Several years back we had a wonderful principal that got our staff excited about Professional Development. He would bring us a book each year and we would use it to inspire us to be better teachers. I think many people on my staff would say that the book Teach Like a Champion was our all time favorite. We studied it for two years. Now, a few years later, our new principal is having us review it for new teachers and every time I look at it I’m inspired.
The long title is Teach Like a Champion: 49 Techniques that Put Students on the Path to College.
Why do we like it so much? In just a few minutes, you can find one technique to improve your classroom.
You don’t have to read the book cover to cover. You can open up to one technique that interests you, read about how to use it and how it’s been successful for others. The book even has a DVD in the back that shows glimpses into classrooms using the technique.
The techniques can be very simple, but the results are powerful.
As our school went through the book, we chose a few to become norms for the entire school. Today I’ll share one.
Technique #22 Cold Call
Cold call is an engagement strategy. Calling on students that raise their hand doesn’t engage everyone. Kids learn that you’ll do that and they can safely space out. However, if students never know when they will be called on, they are motivated to participate. You can just randomly call on someone. You can have popsicle sticks with kids name on them and pull them. One teacher at our school put kids names on playing cards and then also added notes to the cards about the students needs or ELD levels. There are also many versions to randomly call on students with interactive white boards.
Here are few I found on Pinterest:
As I find more, I’ll pin them here.
The techniques in Teach Like a Champion can help new and experienced teachers. It sounds like a commercial or paid endorsement but it’s not. I’ve been surprised that I haven’t seen this book mentioned on blogs because I think it is a great easy to use resource for new or experienced teachers.
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