May is also project month. We have just weeks left of school; no one wants to lecture students who squirm in their seats and watch the clock. Better to keep them engaged with the content and let them direct their own learning with a project.

Many students rely on Google’s Image search to find photos for their PowerPoints, PhotoStories, or iMovies. However, better visuals exist for school projects and what’s more – most of these are copyright friendly.

Flickr.com’s Creative Commons. This site requires a Yahoo! login, but if you’re comfortable allowing your students to register with the site, it’s a great opportunity to find photos to illustrate presentations. The Flickr’s Creative Commons uses CreativeCommons.org’s guidelines for copyright. There are six categories of copyright and they’re all explained on the right-hand side of Flickr’s site. If your students give credit to the photographer, let the photographer know that they’re using the image in a school presentation, don’t alter the image, and don’t sell the photo on T-shirts, they should be within the copyright guidelines. However, it’s a great idea to discuss the copyright guidelines with them before they use the photos. You and I both know that our students will visit the site outside of class and we want them to respect the photographer’s rights. For the most part, the images are classroom appropriate. Occasionally I’ll find something objectionable, but then I flag the photo. When your students search, make sure they click on See More to the bottom right of each copyright collection. Do not use the search at the top of the page – those photos may or may not be a part of the Creative Commons. One of the best things about using Flickr.com’s Creative Commons is that students can download the photos in the size that will work best in their project. The photos also respond well to resizing and won’t become too blurry if a student increases the photo’s size.

MorgueFile.com The term Morgue File comes from the print world where editors put the paper to bed and then review the past issue in a postmortem meeting. After the review, someone files the old issue in the morgue file. Online, this is a spot where searchers can use any photo they find in any way they choose – without regard to altering, selling, or providing attribution for the image. MorgueFile.com doesn’t have the huge number of photos that Flickr.com’s Creative Commons does, but it’s a place where you know your students won’t be stomping on anyone’s copyrights. Despite the free nature of the site, having the copyright discussion and providing attribution and feedback for the photographer is just good manners. No one has officially culled these photos for inappropriate content, so occasionally I’ll find something objectionable. MorgueFile.com has a reporting link for objectionable images at the bottom right of each photo. Be sure your students are using the free photo search at the top of each web page, not the sponsored, paid photo search they’ll find at the bottom of the page. These photos respond well to resizing, so you don’t need to worry about blurry images in projects.

LoveVectorFree.com Students will find illustrations for use in projects on this site. Vector means that the images can be resized without blurry effects. Free means that your students can use the images without opening your wallet. LoveVectorFree.com’s legal page allows people to use any image on the site for any purpose, without attribution. However, a good discussion about attribution is never wrong. Encourage students to leave a comment for the artist, give them feedback about their work, and let them know they’re using the images in a school project. It’s good manners. LoveVectorFree.com is a new site, so the collection doesn’t have tons of illustrations, but new images come in all the time. Unlike the other sites in this post, LoveVectorFree.com doesn’t have a feature for guests to report inappropriate content. At the moment, the images on the site lean towards fluffy bunnies and brightly colored flowers, so I think sending students to the site would be safe.

The Big Picture. This site is part of The Boston Globe’s Boston.com site. A web editor chooses a timely topic like the anniversary of the Vietnam war, the oil spill in the Gulf, or Earth Day and gathers up the best photos from around the world about the topic. Of course, Boston.com has the right to post these photos, but your students shouldn’t use these in presentations. Rather, this site is for you and your lesson planning. The dramatic photos are a terrific way to bring up current topics in many disciplines or illustrate the impact of the world’s big events. I strongly recommend that you preview the photos first before class. It’s good practice anyway, but a few photos on the site are graphic. For example, some photos in the Vietnam war collection have been blacked out for graphic content. To access the photo, a user has to click on the screen to view the image. That’s great – it makes lesson planning easier for me. However, some of the photos in the Vietnam series haven’t been blacked out and they made me squirm. I wouldn’t want to show some of those images in my classroom, not just because they’re graphic, but I wouldn’t want to cement my reputation as a total wimp.

