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I'm in Bali and for the last two weeks have been observing how Balinese children learn music, dance, and other arts. I've never been to a place where the arts were more integrated into daily life. In Ubud, the "cultural center of Bali," it's hard to walk down a street or spend a day without hearing or seeing some kind of artistic expression.

Much of this is connected to religious practices and takes place at the many temples on the island. This I expected. What surprises me is how children throw themselves onto every stage, into the laps of musicians, into the workshops of the carvers and painters and weavers. But perhaps "throws" is the wrong word -- I start to notice that they are pulled onto stages and laps and workshops.

Real-World Application

Early in our trip we wanted to learn something about Balinese gamelan and signed up for a day-long course. Our instructors spoke very little English. They taught by demonstrating, and motioning to us to copy them, and then by holding our hands and moving the hammer-like gavels over the xylophone. We didn't need much language and without it, I paid closer attention to the rhythms, the beats, and the sequences of notes.

Throughout our class other Balinese played along, helping to create the beautiful sounds of a Gamelan ensemble. Amongst these players was a boy of three or four who wandered up and plunked himself down first at an instrument that was full of symbols and then at a small, gong. He played, and then danced, and then pulled out a flute, played that, and then sat next to my son and tried to teach him percussive rhythms.

I wondered whose child he was as he moved from lap to lap, each Balinese adult laughing with him, encouraging him, clapping for him after he danced, and giving him instruction on his music as well.

I was captivated watching this little boy and my own son who was learning by doing -- and for a purpose and authentic application. I want this kind of learning to be a daily reality for the students in the schools where I work.

In the Classroom

Let me take a big leap now into what this reflection might mean for those who are still working within the 55-minute period. While this is far from what I envision schools to be, I know we can start taking steps towards integrating this concept, starting with a strategy as simple as the "think-aloud."

When I first started teaching English Language Arts to middle school students, a wise mentor encouraged me to share my writing practice with my students. "ELA teachers must be readers and writers themselves," she said, "so that they can make their process transparent to their students." She explained how to use the strategy think-aloud as students wrote first drafts.

I began to do them regularly in class as a way to determine a focus for my writing, how I revised it, and how I organized my thoughts. I did the same for reading, narrating the metacognitive processes I used to make sense of texts. I was surprised by how captivated my students were with these mini-lessons; those of us who teach middle-schoolers know that it's hard to captivate this audience! Then I saw the evidence show up in their writing; when we had a conference about a piece they were working on, they'd narrate their thoughts and use phrases I'd used, such as, "here, I want my audience to feel... ."

Why It Works

Now I recognize this strategy as one that parallels what I have been seeing in Bali. It's the old apprentice model, of course, but it can be adapted to our educational context today. This strategy can be applied to any content. It's about making our thinking transparent for kids, the steps we take to figure something out, and the ways in which our actions flow from this thinking. In this way, we are modeling what children need to do, not just telling them what to do.

Using a think-aloud strategy in all content areas, for all ages, is one step towards recovering an apprenticeship style of learning, something that has a legacy of great success and efficacy. Have you used a think-aloud lately? Please share with us in the comment section below.

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The Think-Aloud Strategy: An Oldie But Goodie

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I'm in Bali and for the last two weeks have been observing how Balinese children learn music, dance, and other arts. I've never been to a place where the arts were more integrated into daily life. In Ubud, the "cultural center of Bali," it's hard to walk down a street or spend a day without hearing or seeing some kind of artistic expression.

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Math think aloud....instructional comprehension strategy at

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Reading Strategies with a Think Aloud Part 1

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This demonstrates a reading strategies in action model. The thinking aloud is purposeful to help student understand what thinking sounds like when reading a challenging text.

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Think Aloud used in "I do, we do, you do" model

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Think Aloud used in "I do, we do, you do" model

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Common Core - Reciprocal Teaching in High School

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In this Doing What Works video an 11th grade humanities teacher describes how she teaches her students reading comprehension strategies through Reciprocal Teaching...

