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!