Watching and learning from our peers is one of the greatest sources of authoritative knowledge. This passes down information to us that we may not experience ourselves, and helps to prepare us for the future. For this video analysis, I chose to look at the a 10th grade close reading exercise. Throughout this analysis of the video, I will be connecting aspects of instruction to the book Classroom Instruction that Works: Research-Based Strategies for Increasing Student Achievement written by Ceri Dean.
In the opening of this video we can see a classroom which is preparing to delve into reading and understanding some complicated text. The teacher begins by explaining the goal and suggesting that students chunk up the material so they can read through multiple times and interpret slowly. I believe that she plays to the students natural desire to problem solve by saying what a complex piece this is. She relates this reading back to her own college education which aids as a hook for students and also helps them prepare ways to succeed in college.
One area that this teacher excels in is preparing and laying the structure for students in terms of note taking. Dean mentions in chapter 6 the importance of teaching students how to take notes. “Effective note taking requires students to determine what is most important and then state that information in a condensed form. Students often struggle with this strategy because note-taking strategies are not intuitive. [It is recommended that instructors] give students teacher-prepared notes, teach students a variety of note-taking formulas, and provide opportunities for students to revise their notes and use them for review” (Dean, 2012). We can see the teach utilizing this information when she does things like explains the overarching topic, is it worse to fail trying or not to try at all. This sets the students minds to be looking for information in the text that is relevant to the topic. In addition this teacher suggests, underlining main ideas, circling words they don’t understand, highlighting sentences, and writing questions in the margins of the paper.
Asking students to be this involved and prepared will help prevent any sort of confusion, embarrassment and also help with their cooperative learning. After students read through a section they do something that looks a lot like a think-pair-share with their table groups. They read the text alone, pair up as a table group and discuss what they think, and then share with the class. This allows students to gain insight from other perspectives and also prevents students from being embarrassed if there is confusion on their part.
Dean, C. (2012). Classroom instruction that works research-based strategies for increasing student achievement (Revised/Expanded ed.). Alexandria, Va.: ASCD.
Carlene J. Schneider 