5 High-Impact Engagement Strategies Your Teachers Will Love, ep. 179

5 High-Impact Engagement Strategies Your Teachers Will Love, ep. 179, Instructional Coaching with Ms. B Podcast

Chrissy Beltran  00:01

Trying to get coaching cycle started and feeling like you just can’t make it work. I’ve got the email course for you. Realistic coaching cycles is a mini course sent right to your inbox. It’s five days of short videos that will teach you exactly what you need to do to start coaching cycles. document your work with a teacher and help them implement the learning you’ve done together. Get it for free at BuzzingWithMsB.com/cycles and start your coaching cycles today.

Chrissy Beltran  00:28

Hey, Coach, I know you’re out there hustling to get into classrooms and provide feedback that actually improves instruction but meeting your teachers needs when you’re looking at a stack of sticky notes is just about impossible. I want to share a coaching tool that I know you’ll love. digiCOACH  is an app you can use on your phone designed for busy coaches like you and your administrators to it’s the perfect way to record your observations and notes. When you visit a classroom. Collect data about what’s going on at your school and differentiate your coaching support based on the patterns you see. Some of my favorite features includes the reports, and did the coaches pre written strategies and coaching tips to provide specific feedback and help in those moments when you just don’t know what to say. Ready to check it out and make your workload so much lighter. Head to digiCOACH.com And tell them Miss B sent you to try it out for free and provide actionable feedback to your teachers.

Chrissy Beltran  01:23

Welcome to instructional coaching with Miss B, where we believe that every teacher deserves a coach and every coach does do. I’m Chrissy Beltran, an elementary teacher who became a coach, and I had to create my own coaching program that worked. Now I teach coaches how to design their coaching programs, build a school wide action plan and use differentiated strategies to support teachers. Plus, I’ve got a special spot in my heart for literacy coaches. Now let’s dig into the episode.

Chrissy Beltran  01:47

Hey coach and welcome to Episode 179, five high impact strategies for engagement that your teachers will love. This is the first episode in our series all about coaching for engagements. And so I want you to remember that I have that free mini coaching cycles, Crash Course that you can grab, it’s right to your inbox, a five day course that teaches you exactly how to start coaching cycles. One of the things that you can coach for is engagement. And so that’s how it’s like highly related to my to my last series of coaching cycles. So if you missed that, and you want to go back and dig into them, you can start at episode 174. Because that’s where I teach you how to do a mini coaching cycle. And then I have some great guests, Jim Knight, Allison Peterson, where we talk about how we can grow our coaching cycle work and practice. And then we can focus on engagement as one of the things we can do during a coaching cycle. It’s not the only thing, but it’s a good one. So we’re starting this new series, and you’re going to learn some really good strategies that you can share with teachers. And then we’re going to look at how you can coach for engagement and what your coaching can actually look like. As coaches, we know we have to have a knowledge base that we can pull out to support teachers. And so some of the opportunities that we have to use this knowledge base our coaching cycles, we can offer teachers ideas that they can use to help them reach their goals, professional development, which is providing teachers with new ideas that they can implement in their classrooms, and working with PLCs because we can learn together about new ideas, we can plan where to put them and why we put them in certain places we have those conversations about intentionality. So we’re looking in this series mostly at cognitive engagement. So cognitive engagement, is having this investment and using your brain to think and work through something. In an upcoming episode about classroom strategies that I share. In my next little series. My guest Brian Goodwin says kids only remember what they think about. And I love that because it’s true, you only remember what you think about. If kids are not using their brains, they’re just kind of going through the motions, and they’re really not engaged in the learning, the learning is not going to stick. And that’s why we see so many people kind of throw things at kids. Maybe they remember them for a few minutes or for a quiz. But then they don’t remember them for the long term because he didn’t really engage cognitively with the content. So today, I’m sharing my five favorite engagement strategy that you can use during PD. You can use these with teachers during your own professional developments. You can also use them to model to co teach and to help teachers plan engaging strategies in their lessons. These are five strategies that I have used with kids and with teachers, they work really well for engagement because they get your brain thinking you have to explain, justify, differentiate, compare to all kinds of amazing things. And so I’m excited to share them with you. If you have my course to confident literacy coach, make sure you check out the bonus lessons because that has five high engagement strategies or high impact strategies for reading and another video for writing. And so there’s five great strategies that you can use with your teachers there as well. If you don’t have the course you can grab it at confidentliteracycoach.com.

