Providing Multiple Opportunities to Respond
- Laurie Yogi
- August 8, 2018
- MTSS, procedural pcms, Tier I
- No Comments
Sophocles once said, “One must learn by doing the thing; for though you think you know it, you have no certainty, until you try.” His words represent a common sense idea that we in the education field know well – practice leads to mastery. Put another way, learning is not a spectator sport.
In our MTSS training we are reminded that effective teaching must pass “the dead man’s test”. In other words, if a “dead man” could get through the class period just fine the way you are teaching the material, you aren’t engaging your learners enough!
Practicing PCM #16, which is all about giving students a variety of Opportunities to Respond to your instruction, will help keep them engaged, and solidify their learning, and get them closer to the level of mastery that we all want for them.
The value of providing OTR
It is well known that research has established a positive connection between effective instruction and high levels of student engagement and as a result, higher student achievement. When engagement is high, fewer minutes are spent reprimanding, correcting, and redirecting. Plus, a proactive approach will lead to positive relationships among the classroom community!
Increasing your students’ opportunities to respond to your instruction (before assessment time) has these benefits:
- The more time students are involved, the more is learned
- Increased rates of responding (and subsequent improved learning) tends to increase the amount that can be covered
- On-task behavior and correct response increase, while disruptions decrease
- Reduces the traditional reliance on student volunteer responses
- Increases randomness of responders to keep students actively engaged
- Provides continual feedback for the teach on student learning and the effectiveness of teaching strategies
So what is OTR and how do we do it?
When we say Opportunities to Respond, we are really meaning increasing the opportunities for students to be engaged in active participation in their own learning. Students may respond with gestures, actions, or verbally and may do so either individually or chorally as a class, depending on the situation. Ideally, this should help the teacher gain formative information from the students during the instruction, before the assessment, and not take time away from the flow of the class.
3 parts to the OTR strategy
THE PROMPT: Teacher Provides – Prompts and Wait Time
THE RESPONSE: Student Responds – Read, Write, Verbal/Non-Verbal Answer (Use wait time)
THE FEEDBACK: Teacher Provides – Specific, positive feedback to student(s)
Use responding types at your discretion, appropriate to the situation. Here are some ideas:
Oral Responding
- Choral response
- Think-pair-share
- Partner response
Written Responding
- Response cards
- White boards
- Think-jot-share
- Pair and write
Team Responding
- Numbered heads together
- Jigsaw
Unison Responding
Examples:
- Choral response
- White-boards
- Response cards
Action Responding
- Touching/pointing
- Gestures
- Acting out
- Hand signals
- Facial expressions
Highlights of the OTR strategy
- Always strive for all students to participate (i.e. many responses, many responders)
- Starts with an instructional question, statement, or gesture made by the teacher
- Use clear, consistent prompts to elicit the response you are looking for
- Use wait time of 3-5 seconds before requesting response, to increase participation
- Choose OTR strategies that best fit your teaching style, content, and classroom culture
When do we use OTR?
