Give your students the two minute challenge

If you've been following me for a while, you may have picked up on a few of my philosophies.  First off, I am a firm believer in the idea that motivation must come from within rather than externally.  Second, in order to be motivated to do something, you must feel like there is a chance that you will find success in whatever it is.

This is the big hangup with a lot of our kiddos.  Success seems so distant to them that refusal is a much better option.  These are the failure accepters.  

During her Friday pre-conference presentation for the Secondary Reading League's Day of Reading, Dr. Janet Allen mentioned a simple way to build some confidence in those who are somewhat resistant when it comes to learning.  The two minute challenge works really well as a background knowledge builder, and as long as you can find a few paragraphs pertaining to your topic, you should be good to go!  Here's how she explained it.

• Give your students a small passage full of facts on whatever topic you are going to study.
• Allow your students to read it in whatever format you choose.  You can read it aloud to them, have them read silently (if you have a class full of independent readers), or pair them up and partner read.
• Set the timer for two minutes and have students write down a set number (she suggested ten) of facts derived from the text.
• Choose a way to wrap up the exercise.  Sharing in a group of 2-3 is great because they can add to their lists during the group time.  Having them all share one thing from their list with the class may give a few a boost just because it's not often that they have anything academic to say.  This will help them to feel competent, and a feeling of competence breeds intrinsic motivation.  

Doing an activity in the classroom like this one will hit several targets at once.  Many of our students come to us with very little background knowledge, and this is a brilliant way to begin building that for the big learning.  But even more importantly, it allows our strugglers an opportunity to feel successful by participating in writing and discussing the topic in a non-threatening way.

Can you turn around Monday and use this strategy?  Many of you can!  Let us know what your plan is or what you have done in the past to make a strategy like this work for you.  

Happy Thanksgiving!

Admit Slip: 3-2-1

Exit slips are common practice in many classrooms and so are daily "bell ringer" activities.  I never thought to put the two together, however, until I got to hear Dr. Janet Allen talk about this practice this morning at the Secondary Reading League's Day of Reading Pre-Conference.

Last February I blogged on building background knowledge using a really cool activity called Observe, Infer, and Question.  In this activity, students looked at a visual and made observations.  From the observations, they recorded inferences based upon their background knowledge, and then finally the asked questions based upon those observations and inferences. The entire process spanned over an entire class period.

Dr. Allen's strategy is this exact activity, but in the form of an exit slip and at the beginning of a lesson rather than the end.  Here's how it works.

• As students walk in the door, give them their Admit Slip: 3-2-1 sheets or index cards (one per student).  
• If you copied a sheet for your students, you can put the picture(s) and/or graphic(s) on it.  For even easier implementation, project the image on the front screen so you don't have to make copies of it and just give your students index cards on which to write.
• Students first task is the 3.  Write down three details about the image (observe).
• Their second task is the 2.  Finish this sentence:  I think . . . Then finish this sentence: I also .think . . .  Both sentences should be based from the details they recorded in the first task (infer).
• Finally, the third task is to write one question based from the details they recorded and/or the inferences in the second (question).  

Once students complete the Admit Slip, you can do a variety of different things with them.  You can collect them to see how much background knowledge each student has on the topic if it's new.  You can begin small group discussions with this information.  You can have an entire class discussion.  Students can share in small groups or with the entire class.  They can also keep their admit slips in an interactive notebook (see my amazing colleague's blog on those right here) or someplace safe so that they can return at a later date to see how much their initial reactions have changed.

Whatever you decide, know that in all content areas, students see visuals and graphics, which means that every content area should be able to use something similar to this strategy.  It would work especially well in geometry, science, and art where content is linked so heavily with visuals.  Think of the possibilities!  How could you use something simple like this?  Share with us in the comments below.