Whole Group Response Strategies by Talia Humbert

Summary

tchumber2 — 2025-02-17 18:35:28 UTC

As teachers, it's important to connect and actively engage with each student. Using proactive strategies is beneficial for all students as it encourages engagement from the whole class. Having a system that promotes whole group questioning and response, such as having students participate through verbal or gestural modes, can create a inclusive environment. These strategies also work as an advantage for the teacher as they can track their students progress through the way they are responding in class. This can also help teachers monitor students with IEP goals and see how they are progressing. Using inclusive, proactive strategies in your classroom will ultimately help your students, and you as a teacher, succeed. Nagro, S. A., Hooks, S. D., Fraser, D. W., & Cornelius, K. E. (2016). Whole-group response strategies to promote student engagement in inclusive classrooms. Teaching Exceptional Children, 48(5), 243–249.

Key Practice

tchumber2 — 2025-02-17 19:37:47 UTC

One key practice I find would be useful is, whole group responding using response card. It's mentioned in the text that having students respond to a question verbally, can be hard for the teacher to track individual progress. So, using pre-written response cards can be easier for teachers to get an understanding of how much progress students are making. This practice is also very valuable for special education students as it doesn't require writing something down, which can sometimes be challenging for them. I think I am going to implement this practice into my future classroom as I believe it will allow me, as a teacher, to get a feel for how my students are learning. It will also be helpful for the students as it is inclusive for everyone.

Text-to-Text Connections

tchumber2 — 2025-02-17 19:41:19 UTC

One book I think this article relates to is Total Participation Techniques: Making Every Student an Active Learner by Persida Himmele & William Himmele. This book talks about the importance of active participation in classrooms and to ensure that each student is understanding the material by participating. The book includes five categories that include proactive strategies and one of them is 'hold-ups". Like in the article, "hold-ups", include having students write their answer to a question on a whiteboard, response card, and even a simple thumbs up or thumbs down.

Himmele, P., & Himmele, W. (2017). Total participation techniques: Making every student an active learner (2nd ed.). ASCD.

Text-to-World Connections

tchumber2 — 2025-02-17 19:49:14 UTC

As future educators, it's important for us to learn strategies that are inclusive and helpful for all students. Promoting inclusion across the classroom is imperative. Using strategies that are valuable to the whole classroom will help you, as a teacher, gage a better understanding of your students, personally and academically. Whole group response strategies are important for all teachers to learn because it includes special education students in the learning.

Text-to-Self Connections

tchumber2 — 2025-02-17 19:51:29 UTC

In elementary school, my teachers would use whiteboards for question-answer activities frequently. It was always a fun experience because the class would make it into a race of who could get the answer fast enough. Whoever had the most correct answers, would get a prize at the end. Not only was this strategy useful in our learning, but it was also fun and motivated us, as students, to learn.