March 5, 2024 • 35 mins
Ultimately, students have a decision to engage or opt out of any lesson. In this episode, I offer educators tips to encourage students to make a good decision. Join us as we explore how to keep students motivated and committed to their education. #TeachersAreLeaders
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Visit my site: https://shorturl.at/tDKPY
LinkedIn Post: https://shorturl.at/cvBCS
U of Waterloo Study: https://shorturl.at/mvT49
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
You know, in education, oneof the big things that principals are looking
for when they go into a classroomis they're looking for engagement, engagement,
engagement, engagement, and that's aword that we use a lot in education.
We want to see students engaging inthe lesson because that means that students
(00:22):
have a better opportunity for success ifthey're engaged in the lesson. Very simple,
it's not groundbreaking, not a groundbreakingrevelation at all. But in my
new book, I make this point. It's my new book that's coming out
soon, I make this point aboutengagement. Engagement is a choice. Engagement
(00:46):
is a choice made by students.It's a decision that students make. Do
they want to engage in the lesson? Yes or no? It's completely a
decision that's made by the students.Now raise your hand. Raise your hand.
If you've to prove this point,raise your hand. If you've ever
(01:07):
been involved in a professional development sessionthat you simply that you simply checked out,
You just checked out. Maybe itwas lackluster, or was at the
the a terrible time of the dayduring the school year, before the school
year, it's just things were notright and you just you just you just
(01:30):
checked out. I mean everyone shouldbe raising their hand because yes, those
things they happen. And so mypoint is even as adults, even as
adults, we have those we havethose moments where you know, we should
be engaged. The expectation is thatwe're engaged. It's to our benefit if
(01:55):
the PD is good, it's toour benefit that we engage. But you
know, whatever, whatever something,there's some other variables, there's things happening,
and my point is that it's theIt's the same for students. You
know, there are there are variablesoutside of our control that that we can't
(02:21):
we there's very little that we cando to impact the the the significance that
they have on the student's decision toengage in the classroom. You know,
it's crazy. It's a couple ofweeks ago, my wife and I were
at a marriage conference and I likethe way that they kind of split it
(02:45):
up. It was virtual, andso each speaker had about twenty five minutes.
It was and it was a hardtwenty five minutes, and so speaker
after speaker after speaker, they gottwenty five minute segments. It was paced
very nicely, and so engagement engage. My engagement was very high. But
then it got to a session wherethey were talking about I can't even remember
(03:07):
what they were talking about, butit didn't it didn't pertain to our family,
to our marriage, and it wasjust really interesting. I look over,
I see my wife. She's gother phone out. And guess what
I did. About two minutes later, I got my phone out. I'm
looking at my calendar. I'm seeingwhat I need to do for the upcoming
(03:28):
weeks. And so I checked out. Ladies and gentlemen, I checked out.
And so why are we talking aboutthis. We're talking about this because
there are in a classroom, thereare multiple opportunities for students to check out
(03:51):
and do something else. Okay,now, I'm My assumption is that you're
doing You're doing the work, you'redoing what you need to do. You've
got you've got an excellent lesson plan. You're ready to go. You spent
the night in your classroom working onyour lesson plan because you're just so you're
just so pumped and you're ready togo. But even still, even still,
(04:15):
there are those there are those invitationsto check out, there are those
distractions. Oh what about these things? Right? What about what about these
things? I know some of youwish that, some of you wish that
you know, maybe man, Imaybe I wish maybe I maybe would have
been better had I been born duringanother time where there are no cell phones,
(04:40):
no cell phones, because the cellphones they can be the really the
biggest, the biggest distraction, thebiggest invitation for all students to to just
say why don't you why don't yougo see what what's going on with Instagram
or ig as? They say,what's you know? Did you hear someone
(05:00):
saying something about you in their posts? What are you going to do about
it? You know, that's myworld as a principle, because like people
are stirring stuff up over the phoneand you don't you don't necessarily see it
like a like a physical fight,but you can, but you know about
it later that so and so wastexting about me in first block and now
(05:24):
it's seventh block, and now we'regoing to fight about it. So there
are multiple, multiple opportunities, multipleinvitations to check out of the lesson and
interrupt that decision to engage. Now, let me step back, let me
(05:46):
step back for a minute. Andfor those of you who are just joining
us. I want to let youknow I want to and for a lot
of you, this is just areminder that you know, even though I'm
not in the classroom, I willforever be a teacher, and I pride
myself on never forgetting what that waslike being a teacher in the classroom.
I love being a teacher with buildingdeeper relationships with students, challenging myself to
(06:18):
help students learn and grow. Butdefinitely there are, as we're talking about
today, there are those challenges,and so when we talk about having high
expectations for all students, that's whatwe've been talking about and previous episodes.
(06:38):
One of the things that prevents studentsfrom meeting those high expectations, or even
having high expectations of themselves is thefact that they can opt out. The
fact that they can opt out sothey can choose not to it. When
(07:00):
they choose not to engage, they'rechoosing to opt out. They're choosing to
opt out of the learning. They'rechoosing to opt out of the benefits of
acquiring this new information. Now weknow what happens when they decide not to
(07:21):
acquire that new information. If youdon't acquire this new information, at this
part in the journey. You're notgonna be able to acquire this new information
down the road as you go throughyour journey. It's gonna be very,
(07:43):
very difficult to do that. Andso it's to our benefit that we're having
these conversations. So I am,I am, I am teacher friendly.
I'll never forget what it was liketo be a teacher. So I want
you to know that, Hey,I'm not some educational consultant ed con coming
(08:05):
in here and telling you, well, if they didn't learn it, you
didn't teach it, or you knowwhat your problem is, you don't build
relationships with students. I know that'sthe first time you've ever heard anything like
that, But you got to buildrelationships with students. No, no,
no, no, no, I'mnot doing that here. I definitely.
