It was during an IEP meeting that I learned Nicholas would be joining my 4th grade classroom the following Monday. Nicholas was on the autism spectrum and had spent the first 4 years of his elementary school years bouncing back and forth between self-contained and mainstream classrooms. His parents were excited and hopeful for the mainstream placement, but surprisingly my biggest detractor was a colleague.  

The special education teacher, who monitored Nicholas's IEP and would be checking in on him monthly, did not want him placed in "the GLAD teacher's classroom." Her biggest concern was the overstimulation that would surely be a problem for him from all the charts posted on the walls. Yes, my classroom was covered with layers of chart paper that my students and I sketched on, wrote on, highlighted, covered with word cards and pictures, read, chanted, and recited on a daily basis.  

I knew Nicholas would most likely be fine, but I needed to convince my colleague.  

How do ...

INTRODUCING A QUICK AND EASY WAY TO OPTIMIZE TEAM COLLABORATION WITH TEAM TASKS

Have you ever been part of a team or committee where one person does all the work?  Or conversely, one person doesn’t contribute.  The same holds true for our students.  

Have you ever tried moving desks into team formation… and then reverting back to rows because it was so painful?  Yep.  We know the feeling.  

Once students are in teams we start by teaching the social skills needed for collaboration to take place. What does collaboration look like?  Sound like? (See T-Graph for Social Skills in Acceleration 101: Setting the Stage). 

Once you have teams and the T-Graph for Social Skills in place, it’s time to assign team projects or “tasks.”  

Setting up those team task for success is our insider tip for today! 

Spencer Kagan is a researcher we refer to for ideas to support cooperative learning. His cooperative learning structures revolve around four key principles to increase engagement duri...

One of our favorite parts of a GLAD® training is on the last day of the demo when we ask the students what helped them learn. One of their favorite parts is always working with a team during team tasks. The student teams are usually very cooperative and productive during that time but there are occasions, just like in real life, when they are not. In order to be convinced that cooperative learning is worth the effort, the teachers will understandably ask:  

What do I do if my kids are messing around during team tasks?  Does the quality of their work matter? 

The short answer is – Yes, the quality of their work matters. Here are a few key points to keep in mind. 

• The purpose of team tasks is small group practice. Remember, in the gradual release of responsibility model we start with whole class for input, small group for practice, and individual work for assessment.  All of the team tasks will eventually turn into individual tasks that you will assess. Since work at the team level ...

Bell to bell instruction is the idea that everything that happens from the start bell until the dismissal bell is an academic task that engages students toward the learning goals. It is one of the characteristics of a high performing school. 

There are many ways that teachers can accomplish this, but we’ll focus on one idea. Reducing transition time! 

Let’s reflect on how many transitions there are in the average school day and how much time they take away from instructional minutes available. In the average elementary classroom, there are between 5-10 transitions a day. Come sit on the carpet, go back to your seat, go to your reading group, wash your hands, line up for a specialist or lunch, walk to and from specials or lunch, etc. If each one of these transitions, conservatively, takes 3 minutes that’s 15-30 minutes of lost instruction time a day. If we’re counting based on the reality of a 5-8 minute transition, that is 25-80 minutes of lost instruction time a day. A 15-m...

Have you ever used matching worksheets with students? 

You know, the ones where students connect vocabulary words to the correct definitions, math problems to the correct solutions, beginning sounds to the matching pictures...   

These can be helpful tools for individual assessment and preparing students for similar testing techniques in standardized tests.  They can be made even more kinesthetic and engaging through online tools such as Jamboard for individual practice at home.  

That’s nice, you say… but what does this have to do with Project GLAD®? 

Project GLAD® strategies have the power to take what you already do or need to teach, and present it to students in a way that increases language development, communication, social interaction, memory retention and student engagement.

The “GLAD” version of a matching worksheet is a strategy called...drumroll please...

Where’s My Answer

Where’s My Answer can be used in any subject area or grade level.  

Simply take the items stu...

