Teaching for Excellence PEAK Book Study

Alright, all year long I have been learning bits and pieces of PEAK strategies and theories. If you are unfamiliar with PEAK, it stands for Performing Excellence for All Kids. Spence Rogers, the mastermind behind it all, has come up with several amazing teaching strategies for content, classroom management, and more to help teachers teach the generation of today! If you like classrooms that are student-centered, moving, buzzing with curiosity and excitement, then you need to research PEAK a bit more! I have been blessed to have a co-teacher lend me her huge PEAK manual of all manuals to do my book study.

So, for week 1 I'm focusing on Questioning Strategies. The main underlying theory is that you want everyone to be engaged and to feel "safe." So, Accountable Questioning guidelines are as follows:

1. Use open-ended questions.

2. Use deflected questions, such as, "How might Ms. _________ class  answer this question?"

3. Accept only complete sentence answers.

4. Make sure all students agree, say, and write the correct responses.

Some effective question keywords may include: Might, Could, Be, What, If, Someone Else, An Expert

Examples of questions/answers that you can use are:

"I heard someone say...."

"How might _______ be explained better?"

"What questions might someone need to have answered?"

"What questions will someone probably have about...?"

"Explain in a better way what I just tried to say or do."

REMEMBER! Always have students share with a partner first! That way everyone has either said, heard, or had more time to think of possible answers. For example, "When I say, 'go' (Launch Button will get to that another week), turn to your neighbor and tell them one interesting fact you learned during today's lesson." Kids chat excitedly, then teacher says, "May I have your help please? (Wait for everyone to stop talking, raise their hands, and look at you) Now that everyone has heard, said, or thought about an interesting fact, everyone should have an answer. Start your answer with, 'I heard someone say that an interesting fact was....' " Pull a stick or call on a student to answer. And Voila! Everyone has an answer, and everyone was engaged! Students may be hesitant to talk at first, but with proper modeling and plenty of opportunities, they will warm up and become excited to participate! One of my teacher friends said, "You know you didn't ask enough engaging questions when your voice is tired at the end of the day." So let your kids take control! Let them all be responsible for answering AND listening, since both skills are important. Here is a little sign I made to remind myself to ask engaging questions!!!

Next post will be about types of questioning strategies! Happy Monday!