I don't want to disrespect you.I know that you're working hard with your
(08:28):
students. But what I want todo today is I want to submit to
you. I want to submit toyou three tips to help to give help
give your students something else to thinkabout and keep them engaged in the lesson.
We don't want students opting out.So as as leaders, I'm submitting
(08:56):
this to you as leaders. Ifthings don't go as playing, and we
have to ask ourself, we haveto look at ourselves first, like did
and hold ourselves accountable and we haveto ask, well, okay, so
I plan out this lesson, itdidn't go It didn't necessarily go as planned.
I had a few opt outs.Let me, let me ask myself,
(09:20):
is there anything else that I couldhave done to to prevent or to
compel those students to to not optout. And if after you've searched yourself,
you've looked you, you've looked atthe data. You've got a significant
amount of students who opted in andwho were successful. They're there or they're
(09:41):
moving towards the mark. If you, if you, if the data is
telling you that during your reflection,as you're holding yourself accountable, then that's
that's a cause to have a celebration. Okay. Again, engagement is a
choice. But it's our job.It's our job to give them a compelling
(10:05):
reason to not opt out, stayengaged. It's our job to give them
something to think about. It's ourjob to change their thinking. That's what
leaders do. Leaders help people changethe way that they think. And if
we can get them to change theway that they think, then we could
(10:28):
possibly change their decision making. That'sthat's where it comes in, ladies and
gentlemen. So I want you tounderstand my heart and where I'm coming from,
because it's ultimately when students, whenwhen they decide that they're not they're
(10:50):
going to they're gonna they're gonna checkout, right, They're gonna they're gonna
opt out. They want no partof it. What they're doing is they're
planting seeds that they alone will reapthe They're gonna they're gonna reap the harvest.
They're the ones making the decision andthey're the ones who are going to
reap the harvest. Now, becauseyou're a teacher, we we got into
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this because we care about people.We don't want that for students. We
really don't want that for students.Regardless of you know, how much they
they just they challenge us. Itcan be frustrating. They may even be
distracting the class. Now that's nowlet me tell you this. Now,
that's one thing you just can't have, you know, students distracting the class.
(11:37):
That's one thing you just you justcannot have. Nothing, nothing and
no one should interrupt the good teachingand learning that's going on in the classroom
period. You cannot have that nowmore so, I'm speaking to the student
who is just like you can seeit with their body language that they're opting
out. They're not they're not askingquestions, they're not making notes. They
(12:00):
may go to the bathroom and they'regone for a good twenty thirty minutes.
That's what I'm talking about. That'swhat we're talking about here. So check
this out. When we talk aboutwhen we talk about you understanding, you
(12:22):
understanding that you know engagement is achoice and that there are those things that
are going to happen outside of theclassroom, those variables that we just don't
have any control over. But whatwe can do. What we can do
is we can give them a compellingreason to engage. If you're doing that,
(12:46):
you're fighting the good fight. Okay, you know it may or may
not be successful, but you haveto continue to try. And when you
do that again, that is asuccess. Steve Marraboli said this. He
said, incredible change, incredible changein your life. Incredible. Let me
(13:09):
let me back up and say that. Steve Marrabouli said this, he said,
incredible change happens in your life there. It is when you decide to
take control of what you do havepower over instead of craving control of what
you don't. I think that's that'svery powerful because I know that there are
(13:30):
some of you out there. Ithurts you to think about your students and
their future if they don't get thingsturned around, if they don't make better
decisions to engage in the lesson.And yeah, I get it, I
get it. But what I don'twant you to do is I don't want
(13:52):
you to push your I don't wantyou to move yourself to the point of
burning out, really stressing about thingsthat you don't have control over. Now,
again, what we can do.We can give them a compelling reason
to engage because there's a number ofvariables that we have control over, and
(14:18):
we can encourage students to make betterdecisions, and we can give them something
else to think about. Okay,give them something else to think about.
I love that quote. That's reallygood. Please keep that in mind for
those if that speaks to you,if you are, because I remember when
(14:39):
I was in the classroom, itwas about February where I really did I
got to the point of burnout becauseI'm you know, it just felt like,
you know, I'm working with thesame students over and over and over
again. I'm trying to get themto turn things around and make better decisions
and engage and care about the whywhy come to school. So always remember
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and keep that in mind. Keepthat quote in mind. Incredible change,
incredible change in your life happens whenyou decide to take control of what you
do have the power over, insteadof craving control over what you don't.
Your perspective is going to be improvedand you're going to be able to step
(15:26):
back and see, well, perhapsthere's things that I can do because you're
the architect of your environment. Perhapsthere's things that I can do in this
atmosphere to compel a student to engage. All right, so I'm going to
give you because we don't want optouts, ladies and gentlemen, we don't
want students opting out. So whatwe're going to do is we're going to
(15:48):
We're going to learn from a gentleman. His name is Harry tim Tim.
He put up a LinkedIn article aboutopting out and how to help prevent how
to and how to encourage students tonot opt out. Let's let's let's call
it that. We want to encouragestudents to not opt out? How do
we build that within the environment inthe classroom? And Harry Tim Tim he
(16:14):
he used some tips from teach likea champion. That's where his that's his
source there. But we're gonna highlighthim and so I'm going to link his
article in the description section so thatwe can look at that article in full.
But what I'm gonna do is I'mgonna pull out a few of those
tips and we're going to talk aboutthem here. So check this out.
(16:37):
He says this about opting out.This is basically a definition no opt out.
No opt out is about maintaining theexpectation that every student must make an
effort. Yes, keep going in. In a high performing classroom, there
is no room for opting out ormuttering I don't know, in response to
(16:57):
a question, how many people areat that before? Yes, yes,
I don't know. This technique establishesa culture of active participation and discourages students
from disengaging or avoiding responsibility. NowI know some of you. I know
(17:18):
some of you love that discourages studentsfrom disengaging. Remember, engagement is a
choice or avoiding responsibility. Can Igo to the bathroom for thirty minutes?