Do you have any online image resources where you send your students? Please share these in the comments and let us all know about the copyright restrictions and content. Even better: how do you make sure that students don’t spend their entire computer lab time hunting down images instead of creating content?

This article views the failure of policy to reduce the learning gap over the past decade as a function of the reforms to solve the most pervasive and fundamental learning blockage faced by disadvantaged students and their teachers. This most fundamental problem is viewed as the tendency of the students to stare when asked an open-ended, analytical question. The basis thesis is that the learning gap cannot be reduced substantially, and that disadvantaged students cannot achieve at their full considerable intellectual potential, until this fundamental problem is solved. This article draws on the author’s experience both as a teacher in inner city schools and as a researcher to explain the cause of the stare, and the keys to eliminating the problem.

Many, many years ago (more ‘manys’ than I want to admit) I was a public school teacher in New York City teaching disadvantaged middle and high school students from Harlem and Hells Kitchen. I and my peers were using the latest reform; a discovery approach to teaching. Please keep in mind that I was a highly motivated teacher who loved his students. I think I was a hip (that is how we spoke back then) teacher who was liked by his students. I was committed to the ideal of using progressive approaches to education with disadvantaged students and was as knowledgeable about the research of the times as a teacher could be. All the advocacy and theory would therefore predict that I and my students would experience great success. However, amidst the successes that I had with individual students and with different topics it was not an overall success. There was one stumbling block that I never was able to overcome. Whenever I asked an open-ended question, or any question that required real generalization or abstraction, the students would stare at me. My eager hyperactive students suddenly became silent and stared blankly at me. The more I urged them to “think,” the harder they stared and the more puzzled they seemed to be. Then the silence would become unbearable, and they would avert their gaze. I then faced the dilemma of: “What do I do now?” The only available choices appeared to be to either simplify the questions or give obvious hints, which would defeat the goal of bringing higher forms of learning to the students, or be satisfied with the same two or three students answering the more open-ended questions. My peers had the same dilemma.

I sensed then that the blank stare would always limit both my effectiveness as a teacher and the academic success of my students. As a result, I set off on a quest to understand why they stared when we tried to get them to reach into the world of reflection and abstraction. The following is what I have learnt in the intervening years based on large-scale research and experience.

My initial instinct was correct. The blank stare is ground zero of school reform, i.e. the real litmus test of whether any given reform is reducing the gap. Regardless of the reform flavor at a given moment, if when teachers close their door and ask a complex question most of the disadvantaged students stare, then the reform is not reducing the gap. The blank stare is education’s equivalent of the miner’s canary. It is an indicator of whether things are okay in the trenches.

Unfortunately, the reforms of the past decade have had little impact on the stare. Today when I visit “reform” schools teachers are still either asking primarily simple questions or only a few students are answering the complex questions with the rest staring. Most of these are very good teachers who are as frustrated now as I was then. I watch my well trained and enthusiastic student teachers get so frustrated that they virtually stop asking complex questions after several weeks in the classroom. Despite all the new theories and techniques, things are not well in the trenches, and the problem at ground zero remains the same. Indeed, gaps re-widened in the 90’s, despite major reform efforts.

In order to deal substantively with the “stare” two misconceptions have to be put to rest. The first is the belief that disadvantaged students are not capable of abstract thinking, and it is not fair to expect that. In the 70’s they were even categorized as “concrete” thinkers. In the 80’s the self-concept movement preached asking simple questions so that students could gain self-concept by getting correct answers. Nonsense! Disadvantaged students are as capable of abstract thought as anyone.

The second misconception is that the dumbing down of questions is primarily a result of teachers not being sufficiently trained or motivated, and that this can be solved with advocacy and yet more staff development. Nonsense! I and my peers were well trained and motivated—and we still could not produce the desired reflectiveness in our students.

The core of the problem is that these wonderful students are not prepared to answer reflective questions. Staff development to train teachers to ask reflective questions is of little value if students are not prepared to respond. The lack of student responsiveness is not because of ability. Rather, it results from the gap in disadvantaged students’ access to the types of cultural interactions that do prepare an individual to engage in reflective and abstract thought. The key needed interactions are discussions with adults about ideas, a process that traditionally took place around the greatest educational institution of all—the dinner table.