- Activating prior knowledge (helps give teacher formative data on students’ initial background)
- When presenting the learning objective (making it clear; making sure the students are clear)
- To check for understanding during direct instruction, guided practice, or independent practice
- At the end of a lesson to give more data about understanding the content
Key components of OTR:
- Teacher talk should be no more than 40-50% of instructional time
- New material – a minimum of 4-6 responses from students per minute with 80% accuracy
- Review of previously learned material – 8-12 responses per minute with 90% accuracy
- Peer coaching or video-taping can help to develop awareness
*Council for Exceptional Children, 1987; Reinke, Herman & Stormont, 2013
25 OTR Examples:
Individual Questioning – calling on students unpredictably heightens student attention
- Ask the question first, then pause before calling on a student to respond
- Use seating chart, tallying to monitor rate of questions presented to each
- Student names on strips of paper, drawn as questions asked
- Use one of the strategies mentioned above, and call on a student to repeat or summarize what the student just said
Choral Responding – all students in class respond in unison to a teacher question (VIDEO) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eKkR0EpvrcM
- Suitable for review or rote rehearsal
- To teach new skills
- As a drill
- As a focusing tool
- To rehearse academic language
- As a lesson summary
Quartet Quiz (VIDEO) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v8uYS48BIUw
- Teacher poses question
- Students write/prepare response
- Students meet in quads and check answers
- Summarizer reports “we know.. we wonder.. “
- Teacher records/clarifies/gives next steps
Whip Around – used to do a quick survey of students’ knowledge or generate new ideas
- Teacher poses open-ended question
- Students write response individually
- Students read written responses rapidly, in specified order (encouraged to not repeat)
- Teacher hears all responses, takes notes (either mentally, or written)
- Develop closure/summary/clarification
Cold Calling (VIDEO: 6th grade student interviews about the strategy used with them) https://vimeo.com/43990521
Numbered Heads Together (VIDEO) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BLHDHlVhcug
- Students in quads, assigned a number
- Teacher poses question
- Group discusses/agrees on answer
- Random/specific numbered students get called on to report
Body Movement
- Total Physical Response: Middle School
- Total Physical Response Teaching Strategy: High School AP Literature Class
- Whole Brain Teaching: 7th Grade Science
Stoplight (exit pass and formative information for teacher) (VIDEO) https://www.teachingchannel.org/videos/daily-lesson-assessment
Chalk Talk (VIDEO) https://vimeo.com/101254151
Think-Pair-Share (VIDEO: 7th grade math example with simplifying expressions) https://www.teachingchannel.org/videos/think-pair-share-lesson-idea
Take a Stand (VIDEO) https://vimeo.com/101559969
Playing Cards (VIDEO: 7th grade math)
https://www.teachingchannel.org/videos/improve-student-participation
Guided Notes – teacher prepared handouts leading students through a presentation or lecture with visual cues or prepared blank spaces to fill in key facts or concepts
- Increases attention and engagement (especially helpful for struggling learners)
- Provides a standard set of notes with the information you want on them
- Helps with outlining skills (can wean them over time)
- Can differentiate based on who no longer needs the guided notes (more open ended)
- Consider inserting concept maps or a chart, diagram, or graph to help with understanding
- Provide students with formatting clues such as blank lines, numbers, bullets, etc.
- Guided notes maker tool: https://www.interventioncentral.org/rti2/guided_notes
Response Cards – pre-printed cards, signs or items that have choice words on each side held up simultaneously (VIDEO) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tXbGDmo0Pj4
- Yes/No, True/False, Odd/Even, Agree/Disagree
- Set of few choices (e.g., noun, pronoun, verb, adverb, letters, numbers, story elements)
- Maintain lively pace with short time between questions
- Give clear cues
- OK to look at classmates’ cards
- Specific, positive feedback for correct answers and use of cards
- Teach, model and practice the routine
Game-Based Learning, Quizzes or Poll-taking
Can you find the many ways this teacher gives her students OTR?
Shortly after science class started, the teacher announced, “We have a small block of ice and the same sized block of butter. Tell your neighbor which one would melt first.” A few seconds later the teacher said, “Please write down in one sentence an explanation for your answer.”
A few minutes later, the teacher told students to share with their neighbor what they had written. Shortly thereafter, the teacher called on one student to tell the class her answer.
The teacher then asked to the class to raise their hand if they agreed with the answer. Then the teacher asked students to give a thumb down if anyone disagreed.
Some final thoughts on OTR
If you are like every teacher on the planet, you really just want to help your students make sense of the content, and understand fully what you are teaching them. After all, it’s no fun spending your semester wondering in frustration why it is that they didn’t “get it” after you “just taught it”.
While giving kids more opportunities to be active learners, it’s important to remember that not all OTRs are created equal (and that there are many others you can try that are beyond the scope of this article). As mentioned, you may not have success with some of them, and yet, with others you’ll knock it out of the park!
As you continue to strive for more engagement, the goal is that your students will be more excited about learning for learning’s sake, and not worry solely if “this is on the test.” With increased opportunities to respond, you’ll be helping your students see that learning is a process that is important, challenging, engaging, and even fun!
What are some ways you might increase your OTR rate in the classroom this year?
Good luck!
Research