All right, so let's go throughthese tips. Number one, you provide
(17:42):
the answer, the student repeats it. So this is for a student.
You're trying to get an answer outof a student, you call them the
student student it doesn't know. Well, what you can do is you can
say, Okay, I'll give youthe answer, but I'd like for you
to repeat it. I'd like foryou to repeat it after me. So
(18:04):
I like this because as I wasdoing research about it. So there is
power in students hearing this information,this new information, the correct answer coming
from their own voice. And Icite for you this article which I will
(18:26):
also share with you. And thisarticle comes from the University of Waterloo.
But again i'm gonna link this inthe description section. You'll be able to
see all my sources. So checkthis out here, says study finds reading
information aloud to yourself improves memory.All right, let's read read on a
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little bit more so, it saysa recent Waterloo study found that speaking text
out loud helps to get words intolong term memory. Dubbed the production effect.
The study determined that it is thedual action of speaking and hearing oneself
(19:11):
that has the most beneficial impact onmemory. Let's take it just a little
bit further. This study confirms whatlearning and memory, that learning and memory
benefit from active involvement. There itis active involvement. Remember, ladies and
gentlemen, Engagement is a choice.What can we do to compel students to
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engage? No, no, no, no, don't think about that cell
phone, don't think about that textthat you just got. Stay with me.
The study confirms that learning and memorybenefit fit from active involvement, said
Colin M. Macleoud, a professorand sheriff of the Department of Psychology at
Waterloo, who co authored the studywith the lead author postdoctoral fellow Noah Forum.
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When we we add an active measureor a production element to a word,
that word becomes more distinct in longterm memory and hence more memorable.
What do you think about that,ladies and gentlemen. So we want to
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get students speaking that information. Wewant to put that information on their tongue.
And at the very least that's justthat's that's a way that we interrupt
if they're if they're not thinking properly. If they've are, if they've checked
out, that's a way to interrupt. I'm interrupting you checking out because I
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need you to do this. Ineed to hear this from you. I
want you to hear yourself saying thisinformation, reciting this information, so I
can get it into your long termmemory, so that possibly down the road
in the journey, when they're facedwith the when they're faced with a task,
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when they're faced with a question ora problem that you've posed to them,
perhaps perhaps their brain will recall whatthey spoke and that will help get
them closer to mastery, help getthem closer to the goal. That's what
we're trying to do. Ladies andgentlemen, All right, let's move on
(21:30):
number two. Number two, Soyou've you've asked the question of a student
and the student positive possibly they've they'vealready checked out, and so you've got
to you got to snap them outof it because they don't know the answer
to the question. So what youcan do is you can have another student,
and this can be so much fun. You can have another student provide
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a Q and then the student whoyou initially asked they can they can use
that qu to find the answer.Now, this can again, this can
be just a lot of fun.So for those of you who are familiar
with college football, you know thatthey when they get the when they get
their plays in there, they usesome creativity in order to communicate the plays.
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Now, I'm gonna show you aquick video that talks about the creative
ways that coaches use different cues tocommunicate the plays with their with their players.
And I want you to think about, you know, how can you
(22:41):
use this in your classroom. Ithink I think this is just really interesting.
So let's let's check let's check thisout. It all out in real
time. We go there, sowe've got the most interesting man in the
world to see how interesting that playis. To hand off to Jazz Hopkins
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Monday and sweep to the laft thatit could be better than that. Who
we're looking for bags. This guy'sgot a tough job is He's got a
rifle through that and got the ThreeAmigos. The three Amigos with the knas
frum age on thud down, hardishstepping up running for it has the first
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time in more cuts inside thirty twentyfive, Charg's the twenty inside the ten,
it steps out at the eight yardline. Okay, so you can
see that man there there is uh, there's opportunity to have some fun with
that, right, wasn't that?Wasn't that a lot of fun? And
I would so I submit that toyou. I want you to think about
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how you can use how you canuse your imagination to infuse something like that
in your classroom. And when youhave that things like that in your classroom,
it it creates those memorable moments.And that's a key word. They're
memorable because if you can create thatexperience and it's memorable. And as students
(24:10):
are and as students are they're reviewing, they're trying to recall information, perhaps
that memory will trigger in their braina recollection of that information. Again,
our goal is to interrupt that optingout. We want to interrupt that poor
thinking. We want to give themsomething else to do, give them something
(24:34):
else to think about, compel themto make a better decision to engage in
the lesson. That's what we wantto do. So I want you to
I want you to think about that, how can you use something like that
give them cues to help them findthat answer, and how can you do
it in a fun way and getother students involved. So we're we're building
(24:56):
community, everyone is helping out,and we're also having fun and we're creating
those memorable moments as well. Allright, So that's tip number two,
all right, Tip number three,Tip number three. Okay, Johnny is
having a difficult time understanding the questionor perhaps the answer to the question,
(25:22):
and perhaps maybe you're noticing that thatthis is happening quite a bit like you're
you're seeing that it appears that alot of your students are perhaps struggling with
with this unit or it's just it'sjust a difficult stretch in the year.
So what mister Tim Tim says is, and this is from teach like a
(25:45):
champion. He submits to us,that we give control to students. Give
control to students now like this,because instead of opting out thinking about what's
you know, what's going on withmy phone, what's going on with my
friends? What am I going todo? Uh? What am I going
to eat for lunch? Those differentthings that don't matter at that point in
(26:08):
time, if we give them control. Now you've got this responsibility of control,
what are you going to do withit? I would tell my students
education is not a spectator sport.We are conditioned to, we are conditioned
to to sit and get as asociety entertainment. You go to the movies.
(26:30):
Uh, you go to a concert. You're you're you're just supposed to.