Unfortunately, disadvantaged students generally come to school without having had the opportunity to talk with adults about ideas. In addition, such a lack is not racial but economic. As you move down the economic ladder talk in the home diminishes dramatically. Betty Hart and Todd Risley found in their landmark study, Meaningful Differences in the Everyday Experience of Young American Children, that students from low-income households arrive in school with tens of millions fewer language interaction opportunities in the home. The interactions they do have largely involve listening to literal commands, i.e., “do this” and “do that”. In addition, most of the adult talk is negative in nature, admonishing and criticizing.

The absence of prior conversation with adults about ideas leads to disadvantaged students having so little cultural sense of how to engage in systematic or generalized thought that I refer to them as students who do not understand “understanding.” They have no idea of how to engage in fundamental aspects of understanding and working with ideas that we take for granted and that underlie all learning. The stare means: “I do not know what you mean when you ask me to think, or what you want me to do. Please tell me what to do so I can answer your question.” Thinking is a cultural way of representing things, just like language. Every culture does it differently. Therefore, when a teacher asks a complex question that requires thought it is equivalent to speaking to them in a strange foreign language. No wonder the students stare blankly. Nor is it surprising that after years of this cultural dissonance the students become resentful and frustrated. Nor is it surprising that teachers become equally frustrated by their inability to break through the blank stare. How can teachers even begin to develop a fundamental cultural sense of understanding in their students and still teach?

Indeed the absence of a sense of understanding and the resultant blank stare is the single biggest problem facing American education. It limits the achievement potential of disadvantaged students after the earliest grades when the curriculum becomes more integrative and abstract—regardless of how much progress students have made earlier. In addition, the understanding gap is so great that the problem of the blank stare has been immune from the effects of the myriad reforms of the past 38 years.

Are the schools helpless to develop a sense of understanding in disadvantaged students and thereby get them to become reflective learners who respond to open-ended questions given the enormity of the conversation gap? Are we doomed to be tortured forever by the blank stare and its consequences because of environmental issues that are beyond the control of the school? No!

However, the key to solving the problem of the “blank stare” is to be realistic and recognize that: a) the gap in opportunities to discuss ideas with adults is so huge that it is impossible for any one teacher in the context of regular classroom instruction to overcome this huge deficit—no matter how well trained or motivated, and b) no reform will solve the learning gap unless it addresses the conversation gap directly. The easy gains in gap reduction have been made and a new approach is needed.

One potential way to deal with the conversation deficit is for all teachers in a school to agree to ask the same type of key thinking questions on a day in and day out basis and push for student responses. Over time, repeated exposure to a similar set of thinking questions across all content should theoretically help to produce the familiarity and confidence that enables increasing numbers of disadvantaged students to start responding. This is the proverbial “village” approach.

While valuable, the village approach has some problems. First, it is hard to get all teachers in a school to buy into anything. Second, while I have helped schools implement the village approach, I have no data to this point on its effectiveness. I am sure that it would take many years for this approach to have an effect given the huge initial conversation gap. This is problematic for mobile students.

As a result, while the village approach can help, it is not likely a solution. This is why I developed the Higher Order Thinking Skills (HOTS) program 24 years ago to explore the effects of providing an intensive conversation environment for a period of time as a substitute for supplemental drill and test prep. The program generates a very creative and intensive Socratic conversation environment in a specialized setting-either during or after school. It combines the use of technology and Socratic teaching techniques, i.e., teaching by asking. Socratic teaching is made possible by a combination of a sophisticated and creative curriculum designed in accordance with brain theory, and intensive teacher training that develops new reflexes for interacting with students.

