Carrying Out an Effective Guided Practice

One of the most challenging hurdles for incoming teachers to address are those lesson objectives that seem obvious or self-evident from the get go – skills that a new teacher might not even think to break into smaller chunks, but that are actually complex skills that demand careful segmentation into concrete key points, modeling, and a gradual release of responsibility to students before students can succeed independently.

Consider the skill of determining the main idea of a paragraph of expository text, or identifying the theme in a fictional story. For the former objective, the beginning teacher might read an expository passage to their class and think-aloud how they determined that the author's main idea: "Before the U.S. Civil War, slaves sang as a way to cling on to hope for a better future." Suddenly, the teacher has distributed a passage about how roller coasters are designed and the class is asked to execute the skill in pairs before returning to discuss their work five minutes down the road. This amounts to skipping the guided practice to move straight into a small-group independent practice. At absolute best, students will find themselves unsure of how to proceed, may read the passage before struggling to apply the skill and stagnating, and the lesson will screech to a halt. More frequently, the students will become frustrated, get off-task and neglect their work as a coping mechanism to deal with their confusion/frustration over the content, and the teacher gets to standby (or run around to different student groups, frantically) as the lesson implodes.

More Notes on the (ELA*) Guided Practice: (*though applicable to Math and other subjects as well)

Effective guided practices could be broken into two main approaches. The first type is the one I began advocating with my CMs, though in fact, depending on the day/lesson/my mood, I might just as often use the second variety (which is favored by other members of the Institute team here at Teleos). On some lessons with short INMs or extra time I might even use the first method AND the second (in that order), before moving to the independent practice.

1) Teacher Directed GP: After the INM, the teacher calls upon various students to volunteer to read a section of the next paragraph (or next, GP reading passage) and then asks other students specific, strategic, scaffolded questions about the passage that gradually work up to the most advanced key point of the day. Check out the sample transcript below:

Teacher: Terrell, could you please read the first two sentences of the next paragraph?

Terrell: [reads]

Teacher: OK, pause right there. Terrell, could you please call on a student who could remind me what a fact is – specifically, how it’s different from an opinion. [hands shoot up because students like vying for the attention of another student who is running the show]

Student: [responds with definition of fact]

Teacher: “Great definition, but I’d like to hear more about how it’s different from an opinion. Could you remind me of what an opinion is?”

Student: [adds to original answer]

Teacher: You nailed it. I like how you added that opinions often use flimsy, unscientific, un-provable words like “should,” “the best,” or “too much” that all relate to how one individual sees the world, but are certainly not fact phrases.

Teacher: Now let’s look back at the sentences Terrell just read. Hands up when you’ve found me a fact. …  Great I see that 7 people see one, 9 people see a fact, now I’ve got 12 people who want to show what they know. (It’s important to give think time. Everyone should have a chance to get involved.) Awesome. Alexis, can you tell me what fact you found?

Alexis: It says that 95% of kids have played at least one violent video game.

Teacher: And how did you know that was a fact? (probing questions that drive students to re-explain key points in their own words are key)

Alexis: Well 95% is a statistic, and statistics can be proven by testing, so it’s a fact.

Teacher: Great. Now finally, who can find me an opinion? Hands up as soon as you see one.

… And so on...

All students are held accountable for reading along and perhaps writing a response of their own. The teacher has the ability to catch (the most common) misunderstandings and correct them before the rest of the students before sending them off to work independently. In other words, it’s OK if students respond incorrectly, because the teacher objectively and candidly corrects the student; the whole class benefits from learning why the student was incorrect.

2) Student Driven GP / Think-Pair-Share: After the INM, the teacher gives the whole class a small and specific task to execute independently or with a partner over a brief period of time: “Scholars, you now have 30 seconds to find one facts in the next paragraph and to underline it with your fact highlighter. If you finish early you may read the next paragraph of the article. Could I please have one student raise their hand to tell me what we are about to do?” [student recaps] “Good.” [teacher: CLAP CLAP “GO!”] [students: CLAP CLAP “OK!”]

At the end of the 30 seconds the teacher might even say: “OK, you now have 40 more seconds to share the fact you found with the person next to you. See if you found the same, or different, facts. If you disagree about what is a fact and what is an opinion, then debate with your partner to determine the best answer.” By the end of this think/pair period, the teacher will have been able to check-in with several students and will know who to call on to offer up a correct response in front of the class. Next, the teacher might dole out another concrete task like “Now, in the next minute, find two opinions in the next paragraph and underline them with your opinion highlighter.” Etc.

This student driven variety of guided practice can be highly effective when it is structured so that all students know the exact skill they need to be practicing and exactly where to practice it. If students are asked to do too many steps, if the key points are too complex (or if the teacher requires students to practice all at once), if the knowledge/skills have not been broken down concretely, if the teacher does not tell students exactly where in the reading to apply the skills, students may freeze up and the lesson will stagnate. Another strength of student-driven guided practice is that by its very nature, all students are responsible for processing what they’ve learned and for doing the work, and then receive immediate feedback on how they did when the class comes back together. It almost gives students a brief preview of what the independent practice will feel like, except here they are called back every few seconds to check in with the teacher and rest of the class again—rather than receive a longer period of time (2 minutes or more) to work without feedback or guidance.