The beginning of the school year brings with it the feelings of anticipation, excitement, and nervousness for students and teachers alike. Dusting off our classroom libraries, moving furniture, and preparing bulletin board space for our students’ first projects are physical tasks we do to set up our classrooms. But we also set up our classrooms by thinking through the classroom structures and routines we’ll use this year.

Were the management structures you used last year effective? Are revisions needed?

Here are 3 quick steps to set up your GLAD® classroom: 

1. Create your heterogeneous seating chart

Place student desks in teams of 3 or 4. Use any data from last year you have available to create your best guess of heterogeneity. Mix students from different reading levels, problem solving abilities, language proficiency levels, behavior, gender, etc. You’ll be able to update your seating chart the second time around as your beginning of the year assessments are complete and ...

Tone down the talking (teacher talk, that is!)

Project GLAD® has become synonymous with making content accessible and retainable for all students.  It’s known for creating positive, collaborative classroom cultures.  We tout its ability to increase relevancy and cultural proficiency in the learning process.  

Beyond all those benefits...

Project GLAD® is about learning language! 

All our students are language learners.  Whether we’re teaching in a dual language classroom or introducing content specific vocabulary in math, science, art, and literature.  

Guided Oral Practice is one of the main components in Project GLAD.  The idea is for students to learn language, they need to practice speaking that language.

The question is... 

How can we increase and guide student talk? 

How much space is there in the day or class period for students to talk?  Imagine if we took all the time we try to get students to be silent and repurposed it to promote talking? 

Sidenote:  For the Middle ...

Favorite Strategy Extension: Add to the Walls

Raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens.  Bright copper kettles and…

Ah, February is a month for favorite things! 

Favorite people. 

Favorite flowers.

And favorite strategy extensions.

A favorite conference presentation for teachers is when we present a strategy with extensions that go beyond the basics.  This year at NABE and WABE we’re focusing on extending Chants above and beyond with various Add to the Walls options.   

INTRODUCING: ADD TO THE WALLS

Today, we’re focusing on using Add to the Walls with Chants.  But the process works alongside any GLAD® chart: Pictorials, Found Poetry, you name it! 

Once a chant has been processed whole class, it's time for teams, partners and individuals to interact with the vocabulary and content through a variety of menu options called Add to the Walls. This strengthens student vocabulary usage and deepens content depth of knowledge in a differentiated setting.

Our 6 favorite Add to ...

I admit, I’m one of those people who wait until the beginning of a new year, a new month or a new week to launch a new habit or goal. I just love that feeling of a fresh start. 

And yes, I have dozens of half finished journals around the house. Each one heralding a fresh start with a habit I’m still working on actually becoming a habit.

If you’ve been in our coaching courses or training, we will tell you, 

“Any day and every day can be a fresh start.” 

It’s true.  But there’s nothing quite so encouraging as a NEW YEAR to push the reset button. 

As educators, we get to experience the impact of a January new beginning in the middle of our school year. 

Wherever you are in your GLAD® journey, we invite you to make January a fresh start month!  The secret is to make that fresh start something that will last longer than my unfinished journals. 

This week at Costco, I ran into a retired teacher who started reminiscing about her GLAD® training.  “It really is the golden ticket,” she sa...

Looking for a low-prep December strategy that still packs literacy benefits? 

The classroom is a buzz of activity and energy this time of year. If you're looking to calm the energy, increase engagement, all while practicing literacy skills, look no farther than Listen and Sketch. 

Listen and Sketch is a GLAD strategy where teachers read a descriptive text in chunks. During the reading, students listen. When the teacher pauses, students sketch. The Listen and Sketch strategy practices listening comprehension and visualization.  

There is a growing body of research on the importance of oral language development and listening comprehension. The more background knowledge and vocabulary young children have early on, the better readers they will become.  

Primary reading instruction is a 2-prong model. Students learn decoding skills and comprehension and language skills. However, the same texts cannot be used for these two types of instruction because students' cognitive ability surpasse...