Okay, you just you sit back, You get the you get,
you get the you receive the entertainment. You you receive the service. We're
we're conditioned that way. We're conditionedto sit and get very quickly. Things
that come to us very quickly.We want to know the answer to something,
(26:52):
we google it, we very veryquickly. Give us, give us
that information, give us that service, give us that entertainment. We're can
addition to expect that. But educationis not a spectator of sport. You
have to engage. You have toengage. And that's why, you know.
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I tell students that the purpose ofschool is to pursue goals while navigating
resistance along the way. Now thatis true for every class, no matter
what the content is, no matterwhat the level. Students are pursuing goals,
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but they're also navigating resistance because itdoesn't always come easily. There's going
to be some challenges along the wayI was sitting in. I was sitting
in a college algebra class just yesterdayand the teacher. The teacher had on
the board a question, and itput me on spot and asked me if
(28:00):
I could saw the question. Ilooked at the question and it was apple
plus apple plus apple equals ten,banana minus banana plus apple equals three.
I was thinking to myself, atsome new kind of math right there,
I opt out. Thankfully, I'vealready graduated, so I can. I'm
(28:21):
I'm opting out. I'm I'm justI'm just stopping by, visiting. But
that's the but that when we helpstudents understand that point, that it's about
the pursuit of goals, setting goals, accomplishing goals, navigating resistance along the
(28:41):
way. What we're doing is we'regiving them a level of control and responsibility.
Because it's always going to be true, there's going to be an invitation
to engage, and there's going tobe an invitation to opt out. We
want them to make the right decision. We want them to make the wise
(29:03):
decision. Of course, the wisedecision is to stay engaged. But we
have to compel give them compelling reasonsto do that. Here's another way that
we can give control, give controlback to the students by having by having
by receiving feedback from your students,actually talking to the students, Hey,
(29:27):
how things going, what what areyour do you have any questions thoughts?
What went well? What what changeswould you would you would you like to
see in the class. Now,you're not promising anything, but it's it's
it's a good thing to get feedbackfrom your students. It's a good thing.
I know many of us remember whenwe were in college we had to
(29:51):
rate our professor at the end ofthe class. But I think that there
is value in getting that feedback fromyour students if you know, if it's
if it's good faith feedback. Youdon't want feedback that says, oh,
you give too much work in thisclass, it's too much homework, Like
come on, now we've got we'vegot goals that we need to accomplish.
But if you can get really goodfeedback from your students, that's another way
(30:15):
to get control, give controls backto them. And then too, this
is important when you are when youimplement, when you implement the feedback that
they that they suggested. I wantyou to highlight it highlight is that,
hey, remember a couple of weeksI sat down with the with a few
with a few of you, andyou gave me this feedback. Well,
(30:37):
look at what we're doing today.We're gonna change things up based on your
feedback. And when they have thatexperience with the teacher, when they see
that happen, they're gonna think tothemselves, oh wow, let me see
what you're talking about here, becauseyou took my feedback and you changed your
lesson plan based on my advice.Let me, uh, let me straighten
(30:57):
up my tie and and listen towhat to what you're saying here. Let
me let me engage, all right. And then also I have I have
this resource here and I'm gonna I'mgonna link it so that you have it
as well. But the title ofthis article by Bradley Lands is there is
(31:25):
more than one way to demonstrate mastery. So this is another way that we
can give control back to the studentsby allowing them multiple opportunities to show that
they hit the goal. And I'lljust give you just a few of them,
because he's got quite a quite alist here. First first one,
he says, create a story froma picture. Uh, next, create
(31:48):
a video, create a skit,write a poem or song, create a
graphic organizer, write a journal entry, create a comic, conduct and experiment,
design a pro and so there's justthere's just a number of ways,
a number of ways that you cando this and how this gives how this
(32:09):
gives control back to students, isit? You know? It gives them
the option do you want to dothe do you want to do the typical
you know, test paper assessment,or do you want to you want to
step out and do something else?And that's going to be up to you.
You're in control of that. Iwant you to lead that. I
(32:30):
want you to manage that and makesure you get it done by the doe
date. That's going to be upto you. It's another way to give
control to students. Okay, Sowe started out by talking about how engagement
is a choice. It's a choicemade by students, but it's our job
as leaders in the classroom to givethem a compelling reason to engage. But
(32:52):
always there will be there will bethe opportunity to opt out of the lesson
or in gauge in the lesson.So the student will always have that choice,
but we want to give them acompelling reason to make a good decision
to stay to stay engaged in thelesson. We talked about three ways to
(33:13):
prevent students, to compel students fromopting out of the lesson, because if
they opt out of the lesson,it's going to be very difficult for them
to meet the high expectations that wehave of them. So number one,
we talked about, you provide theanswer and then the student repeats the answer.
Research says that it's good if theyhear the information from their voice.
(33:36):
And then we also talked about howwe can create memorable moments in the classroom.
If a student doesn't quite know theanswer yet, we can have other
students chip in, build community andprovide a queue for that student to help
the student eventually land on the rightanswer. And the student is going to
remember that moment and they're going toassociate that moment with the content and it
(34:00):
is it's it's it's my belief thatduring the assessment, when when it's time
to show mastery, that that momentwill be fresh in their mind. And
then next to that moment is thecontent. And then number three, we
talked about giving control back to thestudents. Well, if a student is
(34:20):
opting out, we can give themsomething else to we can give them something
else to to give them a responsibilityto to steward, to occupy, and
so that's that's going to help themstay engaged. And we talked about giving
them multiple ways to to uh toshow mastery if if they have control over
(34:47):
that, that's going to compel themto engage ultimately, but ultimately it's the
student's decision to engage. But weas leaders, we never want to stop
try trying to find a way tocompel students to make the right decision to
engage in the lesson. Well that'sthis episode of the Marvin Bird Show.