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When Janet Allen entered the teaching profession, she was shocked by her students' lack of enthusiasm for reading. In desperation, she turned to pearls of wisdom from her mother and created an approach to teaching reading that worked for her middle and high-school students. Later she discovered that her method had a name -- "shared reading" -- and research to back it up. Now hers is just one of the voices promoting this strategy that produces engaged learners and better readers through read-aloud experiences. Included: Tips for a successful start to shared reading in the middle and high-school classroom!

"I decided early in my life that I would be an English teacher and thought I would have students who loved reading as I did," explains Dr. Janet Allen, an author and expert on the teaching of reading. "Yet, when I started teaching, I found I was encountering hundreds of students who couldn't or wouldn't read. I was stunned by that. Reading had played such an important role in my life; I couldn't imagine not wanting to read."

Reading expert Dr. Janet Allen offers these tips to help teachers get started with shared reading:

* If you aren't used to reading aloud to/with older students, begin with shorter texts you know students will like -- poetry, short stories, interesting news articles, or the beginning of a new novel on which a popular movie has been based.

* Practice reading aloud before you read to students so you can offer a fluent reading of the text.

* Ask students to follow along. This will increase their vocabulary, and that's what makes it shared reading.

* Don't interrupt the reading too often for a teachable moment; read through the text first, then return to the text for the teaching point.
* Read in such a way that the text comes alive for students. Change your voice for characters, offer asides when appropriate, laugh or cry when you are moved by the text, and choose a text you enjoy reading.

Then Allen remembered a bit of her mother's wisdom. "My mother said that the only babysitter she could hire for me was one who was willing to read to me all day because it made me act better," she said, adding, "These were tough classes and acting better was certainly a goal, so I started finding multiple copies of books, short stories, poetry, and newspaper articles and began reading to them, inviting them to follow along as I read."

Allen used this approach for years without an official name for it or research to support her method. However, she was noting a variety of teaching successes in her teaching journal because of this practice:

Students were more motivated to read.

Attendance improved when students didn't want to miss what the class was reading.

Students' speaking and writing vocabularies were changing to reflect the texts they read.

Students were reading more on their own -- in school, in detention, at home and even in jail. (Allen received several letters from former students who were there, asking her to send books similar to those she had read with them.)

The class was more like a community and less a collection of individuals who happened to be in the same place.

Students' writing improved.

Students began to see themselves as readers.

Many of Allen's students had missed out on the "lap-reading" experience of childhood -- several years of someone reading to them every day. Shared reading seemed to fill this gap. It also provided the opportunity to see and hear words in a context that is both meaningful and memorable.

"This approach changes attitudes toward reading," observed Allen. "For many students who have struggled in school, reading has come to represent failure, risk, embarrassment and struggle. Shared reading is a place where everyone can find success and those walls begin to crumble. Success breeds success, and these shared experiences set students up to want to read something else."

ONE STEP AT A TIME

The first step in using shared reading is the selection of the text. Allen believes that the material need not be a novel. Shared reading can be used with any type of text. The second step is for the teacher to read the book thoroughly before reading it to the class.

"There are several reasons for that," Allen told Education World. "Teachers shouldn't be surprised by the content, which may have language or events they would rather not read out loud. The practice of reading the text through one or more times helps with the fluency you are modeling while reading, and the text should be mined for teaching possibilities and word study."

Allen advises that it is important to teach what "really matters" connected to a shared text. "We always want students to leave each reading experience enriched by the language and the text because of the shared approach, so we shouldn't find hundreds of vocabulary words and instructional opportunities in a single text," she said. "Perhaps there will be a word each day of the reading that you might want to explore with your students. A longer text might lend itself to one or more reading strategy lessons used to model for student readers how they might overcome the challenge of reading a book independently. There also should be one or more points in the text that would serve as a model or impetus for writing workshop."

It also isn't necessary to use shared reading with an entire text. It might be ideal to start a novel with this approach to introduce its complex aspects and then have the students read the rest of it independently.

Although it may be more common in the early grades, Allen says that shared reading has great value at all levels. "We shouldn't abandon the opportunity to share words in interesting ways just because children get older," Allen added. "The shared approach provides access to words, to knowledge, to information that will change a life."

