Welcome to IntermediateSenior Methods: Lecture

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Welcome to Intermediate/Senior Methods Lecture
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• Please sign the attendance sheet
• Please wear your name tag
• Please hand in Assignment 3 (Lesson Plan 2)
• Please pick up Assignment 4 (Communication
  Teaching Analysis)
• Randomly select a shell

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Brain Teaser

• Joe stared through the dirty soot-smeared window
  on the 22nd floor of the office tower.
• Overcome with depression he slid the window open
  and jumped through it.
• It was a sheer drop outside the building to the
  ground.
• Miraculously after he landed he was completely
  unhurt.
• Since there was nothing to cushion his fall or
  slow his descent, how could he have survived the
  fall?

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Brain Teaser Answer

• Joe was so sick and tired of window washing,
• he opened the window and jumped inside.

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Assignment 4Communication Teaching Analysis
Examples on my web page under Resources
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Last Lecture Food For Thought

• Computers are useless.
• They can only give you answers.
• Pablo Picasso (1881-1973)

Les Demoiselles d'Avignon. Oil on Canvas
Questions are more important to understanding
than answers are!
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The Three Little PigsThrough the Lens of
Blooms Taxonomy

• Class Drama Skit

REVIEW
http//www.beaconlearningcenter.com/
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Blooms Taxonomy
REVIEW
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Blooms Taxonomy Class Activity

• Please establish groups of four
• One member per group collect the handout at the
  front of class, and follow the instructions

REVIEW
The Four Saints Circa 1958
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Characteristics of Good Questions(A
continuation of Blooms Taxonomy)

• Questioning is the single most influential
  teaching
• act (both orally and in written form) and the
  trend has hardly changed over the years
• Remember Picasso Computers are useless.
• They can only give you answers.
• Questions, therefore, are more important to
  understanding than answers are!

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Why Ask Questions in Class?

• To encourage learners to speak constructively and
  on-task
• To hear what learners feel and think
• To stimulate interest and awaken curiosity
• To encourage a problem-solving approach to
  thinking and learning
• To help learners verbalize knowledge and learning
  
• To encourage thinking aloud and exploratory
  approaches to tasks
• To help learners to learn from each other
• To monitor learning
• To deepen learners' thinking level and increase
  their ability to conceptualize

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Characteristics of Good Questions(A
continuation of Blooms Taxonomy)

• The philosophy and theory underpinning
  questioning is immense
• It is not uncommon for researchers to spend
  months designing questions
• In teaching, focus on the following four areas

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• Scale
• Can the answer be provided in a few words,
• or does the answer require massive and in-depth
  analysis?
• Topic Rudolph the red-nosed reindeer
• Example (A) Small Scale
• Question Why did Santa choose Rudolph as lead
  reindeer?
• Answer His shiny nose allowed Santa to see
  through the blinding snow storm
• Example (B) Large Scale
• Question How did Rudolphs shiny red nose affect
  the social, political and economic trends of the
  North Pole community?
• Answer ..

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(2) Content Does the question accurately reflect
the content of the topic that was being
taught? Topic Rudolph the Red-Nosed
Reindeer Example A Question What do Rudolph
and Hermy the Elf have in common? Answer Comes
directly from the story! Example B
Off-Topic Question What two characters from
another story have a similar relationship to that
of Rudolph and Hermy the Elf? Answer Requires
knowledge of something that that may have not
been taught.
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(3) Open Vs. Closed Ended Questions Does the
question allow the student to openly and freely
answer without any pre-determined (close-ended)
answer choices? Topic Rudolph the Red-Nosed
Reindeer Example A Open-Ended Question How do
the other reindeer treat Rudolph? Answer The
other reindeers ostracize Rudolph from reindeer
society. He is banished from participating in
reindeer games and shunned from social
events. Example B Closed-Ended Question Do the
other reindeer treat Rudolph kindly or unkindly?
Answer Student chooses one or the other, and
does not have a chance to think on his/her own.
Multiple choice questions are also another form
of closed-ended questions
Open Questions
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(4) Level of Thinking (Blooms Taxonomy) What
level of Blooms Taxonomy does the question
address? Topic Rudolph the Red-Nosed
Reindeer Example A Knowledge (Low-Level
Thinking) Question What was the name of the
island that Rudolph, Hermy the Elf, and Cornelius
visited ? Answer The island of Misfit
Toys Example B Analysis (High-Level
Thinking) Question Analyze the social and
emotional distress of all the characters living
on the Island of Misfit Toys? Answer Requires a
close and careful examination of the characters
on the island, including their feelings and
emotions, as well as the concept of being a
misfit.
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Classroom Activity

• Arrange yourself in groups of four according to
  the number written on the shell that you randomly
  selected
• Each group is responsible for completing one
  worksheet
• The person in your group who most resembles a
  famous person is the group recorder
• Step 1 In your group, take a few minutes to
  informally discuss Christopher Columbus using the
  W5 method (Who? What? When? Where? How?),
• Step 2 Watch/listen to the animated film clip
  Christopher Columbus by Mel-O-Tunes
• Step 3 As a group, create
• (a) 6 open-ended questions (one from each level
  of Blooms Taxonomy)
• Step 4 Share group answers with the class

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Wait TimeAdapted From Nancy Lorsch and Shirley
Ronkowski, 1982. Instructional Development,
University of California, Santa Barbara.

