Coaching to Engage Every Student, Not Just a Few
This may be a familiar scene for instructional coaches: A teacher standing at the front of the classroom, asking a string of questions intended to prompt student learning. A handful of students raise their hand to volunteer a response, and the teacher calls on one of them. The same handful continue to raise their hands and get called on for the other questions. Occasionally a student without a raised hand will be called on for a response, likely because they looked disengaged.
Have you seen it?
Or, you may have even seen a more updated version intended to be student-centered: where students are working in groups or are engaged in a discussion, but still just a few students are doing most of the talking, thinking, heavy-lifting and therefore the learning.
Classrooms where teachers are engaging the few instead of all is one of the most common trends that I have observed in classrooms across the country. Students are well behaved, but not consistently cognitively engaged.
Many students of color and marginalized students experience school as something that was not built for them. When teachers teach to the few who remain engaged no matter what, they reinforce the notion that students have to conform to a narrow (boring) vision of what it means to be a student in order to be successful in school. Education as liberation means teachers and students collaboratively build learning environments where every child, not just a few, can be their full, authentic selves and deeply engage with the learning process. Teachers need support in disrupting the status quo of test prep, unengaging lectures, overuse of worksheets, and materials that do not represent the students in their classrooms.
And that's where coaching to engage every student comes in.
The Vision
The goal of coaching should be to support teachers' growth in order to facilitate the success and learning of all students. That's what educational equity looks like.
When we support a teacher who is facilitating a classroom like the one described above, coaches should strive to support a vision of learning that is interactive, rigorous and fun. We support teachers in shifting from inactive learning to interactive learning, for all kids. Instead of being passive receivers of information, students should be engaged in learning that is collaborative, place-based, justice-oriented, and full of choices and connections to students' lives.
Collecting Evidence
The easiest way to support teachers in making their classrooms more interactive and engaging for all students is to simply share and discuss data (or video) from their classrooms that shows that they are engaging far less students than they think they may be reaching. Teachers want all of their students to be learning and engaging, but it often comes as a surprise just how few are really interacting during a given lesson.
While there are a number of ways to collect data that help teachers visually see that they are engaging just a few students, I've found these two methods to be particularly helpful:
1. Question & Answer Table
Especially in classes where you observe a ping-pong between a teacher's question and a single volunteer response, a table is a helpful record. On one side, record the teacher's questions and on the other side record the students’ name and their responses. If you notice a pattern in the type of questions and responses extending beyond five minutes, you can stop recording every question and just note the amount of time that a similar interaction continues.
2. Seating Chart
Sketch a brief seating chart of the class, including student names where you know them (or later hear them). Use an abbreviation system to note the students' perceived gender and race/ethnicity in order to more easily notice issues of equity in engagement. (See my previous post with a helpful, equity-centered observation tool.) Then use a code or tally system to note which students volunteer, are "cold called," or ask a question.
Whichever way you capture the data, share the data visually with the teachers in the coaching meeting and ask a focused question such as "What trends do you see in terms of student engagement? Who is engaged and how often?"
Strategies for Engaging Every Student
As a reminder, if teachers are not actively building meaningful relationships with students and listening to them about what they want the class to look like, any strategy to engage students will be far less effective. Make sure to support teachers in these areas first, and refer back to my previous posts on coaching for relationships and coaching for listening to students for more direction here.
One of my favorite set of strategies for engaging every student instead of just a few are active student responses strategies. Active student response (ASR) strategies ask all students to formulate a response or engage actively simultaneously. This includes popular strategies like write-pair-share, choral responses, and response cards.
For a teacher who is calling on one student at a time throughout a lesson, a great starting goal is to incorporate at least three ASR strategies in every lesson. This is just a starting point, and we of course want the teacher to go much deeper in terms of student engagement.
Dr. Ann Pearce has a comprehensive list of active student response strategies here.
ASR Criteria for Success
In your coaching meeting on ASR strategies, share these criteria for success with your teacher to clarify exactly what you are looking for. (Feel free to revise these and make them your own!)
Active student response strategies should:
Engage every learner in creating a response simultaneously
Happen every 3 - 5 minutes during the teacher-centered parts of the lesson
Be varied (use multiple strategies, not just the same one repeatedly)
Be used in a fun and engaging tone
With your support, teachers can successfully integrate ASR strategies in their classroom to engage all of their students, instead of just a handful. After supporting the implementation of ASR strategies, consider how you can further support your teacher’s growth around deeply engaging every learner in a way that is culturally-sustaining, rigorous, meaningful, and fun.