Last Friday, we spent some time at work listening to a webinar by Lead4ward about intervention strategies. It was perfect timing because I had gotten a call earlier in the week from a dean I work with reflecting on a recent common assessment she and her PLC gave. Although the results were not as she hoped, I loved that she wanted to talk through some ideas of intervention instead of simply moving on. Below are some ideas from the webinar that I sent to her and another campus I work with as we continue the conversations about what we can do to create intentional intervention in the moment and after an assessment:

In the moment:

First, I love this quote from the Lead4ward presenter: “you don’t have to change everything to change everything.” This first strategy, the 10:2 rule, falls right with that in the way that our interventions don’t have to be ground breaking, but if they are intentional, they will make a great impact.

10:2 Rule: I actually posted about 10:2 to Instagram last week and then the Lead4ward webinar included an idea that would fit perfectly with it. The 10:2 rule is something I was reminded about at a Learning Forward PD and simply means for every 10 minutes of instruction, allow 2 minutes of processing time for students. On the Lead4ward webinar, he suggested a strategy that I think works great for the 2 minutes called the Ping Pong Summary. One person, “Ping,” explains their answer to a given prompt (the prompt could be something like describe your first step in solving ______ or summarize with 3 facts what we have just learned) and then “Pong” adds to, clarifies, extends what they just heard. Instead of powering through the instruction, this intentional processing time allows for immediate intervention and reflection.

After the Assessment:

While we want to be consistently intervening during lessons, there may be students who still don’t get it after an assessment. Lead4ward explained these two ideas below that I shared with my campuses:

Get to the Point: I love this strategy if you want a simple way to create buy in for going over assessment items. Simply cut apart a test (or a review if you are doing this before the test) question by question and hang them up around the room. Have students put a sticky dot or a check mark on 3 problems they want the teacher to go over. Pick from the top ones and then use Brain in the Game (I edited this with math terms below) to analyze the question before actually doing the math. After sending this to some teachers, one of the Algebra II teachers is going to try both of these next week before the test as a way to review and remediate tough questions. I’m looking forward to seeing how it goes in her classroom!

3-2-1 Test Review: I wish I had seen this template before I wrote my last newsletter for Kelly Harmon as it was all about assessment capable learners and having students reflect on and learn from mistakes. It would have been so great to include, but I’m glad I learned about it now and can help incorporate it going forward. This is to be used after a test and then I love the way Lead4ward combined it with a Shake and Share (similar to Hand Up-Pair Up) to have students discuss and learn from each other.

Let me know if you try out any of these strategies or others from Lead4ward for intervention!