• DEFINITION
• Wait-time is the amount of time that elapses
  between an instructor-initiated question and the
  next verbal behavior (e.g., a student response or
  question, the instructor talks again).
• RECOMMENDED PRACTICE
• Allow at least 5 seconds of wait-time after
  asking a question.
• RESEARCH FINDING
• It has been reported that most instructors allow
  their students less than one second of wait-time.
  When wait-time is increased to three to five
  seconds, the following changes have been found to
  occur. Some of these changes are fairly
  immediate, while others occur over time.
• The number of student responses increases, and
  the incidence of non-response decreases.
• Students offer more evidence in support of their
  responses, offer more speculative thoughts, and
  give more complex answers. There is also evidence
  that student confidence increases
• Student-to-student interactions increases as do
  conversational sequences

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Increasing Your Wait Time

• It is not uncommon for instructors to comment
  that it is initially difficult to increase their
  wait-time.
• Many people indicate that they are uncomfortable
  with "long" silences. Thus, allowing such
  silences in your teaching can be unsettling at
  first.
• When you begin experimenting with wait-time, you
  might find it useful to count the seconds out in
  your head
• You might use this time to study the faces of
  your students for indications of confusion or
  comprehension.

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What to do When Students Do Not Respond?

• If there are no student responses after five to
  ten seconds of
• wait-time, you might want to do one or more of
  the following
• repeat the question
• rephrase the question
• simplify the question
• ask a student to attempt a rephrasing of your
  question
• break the question down into its component parts
• make your question more specific
• ask students what it is about the question that
  they are finding difficult
• After each of the above alternatives, it is
  recommended that you allow another 5-10 seconds
  wait- time

Wait Time
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probes

• A probe is a device, or part of a device,
• used to explore, investigate or question
• As a teacher, probes can only be verbal
• In general, teacher probes
• Follow students response to a question
• Are determined and controlled by the learners
  actual response
• Are designed to go beyond the initial information
  given by the student

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Six types of probes

• Redirect Probes to change the direction of
  interaction by shifting from one student to
  another.
• Example
• (Teacher) Doug, what is the answer to question
  5
• name the two main characters of the story?
• (Doug) Jenny and Eric.
• (Teacher) Sally, you are nodding your head in
• disagreement, do you have a different answer?
• (Sally) Yes, the main characters are Benny and
  Eric.
• N.B. Teacher always keeps eyes and ears all
  students
• during a questioning session!

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Six types of probes
(2) Prompting Probes use after wrong answers or
non-responses to help the student get the right
answer. This involves rephrasing the question,
offering a hint, asking for an example,
identifying cues. Example (Teacher) Sally,
what is the capital of Canada? (Sally?)
Toronto (Teacher) Toronto is a good guess, but
the answer is a city that is a four hour drive
from Toronto (Sally) No response after five
seconds (Teacher) The city begins with the
letter O and ends in the letter A (Sally)
Ottawa? (Teacher) Yes, that is the correct
answer, Sally!
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Six types of probes
(3) Refocus Probes Use after a student response
that is off topic. Example (Teacher) What
daily survival challenges do the native people of
Canadas Arctic face? (Allison) Watching hockey
games on television. (Teacher) How does that
relate to daily survival challenges? Think about
things that you do on a daily basis that are
necessary to sustain your life?
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Six types of probes
(4) Clarification Probes It is good practice to
remind students about previous items that have
been discussed either earlier in the lesson, or
even on a previous day. Teachers may say things
as (a) What did we say about . . . earlier?
(b) How does . . . relate to our discussion
about . . . that we had yesterday? Also,
teachers need to cultivate student responses.
Example (a) Define . . . (b) What do you mean
by? (c) Illustration -- give me an example on
the blackboard (d) Expand -- What do you mean
by?
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Six types of probes
(5) Critical Awareness Probes Used to help the
students to analyse, justify and, evaluate.
Examples, What are you assuming here? How/Why do
you feel that way? Examples (Teacher) What is
the main theme of the novel? (Sally) That
humans are destroying the natural
environment. (Teacher) In what ways are humans
destroying the natural environment? (Sally)
By destroying ecosystems and polluting the water
and atmosphere of the planet. (Teacher) How
does that make you feel, Sally? (Sally) Sad,
very sad, but at the same time, very angry!
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Prompts and probes
(6) Prediction Probes What would happen if?
You can probe right answers, wrong answers, non
answers, comments, questions, but you should not
probe every student response. Example (Teacher)
Robert, what is the most important note in the
C natural minor scale? (Robert) E
flat! (Teacher) Yes , Robert. That is the
correct answer. But what would happen if all
three flat notes in the C natural minor scale
were moved up one semitone? (Robert) It would
now become a C major scale. (Teacher) Yes
Robert, that is correct.
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Lecture Summary

• (1) Characteristics of Good Questions
• Scale, Content, Open Vs. Close Ended, and Blooms
  Taxonomy
• (2) Wait Time
• Theory
• What to do when students dont respond
• (3) Six Types of Probes
• Re-direction
• Prompting
• Re-Focus
• Clarification
• Critical Awareness
• Prediction

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Food For Thought

• The important thing is not to stop questioning.
• Albert Einstein
• (1879-1955)