After working with 2600 schools and half a million disadvantaged students all over the U.S., and experimenting with a variety of implementation processes, some key findings emerged from this experience over time. This large-scale research has shown that the right type of engaging and consistent conversation for 40 minutes a day can produce a sense of understanding in 1.5-2 years. The conversation needs to be provided in groups of 10-12 students by a good teacher trained in Socratic conversation techniques, using a curriculum designed from the ground up to intrigue students and stimulate Socratic conversation. (It is important that teachers conduct Socratic conversations, i.e., teach by asking, in order to provide students with the opportunity to create their own understandings.) The critical need is for students to create and articulate ideas, and then articulate rationales, justifications, and strategies, over and over and over, and over again— with virtually no overt direction or hints from teachers. The best time to provide such an intensive small group conversation experience appears to start around the middle of the third grade. While you can start as late as the eighth grade, the earlier you start the better. The blank stares disappear.

As the stares start to disappear both basic and advanced skills accelerate. In comparisons HOTS students have developed three times the gains in reading comprehension tests as additional content/test prep activities. Our latest research is showing that HOTS is able to produce substantial gains simultaneously on 16 different measures of academic and cognitive (thinking) development, including GPA, metacognition, writing, and novel problem solving, while comparison students who received extra help in content declined. Other research has shown that close to 15% of the HOTS Title I students make honor role in the first year. There are reports of HOTS Title I students being reclassified as Gifted, and teams of HOTS students beating Gifted students in competitions. In addition, there is tremendous growth in social confidence and verbalization skills. In other words, it appears that developing a sense of understanding transfers to a wide variety of substantial gains.

At the same time, developing a sense of understanding does not insure student success. In the limited follow-up research we have conducted it appears to function as an “enabler.” Those students who develop a sense of understanding and want to succeed perform well academically at the next level of school. On the other hand, few of the over-remediated comparison students do well later on. In other words, those students who do not develop a sense of understanding appear to hit a “cognitive wall” that limits their ability to perform academically as they progress through school. Conversely, the benefits of developing a sense of understanding are so dramatic that it should be part of any legal construct related to equity and opportunity to learn.

It is hard to convey in print how dramatically the student-teacher interaction dynamic is changed once disadvantaged students develop a sense of understanding. It is also difficult to convince people of the importance of developing a sense of understanding and the specific conditions needed to bring it about because so few have successfully produced or observed such effects. Much like a biologist who sees certain things for the first time because of having access to a more powerful microscope, I and thousands of HOTS teachers had a more powerful tool to produce, observe, and research the phenomenon of a sense of understanding—and witness its effects on academic and social growth.

That is not to say that HOTS is the only way to provide the needed intensive conversation. The most important contribution of the HOTS research is the principles of the conditions needed to produce a sense of understanding in ways that transfer to improved academic outcomes and social development. The most important findings were that: a) It takes 35-40 minutes a day of intensive sophisticated conversation for 1.5 to 2 years to develop a sense of understanding, b) such a self-contained environment is needed before the disadvantaged will be successful in thinking-in-content problem solving curricula, and c) providing such a self-contained environment produces greater test score gains than supplemental drill and test-prep work. (A more detailed summary of findings can be obtained from this author via e mail.)

Unfortunately, the notion of establishing a separate intervention to provide a small group Socratic learning environment for 1.5-2 years goes against the grain of the deeply held positions of both progressives and traditionalists. While progressives are ardent advocates of thinking development for the disadvantaged, historically they have implemented it in unsystematic and ineffective ways that unintentionally widen gaps. Progressives generally advocate that disadvantaged students be immediately placed in problem solving content curricula, and that all teaching and learning should be problem solving based. In particular, my experience is that they react viscerally against finding “b” above and characterize the process of taking disadvantaged students aside to first develop a sense of understanding as a form of tracking, labeling, and/or stigmatizing students. Such well intentioned criticism confuses means and progressive ends, and ultimately relegates most disadvantaged students to be “starers.”

In reality, both the teachers and students back in my school in New York City were victims of these good intentions. The students should not have been placed into thinking-in-content, in that case a discovery approach to learning in math and science, until they had first been put into an intervention to develop their sense of understanding. Had our students had such a systematic intervention, their eyes would have shined with energy and thoughtfulness when we asked the types of questions that we did. The students then would have benefited from, and succeeded in, discovery approaches to teaching and learning as well as anyone.