Chrissy Beltran  04:53

The first strategy I’m going to share with you is blind predictions in a blind prediction students actually li don’t have information about something there, they haven’t done the learning yet. They do get like little cards or pictures that they can use to make predictions. And then they go through, do the learning. And then they can actually kind of examine their predictions and see how accurate they were. This is one way that it can look. You can give students a blank graphic organizer for a text you’re going to read. So for example, in a story, let’s say you could use for a text pyramid or like a story map, depending on what you’re using to teach that structure. You can give little cards with events from the story written on them, or you can use pictures I have done both. And both work really well. The pictures were kind of a good way to start to get kids really excited. And then the next time we did cards, so that’s one way you can do it. You have students discuss the cards with a partner, they have to think and talk and justify in their teams. And then they use those cards to decide, okay, where do I think this happens in the story? I think this sounds like a solution to a problem, I’m going to put it over where the solution goes, this sounds like they’re introducing the character, I’m going to put it towards the beginning where that character wouldn’t be introduced. They have to explain and justify and put them in the place that they think they belong on their organizer. And then whenever you read the story, they actually go through and identify Oh, was that correct? Oh, does this go here and they have to make the adjustments. You can actually differentiate this by using pictures. And instead of just words, you can differentiate it by having fewer events or more depending on the kids that you’re working with. And I love it, because you can use it for different things. You can use it for retelling and summarizing, like the story map, you can use it for cause and effect. And kids have to predict the causes and effects and how they’re matched. And then they read something in probably nonfiction, and go back through and identify if they were correct. Blind predictions is a fun way that kids have to make predictions without having any information about what they’re going to learn about. And it’s a really engaging strategy because it piques the curiosity in the beginning. And it keeps kids engaged throughout because they want to know if they were right.

Chrissy Beltran  07:09

My second strategy is using sorts. Sorts are super easy to create, because they’re really just like a set of cards. I know I love cards. In teaching, I love it in PD. It’s such a good strategy. These are kids and adults. And so basically what you do is you can have different characteristics on a sorting cards, you can have different vocabulary words, you can have different strategies, it depends on how you want this to work. But depending on what you’re learning about, you can write different examples of those things on little cards. And then you can either give kids categories, or you can say they have to develop a categories in an open source. So if they’re doing an open source, they’re reading all the things on the cards, let’s say that you’re learning about butterflies. And so on the cards, you have something that says metamorphosis, butterfly caterpillar eggs, by cycle, milk milkweed. And so then kids are reading all these different things. And then they have to group them into groups and explain how they group those words and why they group them. A word by itself is not a group, that’s just a word. So you have to find a place to put it. And you have to have a reason for putting it somewhere. You can also give them categories and say okay, characteristics, and is one category. And then another category is lifecycle. And so the word of metamorphosis would go with lifecycle, but maybe the word antenna would go in characteristics. And so kids have to make the sword, then you do the learning. And then you go back and analyze, you can use sorting, as kind of an engaging activity at the beginning and an assessment at the end, you can use it as something that they adjust as you’re reading and learning, you can use it on the wall and make a big giant sword. And then groups have to put their pieces up there and decide where they go. And then you adjust visually for the whole class. Or you can use it as an individual activity or a partner activity. I mean, they works great on all levels. I’ve used it actually with reading genre successfully, I have a genre sword resource in my store. And what I love about it is that it has vocabulary from each genre characteristics of each genre, the strategies you would use when reading them and like an example of the genre, and then they have to sort them into the genre character categories. And it really gets kids thinking about okay, well, what kinds of questions would I be asking about this genre, if it says something about read the stage directions, then I’m probably reading a drama, and I should put it in the drama category. So that’s a great strategy.

