Co-teaching Stations - Walnut

New Co-teaching Partnership - Jesse Yentes and Nichole Hollister - at Walnut Middle School demonstrated an excellent example of station teaching recently.  The topic was text structures.  Nichole played Jeopardy at her station, asking questions and probing for further clarification from students.  Jesse monitored engagement at other stations where students were to read a passage, discuss and decide the type of structure - and then apply an appropriate organizer.

Watch the video clip:

American History Flip-Flopped!

Mr. Fyfe and Mrs. Luther at GI Senior High participate in the Flip-Flop co-teaching structure several times per week.  You can see a video example below.  The class was split heterogeneously.

I asked several students about learning in this type of environment....responses I got included:

"It's easier to understand."

"It's nice because they teach on 2 different topics and we get 2 different perspectives."

"The class seems to go faster."

Project Checklist

While observing in an 11th grade Language Arts class yesterday, I observed a chart posted on the wall where students recorded their progress toward completing a major task (Marzano Element 2) - a Speaking Assessment .  The teacher had identified the critical information (Marzano Element 6) that would be necessary to complete a project and placed that information into chunks on a timeline  so that it was less overwhelming with regards to completing the entire project.

Laura McQuinn had come up with this idea and shared it with the teacher I was observed.  In Laura's class, students designated completion of each chunk on time with a sticker.  They designated completion of each chunk that was late but done with an "X".  And finally, if a chunk was not completed, the box was left blank.  The chunks were identified with an abbreviation such as "RD" for "Rough Draft."

If you are interested in viewing more about expected teacher evidence and student evidence with regards to the Marzano Elements mentioned above, click on their links and you will find this information, as well as a rubric for that element.  

See Laura's Project Checklist below:

The Great Gatsby - Flip-Flopped!

I had the pleasure of observing Kirby Wells (special education) and Paula Poppe (language arts) using a "Flip-Flop" co-teaching model yesterday.  Kirby worked with half of the class in the back of the room, reading and discussing the novel, The Great Gatsby.  Paula worked with the other half of the class in the front of the room, helping them with an organizer of key events and details of the story, as well as providing an AWESOME visual of the setting of the story in order for the students to better "see" what was happening!

Paula's Visual:

This first video shows the students participating in their respective small groups.

This second video shows the students "flip-flopping" and getting into their new respective small groups for instruction.  I was impressed with the lack of instructional time it took to have students gets up and move.  You will also notice the the two small groups were left together in the same classroom (no one was pulled out) and students were on-task and involved.

6th Grade Egg Fractions!

Walnut 6th Grade Math Co-teacher, Holly Love and Mikayla Kostbahn recently used plastic eggs and egg carton to demonstrate simplification of fractions.  The students then had their own "eggs" and "carton" to draw and demonstrate fractions, as well as to visualize the simplification.  After using Duet Teaching to provide the instruction, the teachers split the room in half and monitored/provided instruction to table groups on whichever side of the room they had identified as their own.

Great visuals for students to "see" the math!!!

6th Grade Language Arts Flip-Flop (Organizational Patterns)

Walnut 6th Grade Co-teachers Ms. Farlee and Ms. Mlinar were teaching Organizational Patterns for Nonfiction this week.  Ms. Farlee taught Sequential to half of the students while Ms. Mlinar taught Compare/Contract to the other half.  Then the students "flip-flopped" and the group that began with Ms. Farlee moved to work with Ms. Mlinar....and the students that began with Ms. Mlinar moved to work with Ms. Farlee.

This was a nice example of engaged students participating in conversation and small group instruction.  Additionally, this type of structure can be done by splitting students heterogeneously or homogeneously.  Ms. Farlee and Ms. Mlinar chose to split students by ability and the content was presented differently based on the students and their needs.

For the lower group, some of the strategies that Ms. Mlinar used included use of a lower lexile passage, as well as color coding text information to help students compare and contrast.  Ms. Farlee used repetition of information, checks for understanding, and using questions to facilitate students' understanding of the content.

Cooperative Learning Activity

Ms. Gilmore and Mrs. Correll (8th grade Math Co-teachers) had students participate in a tactile activator related to proportions and it was done in partnerships.  The students were very engaged in the task.  Also, it was a good use of both teachers as they split the room and each observed half of the students.  Additonally, after one teacher provided instructions, the other teacher followed up with reinforcement which was a good use of both teachers.  Enjoy. 

9th Grade English Review Stations

Engagement at it's finest!  Katy Kurz and Erin Milton (GISH 9th grade Co-taught English) have been reviewing for their upcoming Final, as well as helping students prepare for a unit assessment over Anchor Books.  To set the stage for the crucial next few weeks where students need to push a little harder to succeed, the students were shown a video as an activator.  The video explained the importance of 1 degree of effort and the students and teachers discussed how today's lesson and station work would allow them the opportunity to push themselves just a bit more and find success in the final stretch of the semester here....good conversation!  Enjoy!