SHARED READING IN SOCIAL STUDIES

Teaching sixth through eighth grade social studies and history at Liberty Middle School in Orlando, Florida, Christine Landaker has used shared reading to provide "touchstone texts" for her students that relate to their social studies units.

"Not only does shared reading provide a text we can all refer to, it also is the time at the beginning of each class period when we get into history learning mode," explains Landaker. "The kids come in, get their portfolios and a copy of the book, and they sit down and get ready to read. Usually we have a brief recap of the reading from the day before, and then we read for about 15 to 20 minutes, depending on the stopping point I have chosen, which isn't always the end of a chapter. I go for something that will leave the kids hanging!"

Shared reading has helped Landaker integrate reading and literacy instruction into her social studies units. Her students think critically about historical fiction and connect more with what they are learning because of this approach. She has observed that her students are probably more attentive during this portion of the class than at any other time.

"During Bud, Not Buddy by Christopher Paul Curtis this past year, attendance actually improved in my class," reported Landaker. "I heard things like, 'No, Mom. You have to change my appointment so I don't miss U.S. history. We're at the good part in Bud, Not Buddy.' When students did have to miss, they came to me first thing in the morning when they got back to ask what had happened while they were out. This isn't the norm for every book, but it demonstrates how into it they can get."

In her new assignment as an eighth grade English teacher at Charles Pierce Middle School in Milton, Massachusetts, Landaker is certain to call upon shared reading as a teaching strategy. But she won't be disappointed if every text isn't as popular as Bud, Not Buddy, and she doesn't think that others should abandon shared reading if at first they don't succeed.

"Don't be hurt if they hate a book," she advises. "We have to remember that what we love doesn't always translate to the kids. And don't be afraid to stop reading it if they hate it. I think it affects your credibility with the approach to reading if you tell them all these wonderful things, and then it turns out to be just as boring as the textbook."

She added, "If you're not already into young adult literature, ask for titles from colleagues. Most of the books that I have had such success with were recommended by people with whom I work. Allow the kids to surprise you with what they wonder or the connections they make. Find something that you and the kids love, and let it lead you."

HIGH SCHOOLERS GET TO THE POINT BY GETTING "LOST"

"I use shared reading to engage kids in reading," said Lee Ann Spillane. "If they have never experienced the feeling of being 'lost in a book,' they will experience that during shared reading. Many of my high school students tell me that they have never read an entire book on their own; others say that they haven't read a book on their own since elementary school."

Spillane is a ninth grade English teacher at University High School in Orlando, Florida, who relies on shared reading to build interest in a text or theme, to build students' background knowledge, and to teach content.

"When I read an engaging and interesting text to my students, they beg me to keep reading!" Spillane said. "They'll say, 'Please, please, just one more chapter!' So, in my classroom, shared reading hooks kids. Shared reading is what enables me to turn my students into independent readers. Once they hear how a story can sound when it's read by a fluent reader, they want to hear that again and again and again -- until they can replicate that sound in their own minds when they read silently to themselves. When they can hear that fluent reader's voice in their own minds while they read, they take off as readers."

In her class, shared reading works for Spillane because she uses it consistently and chooses appropriate texts -- ones in which she and the students, as a reading community, can get lost in and care about.

"Just the other day my students and I were reading poetry from the novel Tears of a Tiger," she recalled. "The students wanted to write their own poems like the poems the students had written in the novel. So, after the shared reading we went back to the poetry and examined commonalities. The students deduced that the poems were made up of stanzas, that they rhymed, and that they even followed a rhyme scheme. I then put one of the poems on the overhead so that we could look at these poetic elements more closely. I used shared reading of a novel to introduce and do a mini-lesson on poetic elements. That mini-lesson carried over into the students' writing and will also carry over into further studies of poetry as the year progresses. Shared reading is a great springboard for teaching content because it allows students to begin learning from a common experience, the shared reading."

