Tag Archives: Aoki

Classroom Observation Task Talk, Aoki Debrief, Powerful Inquiry Questions, & KUD Formative Assessment: Update for Monday, 14 November 2011

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Hang on tight as there’s a lot to cover here:

Classroom Observation Task Debrief

We used the Inside/Outside Circle strategy to process the information you gathered for the Classroom Observation Task.  At the end, we asked you to debrief the pros and cons of the strategy.

Aoki Debrief

Dave asked you to bring one a short piece of the Aoki text to share in class today.  You did so as part of a small group strategy called The Final Word.  This is a great strategy to use when you desire to develop the active listening skills of your students.

What makes a powerful inquiry question?


Seeing as today was our last inquiry-related reading, we thought we’d get you to look ahead and consider what a powerful inquiry question might look like.  To that end, we asked you to look over some questions from posed by last year’s TCs and the questions that Sims asked.  Then we asked you to complete this graphic organizer – The Frayer Model – as you considered the attributes, examples, non-examples and a graphic that fit with the question “What makes a good inquiry question?”.  Here’s the Frickin’, er… Frayer Model:

KUD Formative Assessment

After a brief review of the KUD definitions and a short blurb about the importance of KUD coherence – making sure each K and D fit with a U – I asked you to jot down your PLO and one item in each of the KUD boxes so I could formatively assess your understanding of the KUD writing process.  We’ll pick this thread up on Wednesday.

– LH

Lesson Planning Suggestions, Sims Inquiry Questions & an Intro to UBD Unit Planning: Update for Monday, 7 November 2011

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After a reminder about the Microteaching Analysis task due today and the Classroom Observation Task due next week, we got down to business.

Lesson Planning Suggestions

Dave and I require the you include both a Teacher Activity and Student Activity column in your lesson plans.  This will allow you to imagine what you will do as you teach and – perhaps more importantly – what the students will be doing as they learn.

We also urged you to include all of the Lesson Design components – mental set, stating the objective, input, modeling, checking for understanding, practice, and closure – whenever possible.  I made reference to the fact that 62 % of my non-management related comments to last year’s TCs on their 2-Week Prac referenced issues related to lesson design.  The better the design, the better the implementation and the better the learning.

You might be interested to see what my “What To Work On” comments were for last year’s TCs during their 2-Week Prac.  The first file is the comments I showed in class – the ones missing the management comments.  The second files contains all the suggestions.  Take a look and see if you can notice what themes emerge:

Sims Article Discussion


As a means of processing the Sims reading, Dave asked you to sort all of the questions she asks in the article into categories that made sense to you.  We then wrote those categories on the board and looked for some common threads.  The goal here was:

  • to consider the types of topics inquiry questions can deal with
  • to examine how questions can evolve
  • to consider the messy nature of inquiry.

Here’s a photo of the categories you came up with courtesy of Lovey’s writing and Eric Man’s camera (with a dash of Jan the ham mixed in):

Introduction to UBD

We started our look at unit planning today.  To that end, I shared a PPT slideshow that touched on some key ideas related to the Understanding by Design model.  Here’s that PPT presentation:

Also, here are the vignettes we played with in my session:

I will take a peek through your exit slips and comment on them at the start of next class.  Also, in that class we will take a deeper look at Stage 1: Desired Results.

Reading Entrance & Exit Slips


Here’s what’s due and when:

  • Monday, 7 November 2011 = Sims Exit Slip
  • Saturday, 12 November 2011 = Aoki (Reading #5) Entrance Slip
  • Monday, 14 November 2011 = Aoki Exit Slip

’til next time.

– LH