(35:10):
I thank you so much for beinghere, and until we meet again,
please don't forget that teachers are leaders.
You know, in education, oneof the big things that principals are looking
for when they go into a classroomis they're looking for engagement, engagement,
engagement, engagement, and that's aword that we use a lot in education.
We want to see students engaging inthe lesson because that means that students
(00:22):
have a better opportunity for success ifthey're engaged in the lesson. Very simple,
it's not groundbreaking, not a groundbreakingrevelation at all. But in my
new book, I make this point. It's my new book that's coming out
soon, I make this point aboutengagement. Engagement is a choice. Engagement
(00:46):
is a choice made by students.It's a decision that students make. Do
they want to engage in the lesson? Yes or no? It's completely a
decision that's made by the students.Now raise your hand. Raise your hand.
If you've to prove this point,raise your hand. If you've ever
(01:07):
been involved in a professional development sessionthat you simply that you simply checked out,
You just checked out. Maybe itwas lackluster, or was at the
the a terrible time of the dayduring the school year, before the school
year, it's just things were notright and you just you just you just
(01:30):
checked out. I mean everyone shouldbe raising their hand because yes, those
things they happen. And so mypoint is even as adults, even as
adults, we have those we havethose moments where you know, we should
be engaged. The expectation is thatwe're engaged. It's to our benefit if
(01:55):
the PD is good, it's toour benefit that we engage. But you
know, whatever, whatever something,there's some other variables, there's things happening,
and my point is that it's theIt's the same for students. You
know, there are there are variablesoutside of our control that that we can't
(02:21):
we there's very little that we cando to impact the the the significance that
they have on the student's decision toengage in the classroom. You know,
it's crazy. It's a couple ofweeks ago, my wife and I were
at a marriage conference and I likethe way that they kind of split it
(02:45):
up. It was virtual, andso each speaker had about twenty five minutes.
It was and it was a hardtwenty five minutes, and so speaker
after speaker after speaker, they gottwenty five minute segments. It was paced
very nicely, and so engagement engage. My engagement was very high. But
then it got to a session wherethey were talking about I can't even remember
(03:07):
what they were talking about, butit didn't it didn't pertain to our family,
to our marriage, and it wasjust really interesting. I look over,
I see my wife. She's gother phone out. And guess what
I did. About two minutes later, I got my phone out. I'm
looking at my calendar. I'm seeingwhat I need to do for the upcoming
(03:28):
weeks. And so I checked out. Ladies and gentlemen, I checked out.
And so why are we talking aboutthis. We're talking about this because
there are in a classroom, thereare multiple opportunities for students to check out
(03:51):
and do something else. Okay,now, I'm My assumption is that you're
doing You're doing the work, you'redoing what you need to do. You've
got you've got an excellent lesson plan. You're ready to go. You spent
the night in your classroom working onyour lesson plan because you're just so you're
just so pumped and you're ready togo. But even still, even still,
(04:15):
there are those there are those invitationsto check out, there are those
distractions. Oh what about these things? Right? What about what about these
things? I know some of youwish that, some of you wish that
you know, maybe man, Imaybe I wish maybe I maybe would have
been better had I been born duringanother time where there are no cell phones,
(04:40):
no cell phones, because the cellphones they can be the really the
biggest, the biggest distraction, thebiggest invitation for all students to to just
say why don't you why don't yougo see what what's going on with Instagram
or ig as? They say,what's you know? Did you hear someone
(05:00):
saying something about you in their posts? What are you going to do about
it? You know, that's myworld as a principle, because like people
are stirring stuff up over the phoneand you don't you don't necessarily see it
like a like a physical fight,but you can, but you know about
it later that so and so wastexting about me in first block and now
(05:24):
it's seventh block, and now we'regoing to fight about it. So there
are multiple, multiple opportunities, multipleinvitations to check out of the lesson and
interrupt that decision to engage. Now, let me step back, let me
(05:46):
step back for a minute. Andfor those of you who are just joining
us. I want to let youknow I want to and for a lot
of you, this is just areminder that you know, even though I'm
not in the classroom, I willforever be a teacher, and I pride
myself on never forgetting what that waslike being a teacher in the classroom.
I love being a teacher with buildingdeeper relationships with students, challenging myself to
(06:18):
help students learn and grow. Butdefinitely there are, as we're talking about
today, there are those challenges,and so when we talk about having high
expectations for all students, that's whatwe've been talking about and previous episodes.
(06:38):
One of the things that prevents studentsfrom meeting those high expectations, or even
having high expectations of themselves is thefact that they can opt out. The
fact that they can opt out sothey can choose not to it. When
(07:00):
they choose not to engage, they'rechoosing to opt out. They're choosing to
opt out of the learning. They'rechoosing to opt out of the benefits of
acquiring this new information. Now weknow what happens when they decide not to
(07:21):
acquire that new information. If youdon't acquire this new information, at this
part in the journey. You're notgonna be able to acquire this new information
down the road as you go throughyour journey. It's gonna be very,
(07:43):
very difficult to do that. Andso it's to our benefit that we're having
these conversations. So I am,I am, I am teacher friendly.
I'll never forget what it was liketo be a teacher. So I want
you to know that, Hey,I'm not some educational consultant ed con coming
(08:05):
in here and telling you, well, if they didn't learn it, you
didn't teach it, or you knowwhat your problem is, you don't build
relationships with students. I know that'sthe first time you've ever heard anything like
that, But you got to buildrelationships with students. No, no,
no, no, no, I'mnot doing that here. I definitely.
I don't want to disrespect you.I know that you're working hard with your
(08:28):
students. But what I want todo today is I want to submit to
you. I want to submit toyou three tips to help to give help
give your students something else to thinkabout and keep them engaged in the lesson.