Because of Winn-Dixie, DiCamillo (I, M)
Holes, Sachar (I, M, HS)
The Lottery Rose, Hunt (I, M, HS)
No More Dead Dogs, Korman (M, HS)
Forged by Fire, Draper (M, HS)
Freak, the Mighty, Philbrick (I, M. HS)
Of Mice and Men, Steinbeck (HS)
Weasel, Defelice (I, MS)
Party Girl, Ewing (HS)
Bronx Masquerade, Grimes (HS)
Among the Hidden, Haddix (M, HS)

Added Allen, "There are some wonderful collections of poetry that I would use in a classroom by 'new' poets like Sara Holbrook, Paul Janeczko, Billy Collins, Maya Angelou, Naomi Shihab Nye, Jo Carson, April Halprin Wayland, Nikki Giovanni, and selections from poets we have long enjoyed such Emily Dickinson, Robert Frost and e. e. cummings. In some of the schools where I work, teachers create their own poetry anthologies so they can share a poem a day: student poems and published works."

In information texts, Allen suggests Oh, Yuck! The Encyclopedia of Everything Nasty, Masoff (I, MS, HS), the Horrible Series from Scholastic (I, MS), and the Janet Bode and Stan Mack books with interviews with teens in juvenile centers, Hard Time: A Real Look at Juvenile Crime and Violence (HS).

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Shared Reading: Listening Leads to Fluency and Understanding | Education World

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When Janet Allen entered the teaching profession, she was shocked by her students' lack of enthusiasm for reading. In desperation, she turned to pearls of wisdom from her mother and created an approach to teaching reading that worked for her middle and high-school students.

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Why you should read to your students. :) 

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Why you should read to your students. :) 

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Read-alouds are precisely what they sound like: text read aloud (usually by the teacher) to a group of students who listen. When using read-alouds as a comprehension building activity, it is important to choose an appropriate text. Because the listener does not have access to the text and will not be asked to read the text, read- alouds are useful in a variety of contexts. One such area is in introducing students to the practices a reader assumes when tackling a more difficult text. Because text complexity "rises rapidly during the secondary school years" and students who are already struggling with reading may miss out on important content due to comprehension difficulties, read-alouds can be a great tool in modeling reading strategies for complex text as well as in getting important content to struggling readers (Fisher & Frey, 2012, p. 58). Across the curriculum, students in the middle and high school grades encounter increasingly difficult material as they leave elementary school, including concepts and vocabulary in math and science. In "Taking The Time to Read Aloud," Patricia Braun (2010) cites read-alouds as not only a great strategy in supporting vocabulary acquisition, but in introducing new concepts or units. Braun mentions one science teacher who uses the New York Times best selling book The Canon by Natalie Angier with middle schoolers because of her engaging style of writing. While The Canon is certainly far above the middle school reading level, it works as an introductory text that gets students excited about the content to follow while at the same time exposing students to a more complex type of text. In electives, the sciences, math and the humanities, students who are read to are often exposed to very different types of texts and bodies of knowledge through read-alouds. Additionally, English language learners benefit greatly from the added language acquisition assistance that read-alouds offer (Fisher & Frey, 2012).

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Read-alouds are precisely what they sound like: text read aloud (usually by the teacher) to a group of students who listen. When using read-alouds as a comprehension building activity, it is important to choose an appropriate text.

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Post-It strategy explained with examples

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Post-It strategy explained with examples

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Aiding Reading Comprehension With Post-its

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A simple, low-stress strategy that helps students engage with, understand, and remember what they read.

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Other uses for Post-Its in the classroom

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Other uses for Post-Its in the classroom

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The humble post it note - sometimes you don't need to invest in a fleet of iPads, interactive whiteboards or Visualisers to make the learning visible and to have a positive impact upon learning. Some of the best things in life are simple...and yes, cheap! The post it note is so flexible, easy to use and multi-purpose that it most surely must qualify for the ultimate low cost, high impact teaching tool.

Not only are they cheap and flexible learning tools, the very nature and size of them (varied as they now can be) encourages, even demands, a precise and concise use of language. Rather than pages of notes, students have to be selective, synthesise and exercise higher order thinking to use post it notes successfully - it can be very much a case of less is more. The original purpose of note making still stands, and is brilliantly fit for purpose, but they can be used to develop pedagogy in a variety of ways.

