1. Taking the temperature of your classroom:
responding to the needs of your students
Debbie and Mel @TeacherTweaks
2. We intend to discuss:
• How do we spot progress problems?
• What strategies can we use to deal with these problems?
• The importance of modelling.
• Use of scaffolding.
• Expecting excellence through success criteria.
Debbie and Mel @TeacherTweaks
3. PANIC ZONE
Debbie and Mel
@TeacherTweaks
(Adapted from Senninger)
STRETCH ZONE
Willing to risk
Disinclined
Exhausted
COMFORT ZONE
Reflect on your
lessons from
last week:
• Which
‘zones’ were
your students
generally in?
• Where does
the most
learning
occur?
4. How do you spot comfort? Panic?
Debbie and Mel @TeacherTweaks
6. Comfort Zone:
• You’ve finished? How do you know it’s excellent?
• Which task level did you choose?
• Can you think of how I could’ve made this task more
difficult?
• What do you think are the most common mistakes
people make with this? Why?
• Have you compared your work with someone else’s?
Which questions do you think would
be most useful?
Can you devise further questions?
Debbie and Mel @TeacherTweaks
7. Panic Zone:
•
•
•
•
How would you expect
students to respond to
these questions?
What are you trying to do?
How long have you struggled for?
What have you tried?
If I could give you one resource/piece of
information but not the answer, what would it
be?
• What you’re doing is hard – I’ll let you think for 2
minutes and come back to see what you think you
need to do.
Debbie and Mel @TeacherTweaks
8. Comfort zone:
• Silent feedback (Post it from Full on Learning)
• Replace the words that have been circled with
better ones
• ABC peer assess with a partner
Pick a top 3
• New challenge (plenary prefect)
for your
• Do the hot or scorching task
subject!
• Write instructions for……..
• Rewrite this for a different audience
• Present this information in a different way
Debbie and Mel @TeacherTweaks
9. Panic zone:
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Look in your book/ a textbook
Ask your group
Use a helpsheet
Pick a top 3
Read the exemplar answer on
for your
a similar area
subject!
Follow a set of instructions
Visit an expert in the class
Read what someone else has written so far
Use the sentence starters/question prompt sheet
Debbie and Mel @TeacherTweaks
10. Different challenge tasks:
warm, hot, scorching
• Another thing in our lesson plan is planning in three types of
task challenge to stretch all learners.
• These tasks can be different OR they can be the same task
but with different levels of scaffold.
• We prefer to share all tasks with students to help them make
an informed choice.
• There is an expectation that if you choose ‘Warm’ you should
then move onto the ‘Hot’. If you choose ‘Hot’ then you
should be aiming for ‘Scorching’ in the next lesson.
• It’s easy to keep track of students’ choices in a Google Doc
which you can show at the start of each
lesson/week/fortnight.
Debbie and Mel @TeacherTweaks
12. Using teacher modelling
• Modelling is one of the most underrated
skills a teacher has at their disposal to
help a student understand how to work
through a task.
• You can model in three ways: in class at
the board, alongside the students as
they write or a pre-made ‘flipped
learning’ style video.
Discussion Questions
• What are the pros and cons of the three
http://www.youtube.com/w
approaches?
atch?v=xGyG7X7Crkc
• When might you use these different
approaches?
Debbie and Mel @TeacherTweaks
13. Appropriate scaffolding
• What type of scaffolding do
you draw upon time and
again in your classes?
• What would be a high
challenge, mid challenge or
low challenge scaffold?
• How do you introduce
these scaffolds to your
students – do you have
them ready or do they
decide what is needed?
Debbie and Mel @TeacherTweaks
19. Discussion sentence stems
Developing your ideas after hearing
other points of view
When expressing your ideas
•I feel……..
•I believe…….
•In my opinion……
•After talking about it with the
group, we decided…….
•I agree/disagree with you because……
•If it was up to me, I would…….
•I’d like to add……..
•Some people might think that but……..
•After listening to what you said, I
think………
If you are unsure about what you heard
•I found it a bit confusing when…..
•I’m not sure what I think yet but….
•I hear what you’re saying but what
about……
•Am I right in thinking….?
Debbie and Mel @TeacherTweaks
20. Ethical question (should/could):
‘For’ Argument 1:
‘Against’ Argument 1:
Scientific evidence or quotes:
Scientific evidence or quotes:
‘For’ Argument 2:
‘Against’ Argument 2:
Scientific evidence or quotes:
Scientific evidence or quotes:
Debbie and Mel @TeacherTweaks
21. Sequence HOT map
First/Earliest/Most
Sequence into
order of time,
importance or
significance
Debbie and Mel
@TeacherTweaks
Least/Latest/Last
(Adapted from Hook
http://pamhook.com/)
22. Prediction thinking map
Imagine
Possible evidence for
this outcome
Find
Actual evidence for
this outcome
Judge
likeliness of
possible
outcome
Possible
outcome
Possible evidence
against this outcome
Imagine
Debbie and Mel @TeacherTweaks
Actual evidence
against this outcome
Make a
prediction
Find
(Adapted from Hook
http://pamhook.com/)
23. Six mark question:
1. Key words:
3. Bullet points:
2. Diagrams/equations:
4. Paragraph:
Debbie and Mel @TeacherTweaks
25. Examples of excellence
• Do your students know what an excellent task outcome
looks like?
• You could give them an exemplar and use the success
criteria to identify why it is an excellent example.
• If the student is struggling, they can use the model
and/or success criteria to break down the task and
move forward.
• If the student is coasting, you can direct them to the
model piece of work then get them to use the success
criteria to annotate their own work.
Debbie and Mel @TeacherTweaks
26. Task: Write a letter in role as Benedick,
describing the ball last night.
• Use a metaphor or a simile to describe the colours and textures of
the costumes including your own. Is it comfortable to wear? (Warm)
• Begin a sentence with an interesting adverb to describe something
you did at the ball. (Warm)
• Use the senses to describe the dancing and the feast. (Warm)
• Use speech marks to share part of a conversation you had with
another guest. (Hot)
• Use connectives when describing something you saw happen at the
ball. (Hot)
• Use one of the scorching complex sentences on the wall to describe
what happened with Don Pedro, Claudio and Hero. (Scorching)
• Use a semi colon in the final line of your letter to you old friend.
(Scorching)
Debbie and Mel @TeacherTweaks
27. Investigation plan
Success criteria
WARM
HOT
Write an equipment list Explain what you will
and instructions of
use the equipment for
what you will do.
and write a method
that someone else
could follow.
State the factor you
will change and the
factor you will
measure.
State the factors that
need to be kept
constant.
Debbie and Mel @TeacherTweaks
SCORCHING
Justify your equipment
choices by discussing
precision, accuracy and
possible alternative
equipment.
Explain how the control
variables will be kept
constant.
