Clear Expectations and Scaffolds For Students At Any Level
From Expectations and Scaffolds from Byrdseed: Gifted Learners
Two patterns:
- Establish clear expectations.
- Make it easy for students to achieve those expectations.
This helps the most struggling of students and the most advanced kids. Everyone needs the expectations and everyone benefits from scaffolding to achieve those expectations.
Example & Non-Example
There’s something so powerful about seeing an example and a non-example.
- Want your students to write a better paragraph? First, write a cruddy version. Then create the exemplar.
- Want papers set up a certain way? Show them how not to do it, then show them how do do it.
- Want them to be nice to the lunch lady? Act out a non-example, then show the right way.
This works with almost anything: from hanging up backpacks to writing research reports. Kids need to see the bad and the good.
Sentence Frames
Internet pal, Shannon Houghton, helps run the #TeachersWhoGame panel at a gaming conference. To make her Q&A session go more smoothly, she created sentence frames for the adults attending her panel! Amazing. Everyone in your class can benefit from similar sentence frames. They can scaffold everything from appropriate class discussions to joining a game at recess.
Break Down The Complex
Without realizing it, we often ask kids do things without clear steps. For example, “revise your writing” is complex. It requires scaffolding – specific steps students can climb up:
- Count the number of words in each sentence. Is there lots of variety, or are they about the same length?
- Look at the parts of speech that start your sentences. Is there a variety of nouns, adjectives, verbs, etc?
- How many times do you use similes or metaphors? Zero is too few. Every sentence is too many.
And if I, as the teacher, can’t break the task down, it means that even I don’t really know what I want! This happens more often than we realize.
Classroom Friendliness
“Everyone find a group” might be the least scaffolded thing we say as teachers. It’s so easy to say, yet it leads to complete panic.
So, set a clear expectation for joining groups. Mine was: if someone wants to join your group, the only answer is “yes, please!” And, since there are many ways to say “yes, please!” I demonstrated an example/non-example:
- Example: I smile, pull out a chair, and say “yes please” in a welcoming voice.
- Non-Example: I roll my eyes, exhale loudly, and murmur “yes please” while turning my back.
It was quick, kids thought it was hilarious (since I hammed it up), and it set clear expectations of acceptable and unacceptable behavior.
What’s The First Thing?
When giving students a task, ask them: “what’s the first thing you’re going to do?” This gives everyone a starting point and a chance to build some momentum.
All Students, All Tasks
Whether it’s an academic task, like writing a paragraph, or a social situation, like finding a friend on the playground, everyone can benefit from clear expectations and specific steps.
3. Anchoring Activities
4. Adjusting Questions
Learning Contracts
Learning Contracts are written agreements between students and teachers that grant the student certain freedoms and choices about completing tasks yet require the student to meet certain specifications. They outline what the students will learn, how they will learn it, how long they will have to learn it, and how they will be graded or evaluated.
Purposes of Learning Contracts
• Enrich or extend the essential curriculum
• Challenge the abilities of all students
• Provide alternative activities that address the differing abilities, interests, or learning styles of students
• Help students learn to make decisions about their learning
•Help students learn to manage their time
• Can be used to support all learners
• Help the teacher differentiate
Components of Learning Contracts
1. Outcome(s) - specify what is to be accomplished, the conditions under which learning will be demonstrated, and the level of proficiency required to meet the outcome.
2. Resources - including print, media, and human
3. Learning Alternatives - include reading, writing, viewing, creating, interviewing, and other activities the student experiences to accomplish the outcome.
4. Reporting Alternatives and Assessment - should provide evidence as to whether the outcomes have been accomplished and include a self-assessment. Conferences, tests, projects, presentations, real world products, portfolios of work are examples of reporting alternatives.
Advantages of Learning Contracts
• Can be written for any curriculum area
• Provide rigorous and challenging learning activities
• Can be used to target specific learning activities for individuals or groups
• Promote flexible grouping in the classroom
• Accommodate students’ needs by blending skill-based and content-based learning
• Promote creative and critical thinking for students
• Develop students’ time-management, planning, and decision–making skills
• Allow students to work at an appropriate pace
• Recognize students’ prior knowledge • Eliminate boredom by minimizing repetition for students
• Increase students’ independence, motivation and class participation
“Think Abouts” for Creating Learning Contracts
• Essential curriculum standard(s) upon which the learning contract will be based
• Ways to incorporate student choice in the portions of the contract related to process or product
• Clear and challenging criteria for success (time lines, quality of work, etc.)
• Skills and content based on student readiness as well as interest and/or learning profile
• Criteria to be used in assessing and evaluating student work
• Expectations of positive work behaviors
• Clear directions and expectations
Management Tips for Learning Contracts
• Notify parents of learning contract implementation and expectations
• Require parent, student, and teacher signature on contract
• Set dates to meet with individual(s) or group(s) of students to monitor and discuss progress
• Allow time to accommodate student questions and/or concerns
Options for Assessing and Evaluating Student Work on Learning Contracts
Select specific tasks to be evaluated; it is not necessary to evaluate every task.
Provide a combination of teacher-selected tasks and student-selected tasks; see the “Product Idea” web available at the gifted and talented curriculum link at www.fcpsteach.org
Use rubrics created by the teacher or the student that incorporate neatness, thoughtfulness, accuracy of information, originality (if appropriate)
Do
• explain the role & function of contracts
• start small (1 or 2 day) contracts
• negotiate contracts with students whenever possible
• help set realistic deadlines
• renegotiate the contract if it isn’t working
• solicit student feedback on process
• gradually involve students in contract development
Don’t
•expect all students to use contracts effectively at the beginning
• expect all students to like contracts
• assume contracts can take the place of regular instruction
• use contracts without a good management system
6. Curriculum Compacting
To “compact” the curriculum is to give students full credit before you teach the content for what they already know. With new content, we compact by allowing advanced students to move at a faster pace.
Some ways to Compact:
Pre-Test And Choose From Alternate Work (Compacting one week at a time)
- Offer voluntary pretest at beginning of each unit
- Do NOT quickly review what will be tested
- Those who demonstrate 90%receive mastery grade
- They then do contract activities for the rest of the week
Nuts and Bolts of Compacting
Most teachers and parents like the strategy of curriculum compacting, but they are often unaware of what exactly occurs when this method is used. Below are practical ideas and suggestions for implementation.
- The teacher meets with compacting students to decide with them on which alternate activity or activities they will work.
- Some type of a time line is established, including when the students will meet with the teacher again and when the alternate activity is due. Compacting students can work independently or together, but it is important that they touch base with their teacher often.
- The score that determines mastery is also the score that goes in the grade book. Students may receive extra points, if necessary, for compacting activities, but they should not be penalized with a lower grade if they work on a more challenging activity and do not get a high score. High achieving students are sometimes reluctant to work on alternate activities because they think a possible lower score will negatively affect their grades. Steps must be taken to ensure that does not happen.
- Sometimes compacting students from several classrooms are grouped together for an alternate activity and work with one of the grade level teachers while the rest of the students are working with other teachers at the same grade level. This functions well if all teachers at a grade level are targeting the same skills and content at the same time.
- The most important rule for a compacting student is: "The one choice you never have is the choice to do nothing!" This is because learning time is so valuable. Therefore, it is important that it never be wasted.
- Each student should be responsible for keeping his/her own compactor folder with the work in it. This is a good way for disorganized gifted students to learn skills in organization, and it gives them practice in taking responsibility for their own work and their own learning.
- Even gifted students have some academic weaknesses. Most gifted children compact out some of the time and usually in a specific subject. Very few compact out all of the time or in every subject.