Progress has become the de rigueur term for OFSTED, and has spread beyond her ivory towers and has become a new byword in schools, like it never quite existed before OFSTED began browbeating us all about it! Before it became a buzz word, teachers were busy helping students progress and learn in blissful ignorance - the post it has been a perennial tool for such teachers. The post-it has outlasted most technology to provide a quick but highly effective tool for instant formative feedback, for effective questioning and a whole host of other aspects the makes progress visible in student learning.

The humble post it actually began as a failed invention. Dr Spenser Silver, in 1968, was aiming to create a super-strong adhesive, but instead he created a 'low tack' adhesive by accident. Even the famous canary yellow colour was due to the simple fortune of the neighbouring lab having spare yellow paper! Such serendipity leading to such a gem of a product reminds me of the often instantaneous impact and the spark of creativity that the post it can engender in the classroom.

The post it is now so iconic it has even been established in different digital apps on MacBooks and tablet devices. Their usefulness knows few bounds - by limiting my list to a 'top ten' I am acutely conscious that I am merely scratching the surface of their use in the classroom and their pedagogical potential.

The following list of teaching and learning strategies is based upon the use of the basic post it, with no requirement for a rich array of colours or sizes, although that has become one of the enhanced facets of the humble post it:

1. Secret Teacher Feedback: this a practical classroom strategy that works brilliantly and with great subtlety. Post it notes are the tool to provide subtle feedback, praise or critique, in a 'secret' manner when you want students to work independently. You can establish calm, purposeful parameters for the classroom atmosphere, whereat students can write/learn quietly or in silence, should the task benefit from such an atmosphere. I find it is unobtrusive but a supportive guide to better progress. I find it works best in conjunction with point 2 on the list! This idea is directly inspired by Zoe Elder's ideas for using post it notes for feedback in her book, 'Full on Learning'.

2. Question Wall: there are endless variations on a 'question wall'.The post-it-note provides a simple method for placing their questions onto the wall. It also allows you to write on answers in reply, particularly, if like in point 1, you are looking to establish an atmosphere of purposeful independence. These post it notes can be grouped by sectors on the wall, depending upon the question type, as explained on the aforementioned post. The post it is moveable and flexible, so you can even use one question from one student and have another student communicate the answer - the options are endless.

3. Post-it Note Formative Feedback: formative feedback is essential for progress. The post it note provides a quick option for feedback, as in point 2, but you can also use post it notes for peer assessment, or for teacher feedback on draft work. The rationale being that the post it can encourage more independent engagement with their own work - one or two judicious targets in a post it can really shape any ongoing classwork. It also encourages concise, targeted teacher feedback. Why not use the post it as a method to have students assess their peers for written accuracy (this does need to be delicately handled at times)? Given a literacy support document, they could identify patterns, then make notes on the post it and they then have to make their own corrections/improvements. The teacher could easily fulfil this role. Having a succession of spellings corrected for them is little help for students, but a post it note regarding a spelling rule, with some hints for improvements could initiate some productive self-reflection and proof reading.

4. Key Subject Specific Vocabulary: another important literacy strategy is identifying the key subject specific vocabulary of any given subject. As crucial subject specific terms arise in the lesson they can be identified by using post it notes, which can gradually build in spit a useful lexicon of terms for a given scheme of learning. If students are working in groups, or as a whole class, one student could be allocated the responsibility of recording key words from the lesson and noting them on a post it. As a plenary, the student or the teacher could reflect upon these post it notes. The teacher could initiate enquiry about whether they form into a pattern. The post it could be a way of organising the terms into a distinct sequence or diagram, to reflect relatedness or hierarchical patterns - see point 6.

5. Petite récits: okay - they anglo-saxon description would be 'mini-narratives', or micro-writing - I just thought the French made me sound more cosmopolitan.There are endless opportunities for students to hone their skills with compressed narratives - or the myriad of ways of creating a creative response within the limited space the post it allows. They could present generic narratives in ten words for example. I have witnessed terrific ten word mystery stories, or you could boil down the meta-narrative of World War Two into a simple ten word response. One idea I particularly liked was the ' six word memoirs', with the simple but creative idea to compress an entire biography into a concise gem of a few words. See these examples here. It is a great strategy across the school curriculum for any 'character' or historical figure - great as a swift starter, or even a summative plenary. Try it for yourself! Similar models are prevalent across the web, such as 'Seven Word Stories' e.g. youngwritersproject.org/node/19338.

