A new LYS teacher asks the following:

SC,

I recently attended a district training you made for all the teaching staff.  Thanks, by the way, for energizing us and ending the week on a great note.

A few of us stayed behind so you could sign our books and answer a couple of questions.  My question derived from making the most impact when teaching 3 grade levels in a single classroom setting.

I have been told that I should write objectives and closing statements for every grade level and subject in my class during a given period.  If I did this, I would be spending as much time writing all of that on the board as I would teaching.  Based on our discussion, I thought that the Close should be my focus on the board?  Did miss something?  Thanks for taking this email into consideration.  

SC Response

I remember our conversation. In a classroom that is dealing with multiple grade levels and/or multiple contents at the same time (ex: credit recovery, resource and self-paced classrooms) there is rarely a single lesson frame that would address each student in that class.  In those cases, the objectives are often verbal and specific to a single student. The Close, is often written on a post-it note, a note taking sheet or journal page. The student is still expected to engage in and complete the Close. In this setting, another option for the Close is to have it written on the board as a somewhat generic prompt, such as, “I will write down the strategies I used when completing my assignment.”

The answers are as varied as the number of assignments the students were working on that day.

I hope this made things a little more clear and actionable

Think. Work. Achieve.

Your turn…

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