Wednesday, October 21, 2015

Using Teach Okay!

Teach Okay is my LIFESAVER!

It is one of those years, my class would talk ALL day if they could.  They all have opinions and want to share ALL the time!  I also have those students that don't seem to be listening at times.  My solution?  Teach Okay!

Using Teach Okay
Teach Okay can be used all day in all content!  The key to Teach OK is to give information in short chunks then have students turn and repeat the information.  I follow the WBT lesson design format below and it keeps students engaged the whole lesson.

1.  Content Question:  The question today is, What is ___?   (Think objective, learning target, etc)
      Teach OK:  Students turn to partner and share the question.

2.  The answer:  The content or objective you want students to learn.  This may be a simple sentence or a series fo sentences for more content.  Ex.  A cylinder is a 3d shape with a circle at both ends.
       Teach OK:  Student turn and share the answer.

3.  Examples and Expansion:  This is were you will expand to give all the information that you want students to learn and give examples.  You should start simple and increase content complexity to increase critical thinking.  It is important to teach the material in small chunks and then do teach okay.  

4.  Students give examples to each other using teach okay.

Variations:  Predict, Summarize, Anaylze, etc
In order to increase my students critical thinking skills I teach them the critical thinking skills of predict, summarize, analyze etc.  Then instead of teach I will use one of those words.  An easy way to teach this is during read aloud.  I start with predict.  While reading a read aloud, we will stop to do "predict okay."  This is where it is a lifesaver.  My students love getting to share and get that opportunity multiple times without having to wait for a turn.  You can use summarize, analyze, etc in place of teach when that is the goal of your lesson!

Here is a great video by WBT staff member Kate Bowski.  It is brief but gives great ideas for how to get started using Teach Ok and how to keep it exciting for your students!


You can also check out pages 27-29 of 122 Amazing Games or Chapters 8-10 of Whole Brain Teaching for Challenging Kids

No comments:

Post a Comment