This next video shows students working in one of the teacher-led stations and using a scale to self-assess their learning related to the target at that station.  Two stations were teacher led and two stations were independent stations.  A different learning target was written and posted for each station and students were asked to give themselves a scale score at the beginning of the station with regards to the target, and then again at the completion of the station.

This final video shows the students hard at work in each station.

*One teacher-led station had students reviewing writing process and different modes of writing.  They read descriptions of activities one would take when writing an essay (these descriptions were written on ornaments) and then they had to place the description on the correct stage of the writing process (each stage was represented by a Christmas tree with the name of the stage....so ornament descriptors were hung on a Christmas tree).  Then students placed strips of paper with descriptions of the various modes of writing in a stocking that was marked with a different type of essay or mode of writing.

*One teacher-led station had students working on Vocabulary terms by matching them with a definition or description in a game of Go Fish.

*The other two stations were independent stations were students were working on review for anchor books and for the upcoming final.

Middle School Co-taught Stations

Geri Pagel and Tami Williams (Barr Co-taught 8th grade Language Arts) consistently utilize the Station Teaching approach.  It works well for them and their students understand the process because of their consistency.

Yesterday, students were put into 3 stations.  One station dealt with Author's Purpose and the students had activities to do related to that concept.  Another station dealt with identifying nouns and coming up with adjectives to create more descriptive language (as that is the mode of writing they are working on).  The final station included students working on essays and then doing individual conferencing with one of the teachers, referencing the Descriptive Writing rubric and looking at strengths and weaknesses.

The first video shows Geri Pagel giving instructions on each station and then Tami following it up with repetition and visuals reinforcing the directions.  A great example of Duet Teaching.

The next video shows students working in the various stations and conferencing with the teachers about writing.

High School Science Classes Using Scales

GISH has really started using Marzano scales in it's classes.  Two particular co-taught partnerships that I have met with are using them, in particular - Jeff Ehlers and John LeCompte, as well as Bruce Kier and Taylor Montgomery.

Below is a picture of a scale being used in Ehlers/LeCompte's ESP class.  The students color in a bar graph at the bottom periodically with their current self-assessmet and scale score.  The bar graph allows the students to see their growth.

Below is a picture of a tree that Kier/Montgomery are using for students to self-assess on concepts....they have "leaves" with their names on them for each class and students move themselves up on the tree as they give themselves higher scale scores.  

Also, as preparation for the Biology final in Kier/Montgomery's class, students will be going through review stations covering the various chunks of content that they will assessed over.  Prior to the station review, they are going to self-assess themselves with a general scale over each chunk of concept and then will re-assess using the same scale at the end of their review time and prior to the Biology final.  

See the scale and document being used:  

Biology Final Scale

High School Co-taught American History

Flip-Flop WORKS!!!  Montie Fyfe and Sarah Luther did a Flip-Flop co-teaching approach in American History at Grand Island Senior High today.  The concept was "The Progressive Era" and "Theodore Roosevelt."  Even though Mrs. Luther is not a History Teacher, she is able, as the specialist, to take the content and chunk it into more digestible pieces.  She starts with the students that need it broken down a little more, while Mr. Fyfe provides a bigger picture of the content.  Then they "flip-flop."  The students that started with the big picture and Mr. Fyfe, now get to have some good conversation with Mrs. Luther about smaller chunks of the content, while Mrs. Luther's first group is more prepared to go hear the big picture of The Progressive Era with Mr. Fyfe.

As you watch the video, you will observe that it is feasible to do this structure within the same classroom and with a group of social high school students.  The first video shows the students getting into the 2 small groups for instruction (at the prompting of Mrs. Luther).  And the second video shows that in spite of being in the same classroom, students were attentive and on target, paying attention to only the teacher that they were grouped with.

Small Group Instruction works!!!

Thanks Mr. Fyfe and Mrs. Luther!!!

Video 1

Video 2

8th Grade Language Arts "Trivial Pursuit"

Liz Boyle and Angi Wiegert at Walnut Middle School put together a great Trivial Pursuit review game for their Co-taught 8th Grade Language Arts classes.  The review activity covered concepts that would appear on the next day's assessment.  Additionally, you will see in the video that students created a T-Chart and would record concepts for their own notes as they would appear on the Trivial Pursuit Review.  This allowed them to have concepts to take and study with them on their own, as well.

What a creative partnership these 2 are!  And they share the instructional responsibilities so well!

Enjoy the video!!!

Trivia Pursuit Game Board:

6th Grade Language Arts goes "fishing!"

