WIDE World

Classroom Tip Sheets

Mary McFarland:

"Teaching for Understanding is one of the most important commitments to students that an educator can make. But supporting students to understand well enough to apply learning in new contexts both within and beyond the classroom has to begin by getting instruction off to a good start."

Anne Clarke:

"'What makes you say that?' I have found this simple phrase to have a power way beyond its five words. When I first introduced it as a Thinking Routine in my classroom, it rapidly became a favorite, popping up regularly in conversation. It's often surprising and gratifying to see how this question prompts others to share the reasoning behind their conclusions or assertions."

Teaching to Standards with New Technologies

Shannon Martin Croft, Susan Wirsig:

"A class is about to embark on an independent research project that requires students to do some Internet research. Before the teacher sends them loose on this project, she wants to model how to effectively conduct focused online research. In the past, she has noticed that her students use broad keywords to search for quite specific information on the Internet, an effort that brings back overwhelming amounts of off-topic information, requiring students to spend gobs of time filtering and sorting before they can address the understanding goals in the lesson."

Phillip Moulds:

"Summarizing is an important learning process because it requires student to identify what is most important about what they are learning and then state that understanding in their own words. Although summarizing is one of the most useful skills a person can develop, often teachers do not explicitly teach or use these summaries for ongoing assessment of student understanding, or to develop students' abilities in this area."

Differentiated Instruction and Multiple Intelligences

Isabelle Hoag Gason:

Reflection Activities

"Write reflection questions in big and bold type on banners around your classroom and refer to them as you are teaching.

At the end of the day, write a reflection question on the board. When kids come into class the next morning, invite them to discuss the question in pairs or groups."

M. Patricia Nuernberger:

"Teachers often ask where they can find Multiple Intelligences tests to determine their students' MI strengths. The first question, though, that must be asked is why this information is desired. The intelligences should be thought of as tools which teachers and students can use in their pursuit of genuine understanding; the intelligences are not an end in themselves."

Reading and Writing

Carol Adams:

"How do I engage my students? Motivation is central to adolescent learning - writing can not only serve as a motivational tool in any content area class, but also as a "way in" to the content material."

Jacy Ippolito:

"When having adolescent students read any text (from a Science, Social Studies, Math, or Language Arts class), teachers must consider not only the difficulties inherent in each text, but also the level of vocabulary and background knowledge that their students possess."

Algebraic Thinking in Elementary School

Joy Cooke:

"The questions or prompts that we pose to students in mathematics lessons - and the way in which we respond to the answers to those questions - has a powerful impact on students' dispositions toward math, their thinking about math, and the development of their understanding..."


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