Comments on: Comfortable Students Leads to Engaged Students

By: Sean

Sean — Tue, 23 Mar 2010 14:08:32 +0000

The issue about real world versus modified activities (including deflective questioning) is an interesting one. Research and common sense shows that students will not learn if figuratively ‘thrown in the deep end’. What the school environment and progressive lesson and unit planning provides is an arena where skills and concepts are learned in progression – scaling from simple to more difficult. Just as student progress through math and learn progressively more difficult and intricate concepts they also need to progressively learn the skills of collaboration and cooperation. The fact is that we teach (and students need to learn) more than just the subject content we teach – they are learning the skills and concepts of group work, debate, opinion, discussion, analysis and problem solving. These are real world issues but – as with all taught at school – they need to be learned progressively.

By: Kyle

Kyle — Tue, 23 Mar 2010 06:15:44 +0000

While deflective questioning may work well in primary and secondary educational settings, Wally brought up a good point that no one has adequately answered yet: does this prepare students for the real world? What are the chances that they will encounter deflective questioning in college, the workplace, or a career in the military? Rebecca, you said your students go silent when you don’t use a defelctive questioning prompt. What are the chances that will change when they reach one of these settings in which deflective questioning is not used? I have attended PEAK seminars, and while I believe there are many PEAK strategies that work well and benefit students in the long run, I am not sure that deflective questioning is one of them.

By: Rebecca

Rebecca — Sat, 13 Mar 2010 12:57:58 +0000

I have attended a PEAK session or two and I can tell you that deflective question works so well. In fact, when I err and forget to say, “How might_____ explain ______,” the room goes dead silent and the kids wait for me to correct my prompt.

I have also found that adding “Please make certain everyone in your group has written out and can explain, (whatever it is I want them to do) has also changed classroom culture and expectations. Those who help teach it within the group learn it more solidly for teaching it, and everyone has the opportunity to “get it.”

Given the quickness of technology, growth of newer occupations in fields such as health care, and changes in the workplace- “the real world,” as some have labeled it, our students will have to know how to learn and how to work collaboratively with others. We simply can’t continue to fail 90% and think we’re doing the world and our students a service.

In times when teachers are increasingly (and rightly) held accountable, it makes sense that we would use every opportunity for all kids to learn our material. Does this stuff work? Absolutely. It works with my LD/ED population, it works with my ELL students, it works with my large classes of sophomores, and it works with my AP classes.

By: Julie

Julie — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 17:13:40 +0000

Asking students to share their answers with people around them allows students to correct each other before being publicly wrong. It is not about “touchy feely nonsense”, it is about making sure more kids are participating and learning correct information. I care most about all kids learning my content and want to avoid creating a hierarchy of my students.
Furthermore, when my students group with people who I don’t want them with, I have them answer a quick prompt together and then ask them to form a different group with all new people. If you have your students work together often, making the groups every time is not practical (or necessary).

By: MaryAnn

MaryAnn — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 03:41:47 +0000

Children shouldn’t be humiliated if they make mistakes instead we should teach our kids that mistakes are an opportunity to learn and that challenging yourself is hard sometimes…Puttting in the extra effort makes the achievements feel so much better

By: Ed

Ed — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 00:51:54 +0000

Wally makes some good points. We should be preparing students for the real world. The real world does not adjust for a few individuals to see that they are not embarrassed. How about trying the opposite like making the individuals who work, participate, show effort, and apply themselves earn their A. It seems to work for me in a VERY poor urban school. Mr. Spence Rogers: please come to my school and try your experiments and tell us how it works. You will be spending your entire school day and nights trying to figure out why 90% of your students are flunking. The students are not stupid. They see right through patronizing, favoritism, and special treatment.

By: Karen

Karen — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 22:17:14 +0000

I like the idea of deflective Q-ing…. but is that like saying, “How would ELMO answer it?” or naming a character in the book/historical figure? I don’t think you’d name another student, right?

Also good Questioning is to have the student “explain it so a __year-old can understand.”

By: Wally

Wally — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 21:58:59 +0000

More touchy feely nonsense that gives kids a FALSE sense of the real world. This is just like NOT keeping score in kiddie soccer and giving everyone a trophy. Kids KNOW exactly where they fit despite any fake suggestions to the contrary. The ONLY way to build genuine self esteem and thus confidence in their ability is to coach and guide children to actually LEARN something well and be able to apply it.
Students should NEVER be allowed to group themselves for activities. We are the trained professional who should group the kids based on knowledge of the kids abilities and make the groups homogeneous by skill level or heterogeneous depending on the activity and the desired result!