We don't want students opting out.So as as leaders, I'm submitting
(08:56):
this to you as leaders. Ifthings don't go as playing, and we
have to ask ourself, we haveto look at ourselves first, like did
and hold ourselves accountable and we haveto ask, well, okay, so
I plan out this lesson, itdidn't go It didn't necessarily go as planned.
I had a few opt outs.Let me, let me ask myself,
(09:20):
is there anything else that I couldhave done to to prevent or to
compel those students to to not optout. And if after you've searched yourself,
you've looked you, you've looked atthe data. You've got a significant
amount of students who opted in andwho were successful. They're there or they're
(09:41):
moving towards the mark. If you, if you, if the data is
telling you that during your reflection,as you're holding yourself accountable, then that's
that's a cause to have a celebration. Okay. Again, engagement is a
choice. But it's our job.It's our job to give them a compelling
(10:05):
reason to not opt out, stayengaged. It's our job to give them
something to think about. It's ourjob to change their thinking. That's what
leaders do. Leaders help people changethe way that they think. And if
we can get them to change theway that they think, then we could
(10:28):
possibly change their decision making. That'sthat's where it comes in, ladies and
gentlemen. So I want you tounderstand my heart and where I'm coming from,
because it's ultimately when students, whenwhen they decide that they're not they're
(10:50):
going to they're gonna they're gonna checkout, right, They're gonna they're gonna
opt out. They want no partof it. What they're doing is they're
planting seeds that they alone will reapthe They're gonna they're gonna reap the harvest.
They're the ones making the decision andthey're the ones who are going to
reap the harvest. Now, becauseyou're a teacher, we we got into
(11:16):
this because we care about people.We don't want that for students. We
really don't want that for students.Regardless of you know, how much they
they just they challenge us. Itcan be frustrating. They may even be
distracting the class. Now that's nowlet me tell you this. Now,
that's one thing you just can't have, you know, students distracting the class.
(11:37):
That's one thing you just you justcannot have. Nothing, nothing and
no one should interrupt the good teachingand learning that's going on in the classroom
period. You cannot have that nowmore so, I'm speaking to the student
who is just like you can seeit with their body language that they're opting
out. They're not they're not askingquestions, they're not making notes. They
(12:00):
may go to the bathroom and they'regone for a good twenty thirty minutes.
That's what I'm talking about. That'swhat we're talking about here. So check
this out. When we talk aboutwhen we talk about you understanding, you
(12:22):
understanding that you know engagement is achoice and that there are those things that
are going to happen outside of theclassroom, those variables that we just don't
have any control over. But whatwe can do. What we can do
is we can give them a compellingreason to engage. If you're doing that,
(12:46):
you're fighting the good fight. Okay, you know it may or may
not be successful, but you haveto continue to try. And when you
do that again, that is asuccess. Steve Marraboli said this. He
said, incredible change, incredible changein your life. Incredible. Let me
(13:09):
let me back up and say that. Steve Marrabouli said this, he said,
incredible change happens in your life there. It is when you decide to
take control of what you do havepower over instead of craving control of what
you don't. I think that's that'svery powerful because I know that there are
(13:30):
some of you out there. Ithurts you to think about your students and
their future if they don't get thingsturned around, if they don't make better
decisions to engage in the lesson.And yeah, I get it, I
get it. But what I don'twant you to do is I don't want
(13:52):
you to push your I don't wantyou to move yourself to the point of
burning out, really stressing about thingsthat you don't have control over. Now,
again, what we can do.We can give them a compelling reason
to engage because there's a number ofvariables that we have control over, and
(14:18):
we can encourage students to make betterdecisions, and we can give them something
else to think about. Okay,give them something else to think about.
I love that quote. That's reallygood. Please keep that in mind for
those if that speaks to you,if you are, because I remember when
(14:39):
I was in the classroom, itwas about February where I really did I
got to the point of burnout becauseI'm you know, it just felt like,
you know, I'm working with thesame students over and over and over
again. I'm trying to get themto turn things around and make better decisions
and engage and care about the whywhy come to school. So always remember
(15:05):
and keep that in mind. Keepthat quote in mind. Incredible change,
incredible change in your life happens whenyou decide to take control of what you
do have the power over, insteadof craving control over what you don't.
Your perspective is going to be improvedand you're going to be able to step
(15:26):
back and see, well, perhapsthere's things that I can do because you're
the architect of your environment. Perhapsthere's things that I can do in this
atmosphere to compel a student to engage. All right, so I'm going to
give you because we don't want optouts, ladies and gentlemen, we don't
want students opting out. So whatwe're going to do is we're going to
(15:48):
We're going to learn from a gentleman. His name is Harry tim Tim.
He put up a LinkedIn article aboutopting out and how to help prevent how
to and how to encourage students tonot opt out. Let's let's let's call
it that. We want to encouragestudents to not opt out? How do
we build that within the environment inthe classroom? And Harry Tim Tim he
(16:14):
he used some tips from teach likea champion. That's where his that's his
source there. But we're gonna highlighthim and so I'm going to link his
article in the description section so thatwe can look at that article in full.
But what I'm gonna do is I'mgonna pull out a few of those
tips and we're going to talk aboutthem here. So check this out.
(16:37):
He says this about opting out.This is basically a definition no opt out.
No opt out is about maintaining theexpectation that every student must make an
effort. Yes, keep going in. In a high performing classroom, there
is no room for opting out ormuttering I don't know, in response to
(16:57):
a question, how many people areat that before? Yes, yes,
I don't know. This technique establishesa culture of active participation and discourages students
from disengaging or avoiding responsibility. NowI know some of you. I know
(17:18):
some of you love that discourages studentsfrom disengaging. Remember, engagement is a
choice or avoiding responsibility. Can Igo to the bathroom for thirty minutes?
All right, so let's go throughthese tips. Number one, you provide
(17:42):
the answer, the student repeats it. So this is for a student.
