March Madness

For most of the country, March is a month to celebrate the start of Spring, avoid getting pinched on St. Patty's day, and to cheer on our favorite college basketball teams.  (SIC 'EM BEARS!)  However, for many teachers, the term "March Madness" tends to have a different meaning.  With STARR assessments just around the corner, I can remember the frenzy of small group tutorials, pull outs, push ins, before school and after school tutorials we engage our students in to help all them be successful.  With that in mind, I wanted to remind you of a few TLAC techniques that might help maximize the classroom time you have left.

RATIO
If we think about it, this is probably one of the most under appreciated TLAC techniques, and one that we haven't spent much time practicing.  Doug describes Ratio as the proportion of cognitive work (writing, thinking, analyzing, talking) students do in your classroom.  Read through the chapter in the TLAC book on Ratio (p92-97).  Pick one of the 10 strategies Doug outlines to increase the Ratio in your classroom that would most support your "March Madness" objectives and try them out.

RATIO 2.0-Turn and Talk
I'm so excited for this new chapter in Doug's updated TLAC book.  Seems like the "Turn and Talk" has been a favored technique to increase engagement and ratio in HISD the last few years.  When I first started using the turn and talk, more often than not, students would just sit there looking back up at me.  I could read their minds, "you want me to do what?" or "I'm not doing this unless everyone else is".  Read through Doug's sneak peek into Ratio 2.0 to get some practical advice on revamping the turn and talk "cue in".  How do you cue in your students?  Pick an upcoming lesson, plan a revamped "cue in", and try it out with your students.

#TLACHISD
So I've been brainstorming ways that we could stay in touch and celebrate success more frequently and I thought we would enter into the world of twitter.  If you don't have a twitter account, no worries, guaranteed there is someone on your TLAC team who can help you get started.  Follow me, @pgoodman529, for updates, links, videos and other resources to help you in your quest for creating a model TLAC classroom.  More importantly, I want you to provide TLAC updates for happenings going on in your classroom!!  Upload breakthrough moments, links, resources, pictures, and even video to share with our network of TLAC teachers.  Be sure to use the #TLACHISD hashtag!  There will be a special drawing for teachers who do!