I have some very exciting news to share...our Instructional Rounds 2nd visit revealed that what we are doing as a campus is not only working, it's working BIG TIME! All of the short term and long term goals that were initially set have been exceeded. I have to give credit to our district administrators for leading us into this endeavor no matter how painful it might be, the evidence is overwhelmingly positive and for me it means that our students are the ones who are receiving the benefits. Most specifically, higher level learning through planned questions is occurring across the campus, student responses are justified and expanded through a wide variety of personalized techniques that teachers have internalized in their classrooms. So, for our campus, we will continue to go the course. One area that could improve that was recognized during our visit, was to increase "wait time" for students to respond, and to provide additional "think time" for students to process. I searched for relevant information to share with staff on this area and I found several informative articles.
"Wait time" is the period of time that takes place when a teacher provides a question to students and the teacher interrupts or calls on a student. On average this time is 1.5 seconds in a typical classroom, noted by a study by Mary Budd Rowe (1972). Her study discovered if teachers allowed at least 3 seconds of "wait time", many positive things happened to students' AND teachers' behaviors and attitudes. To attain these benefits, teachers were urged to "wait" in silence for 3 seconds or more after their questions, and AFTER students completed their responses. Further, the teacher should ensure that all students preserve the disturbance-free silence so that both the students and teacher can process the relevant information. When this occurs, the teacher can claim to be skilled at using "think time." The skillful use of "think-time" contributes significantly to improved teaching and learning in the classroom.
I eagerly look forward to seeing these continued improvements that our talented teachers are utilizing to increase our students' learning. Our next Instructional Rounds will take place on January 22nd when we will look forward to our new results.
#ceohgo #castleberryisd