Chrissy Beltran  09:33

My third strategy that I use all the time with students is Partner A, Partner B. So in any classroom, you have a diverse bunch of kids, right? Your class is full of different needs and different abilities. And if your class requires a lot of differentiation, and you even have to differentiate their assessments, this strategy works really well. If it doesn’t require a lot of differentiation, it still works well. You just don’t have to differentiate the questions. So here’s how this strategy works. So you identify a Partner A and Partner B throughout the class. So you assign one problem to all the partner A’s, and a different problem to all the partner B’s. And this is where you can differentiate in a subtle way, there can be a difference in the problem you assigned to Partner A and Partner B. So for example, if I know that I have six kids who need maybe one step questions, instead of multi step problem solving, then I’m going to give all those kids the identifier of Partner A and then I’m going to say this is the problem partner who’s going to solve and it’s going to be a one step problem. If I have a group of kids who needs your question read aloud, I can easily assign all those kids as Partner B, and I’ll say, okay, partner B’s, you come over here to me, we’re going to read the problem, you can make this work depending on the needs of your students. So you’ve got a Partner A and a partner, B, everybody has a match a pair, right? Each student is given an appropriate time limit to work on their problem, okay, and then they meet with their assigned partner. Partner A teaches how they did the problem to Partner B. and Partner B teaches how they did their problem to a partner A, it’s so easy, but it gets kids showing their best work, because they know they’re going to have to explain it to somebody. And then it gets them talking about their work and listening to another student, and learning about how they think I love it. It’s so simple. And by giving them different problems, it’s kind of neat, because they really feel like they’re teaching the problem to their partner. I used to like to do this on dry erase boards, because kids thought it was special and fancy. And we teach on a dry erase board. So they like to teach on their little dry erase boards. And they would just do their little strategies on the dry erase board. And that’s how they would teach each other partner a partner be easiest thing ever. You can literally just put a handout on the project on the document camera projector, and be like this is partner ace question number four, and partner these questions number five, boom, everybody’s ready to go.

Chrissy Beltran  11:53

Another really fun strategy is the collaborative paragraph. Collaborative paragraphs are so hands on and engaging. And you can use them for almost anything. So it can help kids integrate new learning, it can help kids focus on their writing as well and the structure of writing. And so here’s how it works in a collaborative paragraph. The way I use it, and then this is one way to use it. There’s lots of different ways I provide the kids with sentence strips, and kids are usually in a group of three or four, I wouldn’t go beyond that. It’s just too confusing. And each kid has something they’re supposed to contribute to that paragraph. So for example, if they’re writing a summary of something, then each kid has to write the main idea statement for their paragraph. And then they will build them together to make a summary. If they are writing a response to something, but each kid would have to write their own response. If they are explaining something that they learned in nonfiction, then maybe you’re reading about amphibians, and one kid is going to write about their habitat, another kid is going to write a sentence about the food source, another kid is going to write a sentence about how they survive in different climates. That’s how they’re going to each contribute right to the paragraph, maybe another kid writes the introductory statement. They put them all together in order, and then they read the paragraph. And then the really cool part happens, because they have to revise it together, they have to be thoughtful about okay, you kind of repeated the information that I wrote. So I think we should take out that repeated information. Or this seems really jerky, it’s just like a list of facts. Maybe we can use some transitions to connect these ideas. Or, you know, there’s no introductory statement or there’s no closing statement to this paragraph, we should probably grab another sentence strip and add those two things so that it feels cohesive, this is such a good time to get kids talking about revising and why they do what they do. And it’s meaningful because they’re having to discuss it together. So they’re reinforcing the content that they’re learning, as well as creating a response together. I love it. It’s such a fun and easy thing to do. I’ve used it with kids for years, and I’ve used it with adults. And it’s really a really engaging strategy for everybody. And I can tell you right now, if you’re doing it right, their brains are definitely engaged.

