.
7. Get flexible: Groups that finished quickly had time to write additional poems or revise their poems’ “conclusion” lines to reflect the main idea or theme.
8. Share: Opportunity to share what they learned and created with one another made the lesson more engaging and fun.

Some lessons are inherently engaging for students due to the nature of the activity, such as a game, or the technology or materials they’re using. The real challenge is to engage students in learning around ANY standards-based learning objective. That’s where the teacher’s crafting of the lesson is paramount.

What techniques have you found effective in engaging your students in their learning?