You're trying to get an answer outof a student, you call them the
student student it doesn't know. Well, what you can do is you can
say, Okay, I'll give youthe answer, but I'd like for you
to repeat it. I'd like foryou to repeat it after me. So
(18:04):
I like this because as I wasdoing research about it. So there is
power in students hearing this information,this new information, the correct answer coming
from their own voice. And Icite for you this article which I will
(18:26):
also share with you. And thisarticle comes from the University of Waterloo.
But again i'm gonna link this inthe description section. You'll be able to
see all my sources. So checkthis out here, says study finds reading
information aloud to yourself improves memory.All right, let's read read on a
(18:49):
little bit more so, it saysa recent Waterloo study found that speaking text
out loud helps to get words intolong term memory. Dubbed the production effect.
The study determined that it is thedual action of speaking and hearing oneself
(19:11):
that has the most beneficial impact onmemory. Let's take it just a little
bit further. This study confirms whatlearning and memory, that learning and memory
benefit from active involvement. There itis active involvement. Remember, ladies and
gentlemen, Engagement is a choice.What can we do to compel students to
(19:33):
engage? No, no, no, no, don't think about that cell
phone, don't think about that textthat you just got. Stay with me.
The study confirms that learning and memorybenefit fit from active involvement, said
Colin M. Macleoud, a professorand sheriff of the Department of Psychology at
Waterloo, who co authored the studywith the lead author postdoctoral fellow Noah Forum.
(19:59):
When we we add an active measureor a production element to a word,
that word becomes more distinct in longterm memory and hence more memorable.
What do you think about that,ladies and gentlemen. So we want to
(20:22):
get students speaking that information. Wewant to put that information on their tongue.
And at the very least that's justthat's that's a way that we interrupt
if they're if they're not thinking properly. If they've are, if they've checked
out, that's a way to interrupt. I'm interrupting you checking out because I
(20:45):
need you to do this. Ineed to hear this from you. I
want you to hear yourself saying thisinformation, reciting this information, so I
can get it into your long termmemory, so that possibly down the road
in the journey, when they're facedwith the when they're faced with a task,
(21:07):
when they're faced with a question ora problem that you've posed to them,
perhaps perhaps their brain will recall whatthey spoke and that will help get
them closer to mastery, help getthem closer to the goal. That's what
we're trying to do. Ladies andgentlemen, All right, let's move on
(21:30):
number two. Number two, Soyou've you've asked the question of a student
and the student positive possibly they've they'vealready checked out, and so you've got
to you got to snap them outof it because they don't know the answer
to the question. So what youcan do is you can have another student,
and this can be so much fun. You can have another student provide
(21:52):
a Q and then the student whoyou initially asked they can they can use
that qu to find the answer.Now, this can again, this can
be just a lot of fun.So for those of you who are familiar
with college football, you know thatthey when they get the when they get
their plays in there, they usesome creativity in order to communicate the plays.
(22:18):
Now, I'm gonna show you aquick video that talks about the creative
ways that coaches use different cues tocommunicate the plays with their with their players.
And I want you to think about, you know, how can you
(22:41):
use this in your classroom. Ithink I think this is just really interesting.
So let's let's check let's check thisout. It all out in real
time. We go there, sowe've got the most interesting man in the
world to see how interesting that playis. To hand off to Jazz Hopkins
(23:02):
Monday and sweep to the laft thatit could be better than that. Who
we're looking for bags. This guy'sgot a tough job is He's got a
rifle through that and got the ThreeAmigos. The three Amigos with the knas
frum age on thud down, hardishstepping up running for it has the first
(23:22):
time in more cuts inside thirty twentyfive, Charg's the twenty inside the ten,
it steps out at the eight yardline. Okay, so you can
see that man there there is uh, there's opportunity to have some fun with
that, right, wasn't that?Wasn't that a lot of fun? And
I would so I submit that toyou. I want you to think about
(23:45):
how you can use how you canuse your imagination to infuse something like that
in your classroom. And when youhave that things like that in your classroom,
it it creates those memorable moments.And that's a key word. They're
memorable because if you can create thatexperience and it's memorable. And as students
(24:10):
are and as students are they're reviewing, they're trying to recall information, perhaps
that memory will trigger in their braina recollection of that information. Again,
our goal is to interrupt that optingout. We want to interrupt that poor
thinking. We want to give themsomething else to do, give them something
(24:34):
else to think about, compel themto make a better decision to engage in
the lesson. That's what we wantto do. So I want you to
I want you to think about that, how can you use something like that
give them cues to help them findthat answer, and how can you do
it in a fun way and getother students involved. So we're we're building
(24:56):
community, everyone is helping out,and we're also having fun and we're creating
those memorable moments as well. Allright, So that's tip number two,
all right, Tip number three,Tip number three. Okay, Johnny is
having a difficult time understanding the questionor perhaps the answer to the question,
(25:22):
and perhaps maybe you're noticing that thatthis is happening quite a bit like you're
you're seeing that it appears that alot of your students are perhaps struggling with
with this unit or it's just it'sjust a difficult stretch in the year.
So what mister Tim Tim says is, and this is from teach like a
(25:45):
champion. He submits to us,that we give control to students. Give
control to students now like this,because instead of opting out thinking about what's
you know, what's going on withmy phone, what's going on with my
friends? What am I going todo? Uh? What am I going
to eat for lunch? Those differentthings that don't matter at that point in
(26:08):
time, if we give them control. Now you've got this responsibility of control,
what are you going to do withit? I would tell my students
education is not a spectator sport.We are conditioned to, we are conditioned
to to sit and get as asociety entertainment. You go to the movies.
(26:30):
Uh, you go to a concert. You're you're you're just supposed to.
