Hey all fast llamas!

Today, I thought a good place to start talking about in terms of classroom culture and management is to start at the literal beginning.  The first interaction you have with your students as they enter your classroom... the threshold.

In Teach Like a Champion 2.0, Doug Lemov describes this as "the first opportunity to set high expectations", and I couldn't agree more. Getting it right and keeping it right are much easier than trying to fix it once it has gone wrong (I love this statement).

Here's what it looks like, sounds like and feels like:
Remember Everything Speaks - first impressions matter!  be purposeful and use this moment intentionally (lagniappe)
1.  Choose how you will greet students - this sets the tone for the rest of class.  Will you use it for rapport building? Academic success? Character building?  (a mix?)
2.  Stand astride the door if you can... so you can see what's happening in your classroom and outside.  (this may not always be possible, but, it is the goal)
3.  Greet students, remind them that they are in your class now (sending a message that no matter what expectations they are coming from, your expectations are in play now, and you expect their best)
4.  Send a warm, strict message, you are glad they are here, but, we are here to learn... business with a smile
5.  Use this time to:

    *build rapport, "nice game last night", "looking for great things from you today", check badges or "cool shirt"; You are MODELING how to talk to Speak with good Purpose...
   

 *build academic success, "we have a quiz today, be sure you review your warm-ups", "flash cards" 
   

 *build character - how to shake hands, make eye contact, high five, side hug or fist bump (ask kids what they want), talk about the 8 Keys of Excellence (all Labay kids will be trained through science classes by the end of September)

6.  Split time between greeting and talking to kids in the class... you literally have eyes on everything. calling attention to it, sends a message to students that you are watching, monitoring and helping them be successful.

The ultimate goal of Threshold is twofold:
1.  help you establish a personal connections with your students though a brief individual check in (use their name)
2. Reinforce your expectations for what students should be doing as they enter your class.  

Set a goal to level up your Threshold and monitor the results you see in your classrooms Use Threshold to build academic success and build rapport!

 Fast Llamas, 

Are you ready for more strategies?  Today we are still focusing on High Quality First Time Instructional Strategies,which after talking about them to a colleague made me remember that they were once called "high yield" strategies, but the focus is the same - how can we get the most "bang" for our buck?  How can we utilize our class time most efficiently to get high student outcomes?  Turns out, these strategies have been around a long time, and reviving them can only be a great thing. 

My district is pushing to increase student discourse and our first strategy, Visual Thinking, allows for a couple of things to happen.  First, it allows students to interact with Art, Political Cartoons, Maps and other forms of media.  And for social studies, this interpretation is an invaluable tool for that interaction and practice.  It also gives the students tools to understand "how" to talk to one another about visuals and make inferences and summarizations.  

Let's dive deeper.

Visual Thinking:

Here's a guide:

1. show an age appropriate form of media - photograph, political cartoon, chart, graph or map.

2. Set a timer and give students time to view the image.

3. Ask three questions - What do you observe? What do you notice? What do you wonder? 

Give students time to talk about the visuals with one another.  
4. Using the board or your hover cam - collectively gather the answers and write them down.

5.  Shoot for the evidence - ask - students for their specific evidences, purpose of the image, context of the image, why the image is being shown.

The teacher then asks the student the second question: “What do you see that makes you say that?” Again, the teacher points to the evidence in the image as the student speaks and then paraphrases.

Strategize the strategy

1. Be purposeful in selection of visuals.  I would rather to view 4 pictures and dive into them well, than a 10 picture collection, we spend little time on.
2. There is not a right or wrong answer.

3. The focus is on the talking - not the writing - use sentence stems to help get the conversations started.

Another strategy is called Cubing.  Cubing involves utilizing targeted questions (based on Bloom;s) with some novelty.  

Cubing: 

A quick roll of a dice determines which question will be answered. 

Roll a 1 - ask a describing question - sound like, look like, sensory details

Roll a 2 - ask a compare and contrast question - similarities and differences

Roll a 3 - what connections or association question  - memories or past experiences are tied?

Roll a 4  - let's analyze - Why is it important?  What is your perspective?

Roll a 5 -  ask a application type question - metaphors anyone?

Roll a 6 - Time to argue  - Why is it best?  What is your position?

Here's a guide: 

Set - Up - Create your questions ahead of time and provide a worksheet for students to access the questions after each roll.  I used Canva to create my template.  

I also used foam dice, but have also see it done with a question already written on a folded paper dice.  

Try these out and see how easy it is to get students talking about the right things!

Something to Ponder

Fast Llamas, 

This poem is to be read first in order, from top to bottom.

Then, read it again, from the bottom to the top.  This poem is a literal exercise in reframing. The facts (the words on the page) don't change, but the way you look at them (the direction you read) changes everything. This is the core principle of cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) and a crucial life skill for building resilience.

The first time round - my reality shaped my attitude - While the second round is my my attitude shapes my being 

Let's Talk Vocab

Fast Llamas, 
Hey, today we talking about a reading strategy called, 10 Most Important Words. In social studies, primary sources are killers for kids. This strategy aims to help kids decipher through all those vocabulary words and get to talking about them.  While I am using for Social Studies, every content can benefit from this strategy to get kids talking, build word walls, assess existing knowledge, teach kids to think and review.

Here is the strategy bit by bit:
Students identify the ten key terms or ideas from a passage and explain why each is important. 

Part 1: Introduction & Strategy Script

Warm-Up: Ask students: "If you had to describe the game of basketball using only three words, what would they be?" Have a few students share and explain why they chose those words.

Introduce the Strategy:

“Your job is to act like a detective and find the 10 words that hold all the clues. These can't be 'filler' words like 'and', 'the', or 'is'. They must be words that are essential to the meaning. If you took them out, the passage wouldn't make sense.

