As any teacher knows, practice is needed for students to learn to do anything, be it sports or math. It does not mean getting them to do it perfectly the first time because more learning goes on when they make mistakes and have to correct them.
Guided practice is a way to help students practice learning a new skill or old skill at their developmental level with increasing levels of difficulty. In class, it is easy to plan for guided practice but it is not as easy when you have less time with the students in class. Normally, it would be possible to divide students up into groups to work but with Covid-19, it is not as easy.
Fortunately, there are some methods of guided practice we can use in this time of unique instruction. One is called the "Gradual Release of Responsibility Method" which is also known as the "I do, We do, You do" model. This method moves from teacher focused to student focused by transferring responsibility.
When the teacher models the action, it is the "I do" part. With the teacher modeling, students get a chance to see the task and how it is done. It introduces them to it. It is suggested that teachers break the material into small, clear, steps by using some sort of visual chart to help students understand the process. Include mnemonic and acronyms to help facilitate student recall while encouraging students to take notes of things they might have trouble remembering in the future. Furthermore, it is important to give students time to ask questions at the end of each step for clarification and to allow them time to process.
The next step is the "We do" stage where it is done together. I've done this stage by having students do the same process I modeled in the "I do" stage. This can also be done by working in small groups or in pairs. In terms of zoom, it would be done via the use of breakout room but it is much harder with the 6 foot distancing which is why one can create worksheets with missing information that students fill in.
In addition, one might ask what the next step is? This helps students work on recall to move the information from short term to long term memory. One might also ask students to debate whether a certain step is better than another such as would you divide by the number outside the parenthesis in a distributive property problem rather than multiplying?
The "You do" stage is actually divided into two parts. In the first part the teacher is facilitating responsibility from herself to the students and in the second stage, students are given full responsibility for completing the problems. In the first part, students are encouraged to complete as much of the task as possible with the teacher stepping in to gently guide the student towards completion. In this stage, teachers should ask students to explain what they've done and why they did it that way. Students should be encouraged to ask questions when they stall and teachers should provide direction via open-ended questions, prompts, or nudges to help the student remember the next step.
In the final stage for "You do", the student is expected to complete a task from start to finish and be assigned a number of problems to complete to reinforce learning. One can also have students do similar problems that have a small twist or are just a bit different to help with transference of material.
Sometimes having group or pair work is difficult in class due to the coronavirus. I've found that if I create a worksheet with an example complete with explanation and then write the following problems so students fill in the missing material, it can do the same thing. What I mean about following problems is that I might have two or three that are missing the final step so students have to write that in. Then I might cut out the final two steps so students have to fill those in to complete the problem. Eventually, the only thing students have is the problem it's self. This has been especially helpful for students who struggle with math.
Let me know what you think, I'd love to hear. Have a great day.
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