6. 'The Ideas Tree': a description for any activity where you get students to brainstorm ideas for a given topic or concept. The teacher can shuffle the post it notes around creatively to organise the ideas to give form to their collective ideas (there are multiple variations in reorganising post it ideas to shape meaning, from 'diamond nine models', to a 'pyramid of priorities' that reflect a more hierarchical model to organise their ideas). These ideas can provide a semi-permanent resource in the classroom for students to utilise and support their learning, and they can provide the teacher with a ready made resource to recap prior learning or to provide a read made plenary to reflect upon progress.

7. 'Guess Who/What?': the simple party trick of common fame that students love. Place a key word/character/concept etc. onto a post it and place it upon the forehead of a student - they subsequently have a limited number of questions they can ask before they guess the term/topic on the post it. It can place a pedagogical focus upon good questioning, or more simply provide a fun group task to stimulate talk and recall key information.

8. The Post It Plenary : students leave a post it on a board/wall/door which reflects upon the learning of the lesson - perhaps with a simple 'Today I learnt....' sentence stem to scaffold their response. Some or all of the student responses can be revisited in the subsequent lesson; whilst the teacher can use the responses to inform planning.

The post-it note can be placed appropriately on the arrow to reflect where the students believe they have progressed towards in the course of the lesson. Is provides very visual and instantaneous feedback for the teacher that can and should shape future planning. By taking a photograph of the arrow, with post it note feedback, it can provide another useful resource for the following lesson and the future learning.

9. Opinion lines: students have to decide where their post it would reside on an opinion line to represent their viewpoint, with some concise justification for their views. Again, the post it note is perfect because of the flexibility it provides - with subsequent teacher, or student led, feedback, the post it may shift along the opinion line. The humble post it provides instantaneous correction - the opportunity to change the position on the line once each post it point or idea has been discussed.

10. 'Pin the Post It on the Donkey': essentially, this is a catch-all description for when you project an image onto the whiteboard and ask students to provide a written response which they then place on the relevant area. In Maths, this could be placing the answer on the relevant point of a graph, with explanation; in History, it could be quickly placing a post it upon a historical figure with a concise explanation; in English, it could be a powerful descriptive image and asking students to write a brilliant sentence or two for one aspect of that image, or a quick-fire analysis of a presentational device on a media text (multiple responses can deepen the quality of analysis).

Added Extra - Nice idea for literacy across the curriculum:

Post it Review: A lovely idea, though not strictly a teaching and learning strategy, was to encourage students, and adults, to place post it note reviews into books surreptitiously in school libraries, bookshelves in classrooms - anywhere where reading is happening! Leaving in a post it note review as this secret gift promotes reading, making the reviewer synthesise their reading, whilst the prospective reading gets a lovely surprise to stimulate their desire to read.

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The Ultimate Low Cost, High Impact Teaching Tool? The humble post it note - sometimes you don't need to invest in a fleet of iPads, interactive whiteboards or Visualisers to make the learning visible and to have a positive impact upon learning. Some of the best things in life are simple...and yes, cheap!

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ELA.SL.5.1a

Common core State Standards

ELA: English Language Arts

SL: Speaking and Listening Standards K-5

5: 5th Grade

1a:
Engage effectively in a range of collaborative
discussions (one-on-one, in groups, and teacher-led)
with diverse partners on grade 5 topics and
texts, building on others' ideas and expressing
their own clearly.

a. Come to discussions prepared, having read
or studied required material; explicitly draw
on that preparation and other information
known about the topic to explore ideas under
discussion.

b. Follow agreed-upon rules for discussions and
carry out assigned roles.

c. Pose and respond to specific questions by
making comments that contribute to the
discussion and elaborate on the remarks of
others.

d. Review the key ideas expressed and draw
conclusions in light of information and
knowledge gained from the discussions.