Traditionalists, on the other hand, keep the focus on just basic skills and accountability. They believe that the more time spent on basic skills the greater the rise of test scores. However, while skill development is important, if all you do is remedial/test prep work, you not only stunt the intellectual and emotional development of students, you also inhibit test score improvement. This is why traditionalist periods do generally produce test score gains but these gains plateau quickly and disillusionment sets in. For example, the results from the Chancellor’s district in New York City showed that massive doses of reading instruction, three hours a day, did raise reading scores. But, math scores did not go up, and they did not have time to teach science and social studies so those scores will go down. In other words, there was no transfer. Nor is it likely that today’s accountability press will eliminate the stare anymore today than it did in the past.

While the advisability of the current accountability pressures is debatable, it is clear that educator’s response to No Child Left Behind is repeating the mistakes of past accountability eras. HOTS was heretical when it started in the last accountability movement in the early 80’s. Its lessons are just as counter-intuitive in today’s response to No Child Left Behind. It is frustrating to see administrators once again reflexively responding to accountability pressures by focusing solely on test prep skill development. That is a mistake that ironically minimizes test score gains and limits the overall educational value of the gains that are made. Instead of increasing skill development test prep time, schools should: a) improve the quality of skill development activities during regular instruction time, and b) use supplemental time to provide creative approaches to develop a sense of understanding, and thereafter nurture that sense with creative content curricula.

In other words, the stare and learning gap results largely from professional mistakes we have made for more than a century—regardless of our philosophical predilection. Alternatively, we can make some key changes as a profession and empower disadvantaged students to tap into their vast intellectual potential. High poverty schools are filled with bright students who do not understand how to channel their potential. All they need is sufficient experience in conversing with adults about ideas in a systematic way. The most powerful technology of all is sophisticated conversation. This will do more to raise test scores and reduce the gap, with or without accountability pressures, than all the reforms of the past two decades.

At the same time, the conversation has to be done in a sophisticated, specialized, consistent, and targeted manner. The HOTS research indicates that there are clear parameters about how much conversation is needed, what type, when it is most effective, how to sequence it, and it documents major traditional and progressive effects. It also indicates that it is feasible to provide the needed amount of conversation in conjunction with schools’ existing initiatives and resources. At this point we are hoping to extend research on the benefits of developing a sense of understanding by combining the use of this program with other progressive and traditional approaches in the overall curricular design of schools and district reform plans.

The bottom line is that it is possible, practical, and essential to eliminate the blank stare. Doing so will open up a new era of real progress for disadvantaged students, create exciting opportunities for teachers to succeed with them at more advanced levels, and reduce the learning gap. Had my students had a transitional process available to them to become “understanders” I would probably still be a New York City public school teacher. Why would anyone ever leave a rewarding opportunity to teach low-income students with a sense of understanding who, instead of staring, instinctively think, respond, and learn at high levels?

References

Hart, B. and Risley, T.R. (1995). Meaningful differences in the everyday experience of young American children. Baltimore, MD: Brookes Publishing Company.

Stanley Pogrow is a professor of educational leadership at San Francisco State University, where he specializes in reducing the learning gap. His new book is Teaching Content Outrageously: How to Captivate All Students and Accelerate Learning, Grades 4-12, published by Jossey-Bass. He can be reached at stanpogrow@att.net.

Used with permission of the author.

We will not make much progress in achieving educational equity until we develop better approaches for dealing with student boredom and resistance. But student access to on-demand entertainment has made it harder than ever for teachers to interest their classes—members of the YouTube generation—in what they are being mandated to cover. The old standbys of telling students they have to know it because it will be on the test, or making it “authentic,” that is, trying to convince students they will need to know it as adults, have little effect on many students. They are not adults and may be rebelling against adult ideas.

I decided to tackle the problems of student boredom and resistance when I supervised student-teachers at the University of Arizona. Most of my student-teachers were placed in low-achieving, high-poverty urban middle and high schools.

Even as my student-teachers grew more skillful in managing classrooms, presenting content, and maintaining discipline, their students remained listless in class. Lots of time continued to be lost to the typical student whining. And, to be honest, I was bored by the lessons myself. The student teachers, too, were disappointed that their students were not hanging on their every word or exhibiting a thirst for knowledge. They quickly scaled down their expectations of what teaching could and should be. Student apathy and resistance had won out yet again.

