Interactive Lectures: Learning Cycles

After teaching the same lesson on the Elements of Democracy last year, this year I updated the lesson based on what I had learned in PD, both in the Canada World Studies meetings and our PD sessions with Don Plumb. In the CWS meetings, we learned about “interactive lectures” which chunks information into 5 minute segments, followed by guided practice and formative assessment – such as quick writing tasks and pair-share activities. According to Mike Schmoker, author of Focus: Elevating the Essentials to Radically Improve Student Learning, these periodic breaks “give students the chance to process their learning by drawing conclusions and making inferences…All the while the teachers is observing and listening to ensure that all students are satisfactorily learning before the teachers moves on.” (Schmoker 71). In addition, as part of our PD sessions with Don, we learned about the use of learning cycles in lesson planning, which include instruction, guided practice, and checks for understanding. After reflecting on the success of the Elements of Democracy lesson in past classes, I decided to revamp this lesson by using the principles of the interactive lesson and learning cycles. I broke the information into manageable pieces and built in time and short activities for processing. These activities included think-pair-share; round table; silent written reflection; and then moved on to activities that required higher order thinking skills, such comparing and analyzing. Based on future short assessment exercises in class, such as journal entries and formative case studies, students seemed to retain this information better, which proved helpful as the elements of democracy are essential ideas for this course.   Schmoker, Michael J. Focus: Elevating the Essentials to Radically Improve Student Learning. Alexandria, VA: ASCD, 2011. Print.