Download Common Core State Standards (PDF 1.2 MB)

Thought starters

1. How does this strategy enrich discussion?

2. What is the difference between the Post-it strategy and traditional note-taking?

3. How could you use this strategy to encourage reluctant students to participate?

School Details

Stevenson Elementary School
14220 Ne 8th St
Bellevue WA 98007

Data Provided By:

Teachers

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Post-its: Little Notes for Big Discussions

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Fifth grade teacher Stacy Brewer has her students use Post-its to take notes on a text in preparation for class discussion. Stacy explains how this strategy helps students remember what stood out to them when reading. After taking notes with Post-its, students come together to discuss the text.

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Videos and more ideas on how to use Post-Its

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Videos and more ideas on how to use Post-Its

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The post-it note strategy asks students to mark the text they are reading. This strategy encourages students to be active readers, rather than passive readers. Students become engaged in the...

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Includes a video and ideas for using Post-Its

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Photo credit: goddess-arts via flickr (CC BY-NC 2.0)

This week, I watched a science teacher use sticky notes in a very creative way. To check for understanding, the teacher gave each student a sticky note and asked each of her science students to give concrete examples of the vocabulary that they had learned in class. As the students exited the classroom, they placed the sticky note on the door. After the students all left the classroom, the teacher collected the sticky notes and was able to tell right away which students understood the concepts and which ones needed some targeted assistance.

This not only helps the teacher, but the students also were able to confront their exact understanding of what they had learned and intuitively they understand the clear message that what they did in class today was important and they are expected to learn.

This got me thinking of all the other ways we use sticky notes to help students learn. We give students "way-to-go!" recognitions on sticky notes. I find that the more specific I am with my praise, the more power it has to reinforce the behavior. I put a note on a student's paper that complements her on her neat writing, and the next day, this student was much less withdrawn and more active in her participation. As a principal, I have seen teachers respond positively when they receive a positive sticky note about something great that I saw in a walk-through observation. Even email and texting have not replaced a well-placed sticky note for powerful communication.

In the Spanish classes I taught, I would use the small sticky notes to provide extra credit points as a reward for student participation and effort. I took a rubber stamp of a toucan that said Bravo! and created my Bravos! right on the sticky notes. If students made attempts to speak Spanish, answered correctly, did something nice, or won a game I would give them these by pealing off a sticky and placing it on their paper. The competition to obtain one was often fierce. The nice thing about this kind of extra credit is that the students are the ones that have to keep track of it. Because they are sticky, all they have to do is stick them on a test or a quiz. I put limits (only five Bravos! could be used on any quiz or test), so they couldn't save them up for the final. I also frequently had auctions of stuff that I got at workshops and conventions that they could bid on with Bravos!

When reading difficult passages from technical texts, I have seen teachers encourage students to summarize what is being stated on a sticky note and then place the note in the margin so it sticks out a bit to make it easy to find in the future

Students use sticky notes to organize their folders, study cards and notepapers

Students storyboard their writing with sticky notes so they can be moved around. This matches the idea that not all of us think sequentially, and allows students to take advantage of ideas spawned out of order

Some students (particularly boys for some reason) when they get a pad of sticky notes seem to always want to draw the antics of stick men on the bottom of each one so that when they flip the pages, it appears that the stick men are moving. This actually requires planning and higher order thinking

Students comment on other student papers or work and give suggestions for improvement and compliments on sticky notes

Students sticky notes to identify things in the classroom, label items in a target language, or categorize items by type

Gallery walks in which students analyze poetry, quotes or philosophies by placing their responses on sticky notes

Teachers use colored sticky notes as disciplinary measures, green notes being exemplary behavior, and red ones warning of impending discipline if behavior doesn't change

Here's a recent Edutopia video that shows how one middle school teacher uses sticky notes to help her assess her students.

Some of the ways I've seen sticky notes used in classrooms:

Who would have thought that simply putting a bit of semi-sticky glue on the back of a small piece of paper could be so powerful for student learning? How do you use sticky notes in your classroom?

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Tools for Teaching: The Amazing Sticky Note | Edutopia

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Photo credit: goddess-arts via flickr (CC BY-NC 2.0) This week, I watched a science teacher use sticky notes in a very creative way. To check for understanding, the teacher gave each student a sticky note and asked each of her science students to give concrete examples of the vocabulary that they had learned in class.