Student Centered Planning

Obviously as teachers, a great deal of time and thought goes into lesson planning, content creation, and student assessment, but what does planning and collaboration look like when it is student centered? In order to keep the focus on students, there are certain things that need to be done during planning and team collaboration time to ensure student-centered instruction during lesson delivery time. Any planning session or collaboration time must start with a clear understanding of not only what will be accomplished but also how the result will benefit students. Clear expectations from everyone on the focus of the time…

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Discussion Prompts

One of the best ways to increase student engagement in the classroom is to use discussion prompts to encourage student collaboration and interactive learning. Discussion prompts are anything that an educator uses to engage the student's senses to create thoughts or questions. Examples of discussion prompts could be: video clips, audio clips, photographs, quotes, statements, graphics, problems, newspaper articles, advertisements or even words. These prompts are usually displayed without comment and after giving students time to think about them, are used for group or class discussion. Let's take a look at the process for using thinking prompts.Like all instructional techniques,…

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Just Questions

The process that teachers use to question students happens in classrooms every day but the way questioning is done can have a huge effect on the correct determination of student understanding of the current topic of study. Good application of questioning style and type in the hands of an effective educator can demonstrate student knowledge to the teacher that can help them determine when and how to proceed as well as when additional intervention may be necessary. Effective questions, whether written or oral, can supply formative student learning data that will become much more than just questions.Good questions should be…

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