I listened in last week’s faculty meeting to strategies for
checking understanding—thumbs up, thumbs down, and thumbs out to the side;
green cup, red cup, yellow cup; etc. I listened…actively and intently.
Meanwhile,
the vision playing out in my head was of my second-grade classroom where my
classmates and I were all excited at the prospect of a rousing game of Thumbs
Up, 7-Up. There we sat, heads down and thumbs up…desperately trying to keep our
eyes closed to avoid any assumption of cheating...or perhaps we were
desperately trying to cheat while avoiding any suspicions…nonetheless…there we
sat, and there we played. Thanks to the mention of Solo cups, this memory was
serenaded by the melodic sounds of Toby Keith in the backdrop.
Such is life in my head….
During the Solo/Thumbs conversation, it was also mentioned
that teachers should be checking for understanding every 8-10 minutes and
covering each student—not just accepting the loudest student’s feedback as a
representation of the entire group—hence the Solo/Thumbs suggestion.
Imagining
my own classroom, I’m fairly certain I was guilty of letting my top students
speak for the entire group when I asked if everyone was ok with the subject
matter. Moreover, I didn’t check for understanding every ten minutes, and I
certainly didn’t play Thumb Cups. I wish I would have.
A few hours after first hearing this information, I sat in
front of a computer in a graduate statistics course; it might as well have been
a foreign language class. Since none of these students (myself included) are
mathematicians, instruction was slow and methodical, and the professor checked
for understanding after each step. Unfortunately, like the classroom teacher
version of me, she’d never been introduced to Solo/Thumbs. “Is everyone ok,”
she would say every time. And every time, the same girl in the fourth row
answered, “We’re good.” Had I had a Solo cup, I might have thrown it at her
head.
Since no cup of any color was readily available and no one
asked to see my thumb, I sat there in dumbed silence, quietly struggling. Truth
be told, I probably wasn’t alone in my suffering, but since it didn’t seem like
anyone was particularly interested if *I* was ok or if *we* were each ok, we
all sat alone, isolated, thinking we were the ONLY one who wasn’t in Camp Good
with fourth-row girl.
Bottom line: I’m now a hard-core believer in Green Thumbs or
Side Cups or whatever strategy relays the message that I’m not ok…not sort’ve,
not remotely, not near. Students of all ages—4, 14, 24, 34—need to know that
their teachers care if they’re ok…not just if fourth-row girl is ok. I imagine the learning in that classroom would have been exponentially enhanced had my professor had an accurate reflection of each student's understanding.
Checking for understanding allows students to feel comfortable with not understanding. It creates an environment that says, "Hey! It's ok if you're not really getting it. Let's work on it more together. You'll get there." It's nonthreatening and not intimidating, and it's an essential practice for today's students in today's classrooms.
So let's practice....
Checking for understanding allows students to feel comfortable with not understanding. It creates an environment that says, "Hey! It's ok if you're not really getting it. Let's work on it more together. You'll get there." It's nonthreatening and not intimidating, and it's an essential practice for today's students in today's classrooms.
So let's practice....
HEADS DOWN, EVERYONE!
References
Nguyen, L. (2013, March 8). Thumbs up, seven up. Retrieved from https://www.flickr.com/photos/lnguyen/8540310031/