The hardest part isn't finding 10 words—it's only picking 10. This forces you to decide what is most important.”

1. Provide students with a table for their words
2. Have students read a passage.
3. On the second reading of the passage, students circle 10 words they believe are important to understand the text.
4. Students list their words on the provided table and justify 5 out of the 10.
5. Discuss whole group. 

Here is an example of a passage:

Passage: Bridges and Borders: Comparing Central and South America

Central America is a narrow stretch of countries and islands that links North and South America, where people live in both tropical rainforests and small mountain towns and where cultures mix Indigenous, European, African, and Asian traditions; South America is a vast continent with the towering Andes, the wide Amazon rainforest, and large countries like Brazil and Argentina, offering more varied climates and bigger cities. Both regions share languages (mostly Spanish and Portuguese), foods like corn and plantains, and histories shaped by colonization and Indigenous resistance, but they differ in size, geography, and how people make a living—many Central Americans farm on smaller plots or work in coastal trade, while South America has huge agricultural estates, major mining industries, and extensive river systems that shape travel and settlement.

Since vocabulary can be tricky for kids, this focus on terms needed to understand the text is great practice.  Try it out!  

A quick poem

Fast Llamas,

When change is necessary and doesn't come easy, remember that change sticks when we learn from it.

Recognize your patterns, are you making mistakes without awareness?  What habits are causing you to take the easy road and avoid taking responsibility.  You have what I call "respondability", the ability to choose how you respond.  That will give you freedom and finally power over your own life.  Change is a process, not a single moment.

Body Mnemonics

Hey Fast Llamas,

Let's talk about movement and the power for making memory. In this strategy, students physically move to demonstrate or sort information to strengthen memory. This ties into the research connecting long term memory and physical activity. There is a mind body connection... I believe the saying goes, "when I move my body, I move my mind". Pretty powerful stuff right there! How can we harness this valuable strategy in our classrooms? You got it, get students to move. Movement is a powerful type of mnemonic device. Let's dive deeper.

There are two premises in play here:

1. using gesturing to depict vocabulary terms or events

These gesturing techniques use specific actions, like touching parts of your body or tracing shapes, to create a physical association with the information you want to remember. Have students create representations, demonstrating the words.

Examples

• Using your knuckles to count the days in a month.
• Using gestures to remember vocabulary - like the term - "Manifest Destiny" with the gesture: "Stretch your arms wide as if showing the whole continent."
• Using gestures to remember the states of matter, types of precipitation or parts of a story.
• Touching different parts of your body for each item on a list.
• Tracing the shape of an object in the air with your finger.
• Acting out math word problems to better understand them.
• Using hand gestures while learning a new language.
• Creating physical hand signals to recall, like the shape of the state of texas for regions.
  
  
  

2. Moving or walking while learning

• Moving counterclockwise in a room to learn about each phase of the lunar cycle
• Walking while brainstorming to improve creativity.
• Specific activities include hopping across a number line or using body twisters for new concepts.
• Using different parts of the room while reviewing 
• Gallery walks for notes
• Carousel - moving from station to station - adding feedback

All the research conducted on movement suggest that these teacher moves
benefit our students' learning and retention of new material. Also, they can provide students with opportunities to make personal connections to the content. A win-win for the teacher and the students. Does this mean we should be creating mnemonics every day for every new piece of content we teach? “Whoa! Slow down there, tiger!” Based on our current understanding of this type of mnemonic device, when might it be appropriate to use this teacher move? Think about using this strategically, when it garners the best student learning outcome. See you next time!

Fast Llamas,

Today we shift from behavioral strategies to cognitive ones.  When I think of cognitive engagement, I have to recall the four ways in which we basically think with our brains.  

Let's call them the Brain Basics.

1. Firing - 🔥

    Neurons that fire together, wire together.  

2. Attending - 🧠

    Attention is necessary for learning

3. Connecting - 🧩

    We make meaning by connecting to existing knowledge.

4. Imaging 📷

    Mental imaging supports understanding. 
  
While planning my lessons, I am aware of these brain basics  - if my students are talking, moving, collaborating, writing, drawing, summarizing, recalling, organizing, sequencing, explaining (you get the picture) - they are making meaning and they are thinking critically.  They are engaged cognitively.  Everyday students have opportunities to:

    1. Move

    2. Collaborate and 

    3. Engage with media of some sort (think lots of visuals for example)

What's great is the activities do not have to be these grand, big, huge lessons.  They are can small activities, chunked throughout the lesson that get kids doing the learning, and me the teacher guiding and facilitating.  Think about student carrying the cognitive workload and what that would look like.  If I give my students notes on particular topic - WHAT will they be doing with the information? If I give my students a reading activity - HOW will they use that information?  I want to make sure my students have ample opportunities to learn with others and connect what they know with the new information.

I also want to make sure that as I am explicitly teaching that I build opportunities for discussion by asking open ended questions and use Wait Time.  

PAWE is a strategy what is fantastic strategy to use for when you want to build in this type of teaching.

P - Prompt - pique curiosity and get their attention! 

    "we have been talking about the US Constitution" Here we can tap into existing knowledge.  (BB #2 and BB #3)

A - Ask - ask the question - open ended, use visuals to help make meaning (BB #4)

W - WAIT - use wait time, allow students to collaborate and talk, learn from others.  Get those neurons firing. (BB #1)

E - Elicit - pull and stretch out the answers - ask for similarities, more examples, differences, get the students to tell you more! Here the meaning is being made as students connect what they already know to new learning.  (BB 1 - 4 in play here)  celebrate the answers with praise!

When you think about it, isn't this a lot more engaging for you and for the students than just cold calling the same students over and over again?

Next in this series, we tap into our first cognitive strategy - Purposeful Movement.