The theme of 6th grade Co-taught Language Arts at Westridge recently was "Fishing."  Sharon Klanecky and Megan Eberle were using the metaphor of "hook-line-sinker" as a comparison to an "intro-body-conclusion" as students prepared for a descriptive writing essay.  When they planned this lesson, the teachers took into consideration what the needs of their students were for each section of an essay (intro, body, and conclusion).  Then, they planned for stations where the students would work on skills pertaining to each section at different stations.  Below you will see some of the artifacts that they used.  They each took a station and then there was a station that was independent.  At the independent station, students would pull topics out of a tackle box and do a round table brainstorming activity - diving into feelings, emotions, and descriptive details retlative to the topic.  This helped students continue to work on that skill.

Enjoy the pictures of artifacts and videos below!!!

Video - Introducting the lesson

More Videos from the Lesson:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pJe0wkz1woA&feature=youtu.be

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X9yH8swGbgs&feature=youtu.be

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IoEJ9Cj_hz8&feature=youtu.be

High School Math "Expert" Groups

Deb Vahle and Trish Paul demonstrated an engaging and effective structure in their Co-taught Algebra 3 class yesterday.  Students had taken a quiz and students that had done well on the quiz were selected as "experts" for various problems from the quiz.  Mrs. Vahle was the "expert" for a concept, as well.  Mrs. Paul would monitor and assist with expert instruction, as well.  Students were handed back their quizzes and then allowed the opportunity to work in small groups with peer and teacher experts where they revisited mistakes made on the quiz as a way to reinforce concepts that were missed.
Watch the videos.  The engagement of this structure was great and there was some really positive small group learning occuring!!!

Video 1

Video 2

Video 3

Science Energy Relay at Walnut

Kim Corradi and Tracy Ellis took their 6th grade Science students outside to do an Energy Relay last week.  The relay involved student teams representing themselves as a food chain in the following order:  Sun-Plant-Herbivore-Carnivore-Human.  The student representing the sun grabbed as many balls out of a pile that they could (representing energy) and as they passed the "energy" down the food chain, students could see how energy would symbolically get lost and finally the human would have the least amount of anyone in the food chain.

Watch the fun video!

High School Science 3 Station Co-teaching

Below you will find videos from a Co-taught Science class at Grand Island Senior High (John LeCompte and Jeff Ehlers).  The class was going to be reviewing ionic and covalent bonds.  They split students into either a "proton" group, an "electron" group, or a "neutron" group.  The students created a foldable to help organize information.  At one station, they worked with a teacher on ionic bonds and that section of the foldable.  At a second station, they worked on covalent bonds and that section of the foldable.  And at a third station, they looked at similarities and differences of the two types of bonds.  A para-educator was utilized to guide students in that section but if you did not have access to a para-educator, students could work independently and be sure to place students in heterogeneous groups in order to provide for some peer support.

This first video allows you to see how the groups were split and what one teacher station was doing.

This second video allows you to see what was happening at the second teacher station.  

This final video allows you a brief clip of the station being guided by the para-educator.  

Why do small group instruction???

2 DYNAMIC Co-teachers at Grand Island Senior High - John LeCompte (Science) and Jeff Ehlers (Special Education Specialist) provide feedback regarding the use of small group specialized instruction through co-taught structures such as Flip Flop and 3 Station Rotation.  They share their hesitancies, as well as their ultimate success.

Thanks Gentlemen!  You are making magic happen in your Co-taught Classroom at GISH!

Flip Flop Switch

A few weeks ago, the 7th grade Co-taught Math class at Westridge decided to try a new approach to Co-teaching called Flip Flop Switch.  The content teacher (Mrs. Beberniss) began class by working with half of the students that were ready to receive the content instruction for the day....while the specialist teacher (Mrs. Larsen) "front-loaded" some of the strategies students were going to need when they went to work with the content teacher.  Half way through the class, the students switch or "flip-flopped."
The students who has received instruction with the content teacher now went to work with the specialist teacher and received some practice and extension of the content.  The students who began class getting front-loaded and prepared for the content, now went to work with the content teacher and received the same instruction as the first group did with her.

What a great approach and allowing differentiation for both struggling learners and higher-achieving students!

Visiting with English teachers from China

Mrs. Vyhlidal and Mrs. Larsen getting to visit with Language Arts teachers from China at Westridge on 2-24-14.  They were very interested in our educational practices and were able to discuss the approach of Co-teaching, as well.  

3 Station Rotation

The students in this Co-taught class were getting instruction in a 3 Station Rotation format.  One station was independent, and the other 2 stations were instructed with small-group intense instruction where the teachers differentiated the approach to the needs of the group.  When the content teacher (Mrs. Vyhlidal) arrived at each group, she provided the day's content, and the specialist (Mrs. Larsen) was front-loading concepts or providing extension when she worked with each station.  Teachers rotated between groups.