A couple weeks ago, I received an email from Lacey Currie. She noticed that her students seemed disengaged during SIPPS and wondered if I would come in for a demo lesson. Being the nerd that I am, I asked if she might be interested in a SIPPS lesson study spanning over three days. And being the good friend that she is, she obliged.
We started on Tuesday during the second grade Scholar Switch. She and the other two classes level their students four days a week. Lacey has 14 students in her group, and she teaches two groups during her Scholar Switch time. While one group is with her at the carpet, the other group is on Lexia. When we started our lesson study, we began with Extension 35.
Our focus for this lesson study started with student engagement, but keep reading to find out where our biggest takeaways occurred...
Day 1
Lacey and I each taught a group the first day. Indeed, some students exhibited off-task behaviors: blurting, staring off into the distance, and other signs of disengagement. A few students struggled with sitting upright at the carpet, so there was a lot of movement and some rolling around from a couple little ones.
At the end of our lessons, we reflected and committed to four changes for the following day:
-Set up chairs in a semi-circle for the students instead of having them sit on the carpet.
-Make sure to point and pause when reviewing the mixed word list.
-Listen for the collective voice rather than individual voices. (Instead of calling on one student, ask for the whole group to respond.)
-Move a student from one group to the other to balance out the personalities of the groups.
Day 2
The second day started with the students sitting in chairs - and wow, what a difference it made! I’ve heard Ann Leon talk about using chairs at the carpet, but didn’t understand the power until I saw it in Lacey’s room. Setting up the chairs required a bit of prep on Lacey’s behalf, but she gave the task to students (who were happy to help!).
When reading the mixed word list, we made sure to point and pause, which seemed to positively impact student engagement. When we provided the think-time that some students needed, we were hearing a collective voice instead of just one or two students.
Moving a student did help balance the groups, but we also think the chairs helped students focus and pay better attention during the lesson.
After the second day of lessons, we decided to change up the guided spelling practice. After students asked, “Which (vowel sound)”, we would not point to the card or name the card (i.e., “Look at the noisy toy card”). Instead, we decided to only hold up fingers to indicate which spelling to use.
Day 3
During our third and final lesson, we weren’t sure if students would be as successful in their spelling if they weren’t directed to the correct card, but guess what… they were successful! We found that the change with guided spelling required the students do the heavy lifting, adding rigor to the lesson.
Reflection
While our changes positively impacted student engagement, we found that a lot of our debriefing time was spent talking about structure. Structure is built into SIPPS through the routines for each section. During every lesson, we found ourselves following that structure more consistently. At the end of our second lesson, Lacey said to me, “I was tweaking the lessons to fit my teaching style, but after watching you, I can see the purpose of the structure and routines.”
It’s so true - the structure and routines are built for a purpose. In fact, the SIPPS program meets our high quality instruction criteria. The structure is clearly laid out in the lesson, and keeping to that structure allows for engagement and accountability. Without first establishing culture and building relationships with students, we can’t get to this level of instruction. Through this lesson study, we can see how the pillars of high quality instruction overlap in SIPPS.
A huge shout-out to Lacey Currie for letting me experiment with her class during this lesson study!
