I recently attended a district-wide inservice for English
teachers. During the morning, we shuffled in small groups from one break-out
session to the next, experiencing purposeful activities in each that pertained
to various instructional strategies and unit guides. The presenters posed
questions and modeled activities, and then asked the participants to actively
engage with the material. I filled my notebook with ideas that I wanted to
preserve and apply to my own instruction, most of these ideas either coming from
other participants or hatching from my own brain as I talked.
After lunch, everyone filed into the auditorium as one large
group to listen to a speaker. The speaker, using a PowerPoint, expounded on
research findings related to the educational needs of the students in our
district. Although the speaker was knowledgeable and well spoken, and although
I was interested in what she was saying, I felt my eyes burn with a sleepy
heaviness, and I watched helplessly as my mind lifted off and wandered around.
It suddenly occurred to me to check my email. As I reached for my phone, I
stopped myself. “Why am I doing this?” I thought, “I hate it when I see other
people do that during a presentation.” Why couldn’t I keep my focus on this
speaker? Was it simply that I had lunch settling in my belly, or was there
something else to it?
The oldest trick in the book.
This experience granted me a unique opportunity to empathize
with my students. While I strive to involve them as actively as possible during
class, sometimes, a lecture is in order. As I speak, I can see their eyes sink, I can see their minds wander. Kagan to the rescue!
Kagan Cooperative Learning stands on the philosophy that “it is through student
discourse and the interaction of different ideas that students construct
meaning” and that “we retain a great deal more of what we say than what we
hear” (1.4-1.5). This would explain why it is that I could prattle on a great
deal about what I discussed with colleagues during the breakout sessions the
morning of inservice, yet I have almost nothing to say about the after-lunch
presentation. So how can I manipulate my lesson plans to get students talking,
even when I simply must lecture or lead an extended shared reading?
Thankfully, my mentor teacher is Kagan trained, and I’ve
seen her model effective strategies many times. Being that she is a
well-seasoned veteran, she possesses a keen ability to determine exactly when
she’s losing her students, and she pulls out her “toolkit”. Her go-to Kagan structure, stand up-hand
up-pair up, works nicely in virtually any lesson. After presenting a bit of
information or after reading with students for a period of time, she stops and
asks students to stand, throw a hand in the air, high five somebody from across
the room, and discuss the content with them. Often she provides them with a
specific prompt, such as “what do you think of…” or “name one thing that you learned
from this.” At this moment, something beautiful happens: every student is not
only fully awake, but is actively talking about the material.
Why is this kind of talking so important? As the Kagans
report, “Working memory can only hold a limited amount of information; more
information beyond about ten minutes is like pouring more water into a glass
that is already full. However, if the teacher stops and has students interact
over the content, students tag the information for storage in long-term memory
so recall is greatly enhanced” (6.17). Like the after-lunch presenter, when I
lecture or read for too long, I am only wasting water. In the weeks to come, I
vow to keep students moving, talking, and thirsting for knowledge.
Works Cited
Kagan, Dr. Spencer and Miguel Kagan. Kagan Cooperative Learning. San Clemente: Kagan Publishing, 2009.
Print.
