Making Tasks Tangible
A big part of the PARTICIPATION Element is always having some tangible way for students to participate. Giving students nebulous ways to engage can only serve to distract from leading them to the FOCUS for their learning you have worked hard to set and maintain.
With a change in perspective and a few simple adjustments, a lesson that may have resulted in a couple of kids participating on behalf of the whole class (while the rest barely maintained the illusion of being “with you”) or where you wanted to ask the semi-rhetorical question “What were you even doing in class today?” to all of the kids on the way out will be things of the past.
Here’s the change in perspective: Stop thinking about what you’re doing during class and start thinking about how each student will show you that they’re doing what you want them to be doing.
This is a lot easier said than done. It’s helpful to have a bellwether student that you actively consider as you’re planning and preparing your instruction to help you shift this perspective. Mine was Lonnie. Every lesson activity got the “Lonnie Test.” How will Lonnie interpret what I want students to do right now? Is there any way that Lonnie will find a loophole in what I’m instructing the class to do and actually be able to do nothing but still reasonably defend himself with the “But I was…” defense?
Now, you‘ve got something tangible to consider as you make adjustments to give students something tangible to do throughout your lesson.
Here are a few small adjustments to common intangible instructions:
- “Listen.”/”Pay attention.” Provide students something specific to listen for and some way to capture that. This might then become: “Listen for one thing you agree with and one thing you disagree with as [student] shares her response. I’ll call on three people to give [student] input after she’s done sharing.” Or maybe it becomes: “Listen for the most important idea in what I’m about to tell you about [today’s content]. You’ll each take 30 seconds to paraphrase that most important idea in your notebook after I’m finished.”
- “Take notes.” Provide specific guidance on what notes to take or an opportunity to check their notes against an exemplar. This might then become: “Copy the notes you see in red in your notebook. The other notes you see are just reminders for me to elaborate on, but the red notes are for you.” Or: “We’re going to work on our note taking skills today. Write down the notes that you think are most important for you in the way that makes most sense for you. At the end, we’ll take a look at my notes so you can compare what you have down and we’ll look at two of your classmates’ notes to give them some feedback about their note-taking.”
- “Read the text.” Provide a focus for reading and method to actively process what they read. This might then become: “I want you to read the following text looking for specific evidence that [some important claim]. Read the text all the way through and underline at least three sentences that you think provide this evidence. We’ll justify what we underlined and how it supports [the claim] with our partners after 5 minutes of silent independent reading and thinking time.” Or: “At the end of each section, write a one sentence summary in your notebook about the main idea of that section.”
- “Talk with your partner.” Make all students process independently before talking with a partner, then let them revise their responses, keeping times short and snappy. This might then become: “Take 27 seconds to write down [response to question]. Great, now take 38 seconds to share your response with your partner and tell them how their response is better than yours.” Or: “Take a minute and half to solve the problem on your own first. You will be showing your work to your partner after this time to see how they approached the problem and organized their work differently than you did so be ready to spot and correct their mistakes.”
If there’s a commonality between all of these adjustments, besides that they all provide tangible ways for all students to participate (and they all pass the “Lonnie Test”), it’s that a) they all involve pens/pencils moving at some point and b) students need to participate individually in some way without riding the coattails of a classmate. A surefire defense against intangible ways to participate!
Comment below. What are your go-to way to make tasks tangible that might otherwise open you up to the “But I was…” defense? How do you Maximize PARTICIPATION through tangible tasks?
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