MWSubstack 008: Questioning; Student Notetaking
Quality questioning may be the #1 key to unlocking powerful learning. And what if we could teach kids the secrets of good notetaking and annotation?
Welcome to MiddleWeb Substack. It’s a twice-monthly, two-topic, five-minute read for middle grades educators, featuring several of MiddleWeb’s most popular and influential articles, a book review, and a noteworthy 4-8 resource or project we’ve spotted. That’s it!
►QUESTIONING
How can teachers and students ask better questions?
We're lucky to host a sizable collection of articles by Dr. Jackie Walsh, perhaps the foremost scholar of classroom questioning and formative feedback strategies. In her 2017 article Students Learn from Inquiry, Not Interrogation (with classroom videos), she offers how-to (and how not to) advice, drawing on key elements of her research:
Almost all students view follow-up questions as attempts to keep them on the “hot seat” and embarrass them for not knowing. And most perceive classroom questioning to be a competition that pits students against one another – Whose hand goes up first? Who answers most frequently?
Very few students understand questioning as a process for collaborative exploration of ideas and a means by which teachers and students alike are able to find out where they are in their learning and decide on next steps. This is one of the primary themes running through our work.
Her popular 2019 article, In the Heat of Learning, Good Questioning Is Key, introduces many of her ideas about the best ways to fine-tune the familiar think-time process to maximize learning:
(T)eachers and students alike must believe the purpose of questions is to surface where students currently are in their understanding – not just to solicit “the teacher’s answer.” This shift from fishing for the “right answer” to a learning orientation can represent a sea change in thinking for many students and teachers.
Most recently, Jackie has teamed with two Texas school-based educators to write a MiddleWeb blog series, Making Questions Count, that offers both a researcher’s expertise and the perspectives of a pair of front-line educators. The focus is "co-creating a learning culture with students in today’s classrooms."
Here are some other resources about effective questioning:
How to Get Your Students to Ask More Questions (Jackie Walsh)
Wait Time Can Make or Break Your Lesson (Valentina Gonzalez)
How to Scaffold Skills for Student Discussions (Jackie Walsh)
How to Improve Your Questioning Techniques (Barbara Blackburn)
Engaging MLs in Daily Academic Conversations (Jenny Vo)
Energize Your Classroom with Quality Questions (Jackie Walsh - videos)
Regie Routman “believes that we are most fully ourselves when ‘teaching, learning, and living are interwoven and seamlessly integrated.’ To show us this full self, she shares stories that might help us navigate our own worlds.“ – Read Sarah Cooper’s review of The Heart-Centered Teacher.
►NOTETAKING
It's not just for reference; it's a tool for deepening learning
Most every teacher has dreamed of students who take good notes. Allison Paludi explored many strategies – cloze notes, fill-in-the-blanks, short scribbles, different notebooks, better handouts. She’s tried them all – even the desperate direction to “jot down what's important.”
None of these methods seemed to help things stick – to really showcase students learning and not just regurgitating. Like any teacher attempting to “reteach” a standard or skill, I needed to better understand how our brains truly process before I went and put yet another note taking strategy in front of my students.
My anchor text became Culturally Responsive Teaching and the Brain by Zaretta Hammond. In her text, Hammond dives into the power of understanding how our brains work, how we make sense of knowledge presented to us, and how we apply what we learn.
Paludi borrowed some ideas from Harvard's Project Zero, added them to Hammond's brain-savvy insights, and had her aha moment: the Rejiggered Classic T-Chart. It's all explained in her MiddleWeb article, A Brain-Based Solution to Student Note-Taking.
Also see these articles about notetaking and annotation:
4 Keys to Helping Students Annotate Texts (Sunday Cummins)
Tips & Tools to Improve Student Notetaking Skills (Curtis Chandler)
Using Annotation in History: A Year of Lessons Learned (Brock and Passanisi)
Let Students Use Notes on Class Tests & Quizzes (Amber Chandler)
Making Annotations with Less Pain, More Meaning (Sarah Cooper)
►ELSEWHERE
Teacher ideas drive districtwide initiatives
Teachers have plenty of insight about the unmet needs of students. District engagement director Ana Pasarella explains why she looks to teachers first for ideas like summer book buses, a mobile STEM Gear vehicle, and mentorship programs for secondary students. See her funding tips and lessons learned in this EdWeek interview. (Register for limited free articles.)
►OUR BOOK REVIEW
Talent Zones: 10 Tools to Help Kids Develop Their Talents by Lee Hancock, Ph.D.
Assistant principal and former reading specialist Ginny Hornberger appreciates Lee Hancock's fresh perspective on developing talent and growing a healthy frame of mind in all our students. She believes this helpful book by a performance psychology coach will inspire teachers, coaches and parents. Read the complete review.
►REVIEW THIS SPOTLIGHT BOOK FOR US
Invest in Your Best: 9 Strategies to Grow, Support, and Celebrate Your Most Valuable Teachers (Todd Whitaker, Connie Hamilton, Joseph Jones, T.J. Vari). Routledge/Eye on Education, 2024.
Burnout and teacher turnover are on the rise, yet we often spend more of our energy on the underperformers, say these authors. Learn why it’s crucial “to recognize your best teachers, going beyond superficial gestures of appreciation and investing in them in deeper ways.” GO HERE to find the free book and our reviewing guidelines.
►NEXT TIME
Whether you've fully integrated poetry into your ELA curriculum or prefer to explore rhythmic literature during its special month, we have many treats in store for you. It's also the season for research papers. We'll show how to make the process easier and more fun.