Chrissy Beltran  14:01

My last strategy is super duper easy. It’s mix up, pair up, share up, this actually helps kids get up and moving. And so I wanted to include one that had some physical engagement as well, because so many of our kids are missing that although collaborative paragraph is another good way to get kids moving, because generally they’re going to be on the floor, you know, working on their paragraphs, right, with enough space to stretch out their paragraph. Anyway, mix up pair up Sheriff, what you do is everybody gets a card. And that card could be a vocabulary word. And another card could be a definition. It could be an inference, or any evidence that you use to make that inference. It could be a character trait and the example of the evidence from the text. It could be cause and effect. Everybody has a different card and the cards go together as pairs. Okay. So then what you do is kids read their card, and they should know the categories that you need to tell them. Some of you have causes. Some of you have effects. Some of you have inferences. Some of you have the evidence from the text So they know Okay, mine is an inference because it’s not in quotation marks, it’s not the evidence from the text, or Okay, mine is a cause it’s possibly cause or possibly an effect, but I don’t know yet. Because I have to find my partner to see how they match. They may play music, I love to play music with this, this is an easy way to kind of add some joy. And should we always be trying to enjoy kids move around the classroom and try to find their partner, they can find their partner, let’s say it’s vocabulary, Word and definition, right? I have the vocabulary word, you’ve got the definition, I think. So then you mix up to find your partner, and you pair up with your partner. And then you share up, you read your word, they read their words, right? Then we’re going to collect them all and trade them out again, because we want to make sure that kids are exposed to multiple things and not just like one word. And so then after you’re done, if you’ve traded them a few times, if kids have have had opportunities to be exposed to lots of different things, and maybe if you’re doing cause effects, some kids have had causes and effects, kids have had the opportunity to have vocabulary words and definitions. After you’ve done a few rounds, you can use it to build an anchor chart. Or you can use use it to build a little activity, where the kids actually have to match all of the things and you can like put the little cards in a little baggie. And there’s a little matching activity that kids can do when they finish their work. Or if you need some kind of activity center or station. It’s easy to do. All you do is print things out in a little table three column table and you put your, you know all the different information on the cards that you need, print them out and cut them out. It’s not complicated a setup, but it does create a lot of joy, a lot of movement, and kids talking to each other going no, no, no, that’s not what this word means. Or, oh, that inference actually isn’t supported by that evidence. So we’re not a match, they have to keep moving until they find their match.

Chrissy Beltran  16:44

These are five of my favorite strategies to use, they’re so basic, and you can use them at really all levels, because they are open enough that you can use them for different content areas, you can use them for different grade levels. And for different purposes, you can plug them in anywhere depending on on what your purpose is for that day. And they are not complicated to use. And the beautiful thing is, if you are planning together with teachers, you can create the master or where one person can create the master of the mix up pair up share up document where everybody’s just going to cut out the cards, they can even trade the card sets if you laminate them, and they take turns doing it on different days. Partner A and B, no prep, no prep at all right? The swords, again, you can create a master set and people can pass them around. These are things that can be saved and use again next year. So it’s not like we made all this this work and did all this planning. And then we’re done with it. Make it a valuable part of the lesson that you’re using to teach with this strategy. And you can come back to them and use them again. And that’s why teams are important. Okay, so that’s my five strategies that I know you’re going to love and your teachers are going to love. It’s so much fun, I recommend that you model these in a PD so teachers can get comfortable with them, and they can use them in their classrooms and also remodel them during a PD you can ask teachers, what was the value of using this? What kind of engagement did you have to do with your brain, and then they will know that that’s what their kids have to do in order to do that same strategy.

Chrissy Beltran  18:06

My favorite thing I want to share with you today, this year, I set a goal for myself of buying used to things instead of new things. So if I can find something used, I’m going to buy that instead of buying a new version. I don’t need to buy a ton of stuff. But when I do need to buy something, I should get it used if I can, it’s better for the environment. And it’s also just better for my finances, right. So I have been going to a local thrift store that I absolutely love. And I’ve gotten there, you know, a few times a year every year, but I know I’m going there with a purpose, right? Like I make my little list of things that I’m hunting for. And I really go and search for these things. And I just love it. I have enjoyed it. I have found some really great buys for the kids Easter baskets. And I just I mean really like amazing Eric Carle magnet tiles really good stuff that is regularly crazy high price, but it’s totally reasonable and it does not matter if somebody has used it before. So that’s my recommendation to you. Check out your local thrift school store so we can all stop buying less stuff and just throwing away so much stuff. Don’t forget I have that many coaching cycles Crash Course to you. It’s right to your inbox. It’s your five day course that will teach you exactly how to start coaching cycles that buzzing with b.com Flex cycles. And next week we’re continuing our series on engagement with a look at how we can use differentiation as an engagement strategy. We can get more kids engaged in their learning if we can meet them where they are and give them the tools that they need and I am speaking with Dr. Sharma Cortez about that. Until next week, happy coaching

Chrissy Beltran  19:43

now that you’ve got so much to think about, head over to buzzing with Ms. b.com to grab some free downloads, become a VIP, and check out the podcast show notes. Happy coaching!