Could my student-teachers develop fascinating lessons that would rivet the students of the YouTube generation? I felt the need to intervene—even if only to maintain my sanity over the course of observing 64 lessons a semester. I wanted to see some excitement in teaching and learning for everyone’s sake. So I asked my student-teachers to design one “dramatic” lesson. I provided them with just a two-hour overview of the components of drama and turned them loose to develop dramatic lessons that (1) covered the same content they were scheduled to teach conventionally that period, (2) had new content and was not a review lesson, and (3) maintained the dramatic context throughout, and was used as the basis for teaching the content, not just to intrigue students at the start of the period.

I had no idea what would happen, nor did my student-teachers. They approached this lesson, which was toward the end of the semester, with the same trepidation they had approached the first day of taking over a classroom. Would they lose control of the class? Would their students respond, or taking over a classroom.

To my delight and amazement, and to theirs, the student-teachers delivered some of the most masterful teaching I have ever witnessed. They broke all the rules. In some cases, the dramatic contexts or storylines they invented called for them to run in and out of the classroom, or teach while hiding under the desk, or teach with their heads on the desk most of the period, or pretend to be crazy. These contexts and storylines were orchestrated, such that students needed to learn the content to help the teacher or themselves resolve some issue of concern, or to help/rescue someone or something.

In most cases, the actual content of these lessons was prosaic, arcane, or complex, and engaging students using conventional instruction would have been problematic. By surprising them with these unorthodox approaches, the teachers made their lessons magical moments in which students had no idea what was going to happen next. And, frankly, neither did I.

We were transfixed, trying to figure out what was going on. My student-teachers never lost control of their classes, because their students were so fascinated and puzzled. For these lessons at least, the student-teachers’ idealized visions of what teaching would be came true. Their students hung on their every word and gesture. When they were asked to do something, they quickly and quietly followed directions. No one asked to go to the bathroom, or complained that they did not know what to do, or said they were missing a pencil. Former passive-resistant learners became initiatory leaders. These lessons were meaningful to students in terms of how they thought (“creative authenticity”), and learning was now driven by passion and emotion.

I call this process of using dramatic technique as the primary method for teaching existing content objectives efficiently “outrageous content instruction” (as opposed to other uses of dramatic technique that generally reinforce or review content already taught, or that develop non-content objectives such as self-expression). The techniques of “outrageous instruction” were refined over time into a series of easily learned principles that were applicable across the content areas, and that transformed the teaching-learning process for even the oldest and most resistant learners. I discuss these principles and lesson planning techniques, with samples of outrageous lessons across the content areas in grades 4-12, in the book Teaching Content Outrageously.

I can share here the following insights drawn from our research: (1) When teachers harness their imaginations to teaching in an “outrageous” fashion, students likewise use imagination to learn—and the most underperforming, jaded students do the best. (2) The learning that occurred was deep and sustained. Classes taught Outrageously did better on the end-of-unit test—even if only their first lesson had been taught dramatically. (3) Even a single Outrageous lesson had major impact in changing how students viewed their teacher, and on their appreciation of the importance of learning content. (4) The rules that work for teaching Outrageous lessons are almost the total opposite of the ones for conventional instruction.

The bottom line is that when teachers taught “outrageously,” there was no boredom or resistance, and the amount and depth of learning increased—for everyone. Teachers were re-energized about the possibilities of their craft and what they could achieve with their students. This was real and powerful reform.

Yet, this reform did not cost any extra money or require elaborate in-service training. This creative approach was as applicable to the current standards-based accountability era as it would be to a progressive era. All this transformation required was that teachers be given the encouragement to tap in to their imagination. If providing students with a single Outrageous lesson from a single teacher had such effects, what would happen if every teacher in a school taught two such lessons a year? We do not know. But this seems to be a reasonable goal that might revitalize teaching and increase student learning. It could be achieved by simply establishing a school wide book club and having leaders encourage teachers to develop and share their periodic Outrageous lessons and experiences. (There is also a blog where teachers can post their successful lessons and share them: outrageousteaching.blogspot.com.)

