Van Poperin- Weekly Noticing

One of the hardest things for me to generate spontaneously in the classroom is the right kind of feedback I want to give my students when I'm helping them with some kind of independent practice of our literacy or math skills.  For the students who are showing mastery of the activity, I wonder how exactly to probe their thinking to prompt the kind of problem-solving I want them to think about to really see the depth of the information.  I also see the students who are struggling and think similarly about what I could say to further their thinking.  This week, I chose to really pay attention to the way my mentor Meghan handles the learners who are missing a connection in our learning objectives.   For example, during my phonics lesson Meghan circulated with me checking out how our kindergarteners were practicing looking through the words of our picture cards. Stephanie had put a motorcycle with the word "mop."  Instead of telling Stephanie that she had done our activity incorrectly, which makes the students' learning opportunity suddenly negative, Meghan asked her to "check it" with her.  Meghan reminded Stephanie about what we had learned about beginning, middle, and ending sounds and then guided Stephanie through the letter sounds in both motorcycle and mop until Stephanie had an "epiphany" about what she needed to do.  And I think Stephanie learned the information better because it was a connection she made on her own.  The only drawback to this approach that I noticed is how long it took Stephanie to be scaffolded to that point.  Indeed it was more meaningful education and something I want to have in my classroom, but the rush of the classroom doesn't always allow that individual time to be taken.