Questions, Participation, and Strategy. Ch. 10 Marzano

My clinical experience has been great so far. I started teaching my lesson two weeks ago and I’m almost finished. My unit doesn’t have a textbook, just a workbook. This makes it difficult to teach, so I am mainly sticking to power points and discussions along with fun activities and projects. One thing that I am experiencing during my lectures is student involvement. My discussions usually last half the class period of more, because I focus on student involvement rather than me sitting there and talking the whole time. My discussions/lectures are more direct instruction more than lecture. One thing that I experienced in my classroom in the beginning was only three or four students were answering questions. These questions were similar to the discussion in Marzano for chapter ten. The author is showing us the importance of asking questions and having students come up with higher level answers with more critical thought. Marzano is trying to tell us that the use of questions allows students to focus on the important material that will help them succeed in their learning. He wants us to stay away from unusual or trivial questions. So, after reading this section in Marzano, focused more on questions that were important. I also made connections between the questions I was answering and things that these students were facing in their life. For example, I asked students if they knew what opportunity cost was. No one answered. So, I told the students that opportunity cost was something they would be doing if they weren’t doing something else and then I gave them an example. I picked a student from the class and asked what they would be doing if they weren’t at school. He gave an answer and I told him that was opportunity cost. The entire class started telling me what they would be doing if they weren’t at school. I felt that this was the beginning of student involvement and answering questions in my classroom. Another strategy that I use to get students to answer questions is by using a stress ball. What I will do is, if students aren’t answering question, because they are bored or tired, I will get the ball out and throw it around. I will ask a question and then throw the ball to a student. The student will have to catch it, throw it back, and then give me an answer. This works great, because the students want me to throw the ball to them. If a student gives me a good answer that I feel they thought critically on, they have a chance to throw it in a small basket ball hoop mounted above the smart board. This works fantastically, because students are thinking before they answer. I am getting great answers from the students and am starting to see that their learning experience is expanding. I can tell that they are learning, which is enough for me to know that they understand what I am teaching.