The use of imagination is the most powerful teaching and learning technology available to us to overcome student boredom and resistance. The images of the mind are far more high-def than the most advanced computers or TVs. By reaching inward into our magnificent minds, we can create new dynamics of practice that are enriching for everyone—while also measurably increasing learning. We do not need to continue to offer students with the most imagination and creativity the least imaginative approaches to teaching them.

In short, we should no longer think of reform only in terms of reaching outward to try to obtain more resources to provide more services (though that is certainly important). We also must begin to think of reform as reaching inward as individuals to use the most powerful technology available to us, one that is ubiquitous and free: the power of the human imagination. We all can, and must, be outrageous some of the time.

Have you tried teaching outrageously? Do you think it might work with your students? Do you think it’s practical for your teaching situation? What do you think your principal would say if she observed you while you were dressed as Edgar Allan Poe or Richard Feynman?

Stanley Pogrow is a professor of educational leadership at San Francisco State University, where he specializes in reducing the learning gap. His new book is Teaching Content Outrageously: How to Captivate All Students and Accelerate Learning, Grades 4-12, published by Jossey-Bass. He can be reached at stanpogrow@att.net.

Cell phones often are a source of distraction in the classroom. Despite admonitions to turn them off, someone forgets and everyone hears the incoming call. Text messaging, on the other hand, tends to distract the instructor but no one else. Rather than fight the texting, perhaps instructors can engage students by encouraging them to text about the class subject matter. Obviously, this needs to be done in a structured and meaningful way, and Audience Response Systems (ARS) provide a promising model.

Using audience response systems

Audience response systems, like the one used in the TV show “Who Wants to be a Millionaire” have been used in classrooms for year. “Clickers,” infrared devices resembling television remote controls, are provided to students to communicate answers to teacher questions. These clicker signals are recorded by a receiver in the classroom and processed by special software running on a classroom computer. The results are immediately available to the instructor and, if projected onto a screen, to the entire class as well.

Instructors using clickers identify numerous advantages. By injecting an element of competition or collaboration, an audience response system (ARS) encourages all students to participate in classroom discussions. By permitting anonymity, and ARS lets even the very shy students contribute. The ARS also makes it possible for instructors to assess classroom participation objectively. Even better, an ARS allows the teacher to monitor class comprehension of content. A quiz lets the instructor know immediately who does and doesn’t grasp the subject matter.

But ARS technology has disadvantages as well. The most significant problem is the cost; clickers for every student (typically purchased by the student), the classroom receivers, and the software for recording student responses. Other obstacles include the time required to set up and maintain the system and the “dog ate my clicker” excuses offered by some students.

Texting on cell phones as a surrogate for “clickers”

For those without access to an ARS system, cell phone texting can be a useful substitute when used in conjunction with PollEverywhere.com. Students send their text massage to a special number from PollEverywhere.com, starting their message with a code word that identifies the class. Their responses can be in the form of a multiple-choice answer or free text, depending on how the professor sets up the poll. The website then compiles the student responses in real time and displays the results on the instructor’s monitor. If desired, the results also can be projected onto a large screen for the entire class to view.

Our classes enjoy watching their multiple-choice answers appear in the form of a bar graph that constantly changes as the number of responses increases. The free-text form is also a wonderful option. It allows teachers to solicit both questions and answers from students. It offers a safe way for reluctant students to speak in class. However, the professor probably should not project the submissions for everyone to see, unless she does not mind the occasional prankster who asks, “Who is the girl in the front row?” instead of a sincere question.

The advantages of this alternative to a dedicated ARS are numerous, starting with the fact that students do not have to buy clickers. Cell phones are ubiquitous, and the majority of students already know how to use them. The instructor benefits, since the polling Website provides and maintains the infrastructure for the ARS. In addition, PollEverywhere.com permits the instructor to use fill-in-the-blank and short-answer questions that could not be used with most ARS systems.

