Ways to Reteach a Topic.

  There are times when we have to reteach material to certain students.  We know we should reteach it using the same methods but what can we do to make reteaching material more effective?

When reteaching content, it is suggested the teacher break the material down into small chunks so students are able to process and learn the material better.  Once they show understanding and mastery of the first chunks, you can introduce more chunks until all of the topic has been learned. If at any point, students show they have not learned the material, try using alternate explanations or problems.

One way to assess understanding is to use a short quiz or questions to determine student misconceptions.  This give a starting point so the teacher can focus on eliminating the misconceptions before moving on.

When reteaching it should consist of controlled, coached, and independent practices.  Controlled practice is when the teacher models and guides the students, usually the first step.  Coached practices are when the students are working more independently and the teacher moves around coaching students while providing feedback, and suggestions.  Finally, independent practice refers to being able to work independently with little coaching or feedback.

It is suggested the independent practice should not be graded but used to analyze strengths and remaining weaknesses. It is the weaknesses which provide the area of reteaching to help students become proficient.

Some days, there is simply not enough time to analyze student understanding to create a proper lesson plan.  Fortunately, there are three easily used strategies for reteaching which can easily be inserted into the lesson.

1. Error Analysis where the teacher posts questions with errors and the students work in small groups to find the errors.  Once they identify the common error, they become more aware of it and can often find it in their own work.  I like this because students often have to be trained to find errors in their work.

2. Create short activities which help students clear up small areas of misunderstanding.  These activities should not be graded, they are just for eliminating misunderstanding.

3. Think aloud where the teacher models their own thinking aloud while mentioning common misconceptions along with explaining why you do what you do. 

Tomorrow, I'm looking at something new to me.  Re-engagement seems to be more student centered while reteaching which seems to be more teacher oriented.  More on that tomorrow.