Okay, you just you sit back, You get the you get,
you get the you receive the entertainment. You you receive the service. We're
we're conditioned that way. We're conditionedto sit and get very quickly. Things
that come to us very quickly.We want to know the answer to something,
(26:52):
we google it, we very veryquickly. Give us, give us
that information, give us that service, give us that entertainment. We're can
addition to expect that. But educationis not a spectator of sport. You
have to engage. You have toengage. And that's why, you know.
(27:14):
I tell students that the purpose ofschool is to pursue goals while navigating
resistance along the way. Now thatis true for every class, no matter
what the content is, no matterwhat the level. Students are pursuing goals,
(27:37):
but they're also navigating resistance because itdoesn't always come easily. There's going
to be some challenges along the wayI was sitting in. I was sitting
in a college algebra class just yesterdayand the teacher. The teacher had on
the board a question, and itput me on spot and asked me if
(28:00):
I could saw the question. Ilooked at the question and it was apple
plus apple plus apple equals ten,banana minus banana plus apple equals three.
I was thinking to myself, atsome new kind of math right there,
I opt out. Thankfully, I'vealready graduated, so I can. I'm
(28:21):
I'm opting out. I'm I'm justI'm just stopping by, visiting. But
that's the but that when we helpstudents understand that point, that it's about
the pursuit of goals, setting goals, accomplishing goals, navigating resistance along the
(28:41):
way. What we're doing is we'regiving them a level of control and responsibility.
Because it's always going to be true, there's going to be an invitation
to engage, and there's going tobe an invitation to opt out. We
want them to make the right decision. We want them to make the wise
(29:03):
decision. Of course, the wisedecision is to stay engaged. But we
have to compel give them compelling reasonsto do that. Here's another way that
we can give control, give controlback to the students by having by having
by receiving feedback from your students,actually talking to the students, Hey,
(29:27):
how things going, what what areyour do you have any questions thoughts?
What went well? What what changeswould you would you would you like to
see in the class. Now,you're not promising anything, but it's it's
it's a good thing to get feedbackfrom your students. It's a good thing.
I know many of us remember whenwe were in college we had to
(29:51):
rate our professor at the end ofthe class. But I think that there
is value in getting that feedback fromyour students if you know, if it's
if it's good faith feedback. Youdon't want feedback that says, oh,
you give too much work in thisclass, it's too much homework, Like
come on, now we've got we'vegot goals that we need to accomplish.
But if you can get really goodfeedback from your students, that's another way
(30:15):
to get control, give controls backto them. And then too, this
is important when you are when youimplement, when you implement the feedback that
they that they suggested. I wantyou to highlight it highlight is that,
hey, remember a couple of weeksI sat down with the with a few
with a few of you, andyou gave me this feedback. Well,
(30:37):
look at what we're doing today.We're gonna change things up based on your
feedback. And when they have thatexperience with the teacher, when they see
that happen, they're gonna think tothemselves, oh wow, let me see
what you're talking about here, becauseyou took my feedback and you changed your
lesson plan based on my advice.Let me, uh, let me straighten
(30:57):
up my tie and and listen towhat to what you're saying here. Let
me let me engage, all right. And then also I have I have
this resource here and I'm gonna I'mgonna link it so that you have it
as well. But the title ofthis article by Bradley Lands is there is
(31:25):
more than one way to demonstrate mastery. So this is another way that we
can give control back to the studentsby allowing them multiple opportunities to show that
they hit the goal. And I'lljust give you just a few of them,
because he's got quite a quite alist here. First first one,
he says, create a story froma picture. Uh, next, create
(31:48):
a video, create a skit,write a poem or song, create a
graphic organizer, write a journal entry, create a comic, conduct and experiment,
design a pro and so there's justthere's just a number of ways,
a number of ways that you cando this and how this gives how this
(32:09):
gives control back to students, isit? You know? It gives them
the option do you want to dothe do you want to do the typical
you know, test paper assessment,or do you want to you want to
step out and do something else?And that's going to be up to you.
You're in control of that. Iwant you to lead that. I
(32:30):
want you to manage that and makesure you get it done by the doe
date. That's going to be upto you. It's another way to give
control to students. Okay, Sowe started out by talking about how engagement
is a choice. It's a choicemade by students, but it's our job
as leaders in the classroom to givethem a compelling reason to engage. But
(32:52):
always there will be there will bethe opportunity to opt out of the lesson
or in gauge in the lesson.So the student will always have that choice,
but we want to give them acompelling reason to make a good decision
to stay to stay engaged in thelesson. We talked about three ways to
(33:13):
prevent students, to compel students fromopting out of the lesson, because if
they opt out of the lesson,it's going to be very difficult for them
to meet the high expectations that wehave of them. So number one,
we talked about, you provide theanswer and then the student repeats the answer.
Research says that it's good if theyhear the information from their voice.
(33:36):
And then we also talked about howwe can create memorable moments in the classroom.
If a student doesn't quite know theanswer yet, we can have other
students chip in, build community andprovide a queue for that student to help
the student eventually land on the rightanswer. And the student is going to
remember that moment and they're going toassociate that moment with the content and it
(34:00):
is it's it's it's my belief thatduring the assessment, when when it's time
to show mastery, that that momentwill be fresh in their mind. And
then next to that moment is thecontent. And then number three, we
talked about giving control back to thestudents. Well, if a student is
(34:20):
opting out, we can give themsomething else to we can give them something
else to to give them a responsibilityto to steward, to occupy, and
so that's that's going to help themstay engaged. And we talked about giving
them multiple ways to to uh toshow mastery if if they have control over
(34:47):
that, that's going to compel themto engage ultimately, but ultimately it's the
student's decision to engage. But weas leaders, we never want to stop
try trying to find a way tocompel students to make the right decision to
engage in the lesson. Well that'sthis episode of the Marvin Bird Show.
(35:10):
I thank you so much for beinghere, and until we meet again,
please don't forget that teachers are leaders.
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