Disadvantages to the cell phone ARS also exist. First, not every student may own a cell phone, and those who do may not have unlimited texting as part of their cell phone plan, thus incurring additional charges for each text message sent. Furthermore, depending on classroom location, signal strength may not always be adequate. Finally, some students may not be adept at testing. However, with a little assistance from classmates or the instructor, all students should quickly feel comfortable with the texting technology.

From the institution’s perspective, only two costs area associated with the cell phone ARS. PollEverywhere.com offers several subscription plans, with monthly fees ranging from $9 for a class of 50 students to $370 for 10,000 participants. The company also provides a free plan for classes with fewer than 30 students. More significantly, the classroom must have Internet access in order to obtain the survey results in real time. Without real-time feedback, a cell phone quiz is not significantly different from an online quiz posted on a class website. Fortunately, the lack of classroom Internet access is a rapidly vanishing problem.

After piloting the use of text messaging in class, we found that cell phone texting is a wonderful method for engaging the students in the discussion at hand. Moreover, we believe they enjoyed the fact that we were trying to speak to them in their language, at least occasionally. PollEverywhere.com provides instructors with an opportunity to use student texting to enhance the learning process.

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More specifically, what does good instruction and curriculum look like? Goldenberg states that it includes clear goals, learning objectives, and well designed, clearly structured and appropriately paced instruction, which teachers accomplish with thoughtful planning. He also suggests that instruction should include active engagement and participation and opportunities to interact with other students in motivating and appropriately structured contexts. Teachers do this when they model their thinking in such contexts as reading a text aloud or taking notes on an overhead projector or whiteboard.

Instruction like Goldenberg describes also happens with guided practice activities like turn and talk with a partner or a cooperative learning strategy like numbered heads together. Active engagement can also include jigsaw reading, if the text is accessible to students or at their level. Jigsaw reading isn’t limited to one text. Students can read a variety of texts based on their reading level and share out using generalized questions about the content or summarizing their text. Text book companies have been publishing companion texts with their textbooks for ELL students, which can be helpful for such activities.

In addition Goldenberg recommends periodic review and practice. This is often a part of a lesson’s opener, warm up, or do now at the beginning of class. Some teachers can also make review a part of “Friday Fun Day” with vocabulary review games like Go Fish or Concentration, or some kind of PowerPoint game. Activities to engage students are endless; the key is to find a balance between explicit instruction and student-centered the activities.

Finally, assessment is also essential to good instruction. Goldenberg asserts that students should be frequently assessed with re-teaching and receive feedback on correct and incorrect responses. Both of these ideas apply to formative assessments. Some activities that enable teachers to give immediate feedback and assess learning are: using whiteboards where students write their responses; using thumbs up, down, or side ways to indicate agreement, disagreement or unsure; or randomly select students’ names from participation cards, popsicle sticks, or numbers. If assessment shows that students do not understand the concept, it is time to pull a small group to work on it, or re-teach. Re-teaching may include experiencing the information with another one of Gardner’s multiple intelligences.

Often re-teaching can be avoided if teachers thoughtfully modify instruction, which is Goldenberg’s third major finding from the ELL research. While this may seem tedious when first planning, modifying instruction can avoid the frustrating feeling of “what do I do now – they don’t get it.” Simply previewing and teaching vocabulary explicitly is one modification especially important to ELLs who are struggling to develop their social vocabulary and have barely begun to develop their academic vocabulary. Another essential modification is selecting text that is accessible to students (some characteristics include small chunks with headings) or at their level.

Above all, ELLs are not like the rest of our students; however, not one of our students is like another. All students learn in unique ways. Therefore, we must differentiate and allow them to interact with the content, so that they can process it how they will best understand it.

Heather Warren taught middle school English, Bilingual Science, History, and Spanish in Milwaukee Public Schools, Wis. and Glendale Unified School District, Calif. for six years. She is currently a Bilingual and Literacy Instructional Resource Teacher for Lincoln Elementary School in Madison Metropolitan School District, Wis.

Please find the full version of Goldenberg’s article at http://www.aft.org/pubs-reports/american_educator/issues/summer08/goldenberg.pdf.

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