I’ve been publishing a multiyear series on small teaching moves educators can make in the classroom, and today’s post is a continuation of that series that will extend several more months.

‘Thumb Signals and Peer Teaching’

Laleh Ghotbi is a 4th grade teacher at Riley Elementary School and lives in Salt Lake City. She is also a member of the Hope Street Group, a Utah Teacher Fellow, and was one of four finalists for the Salt Lake City school district’s teacher of the year for 2023-24:

Most educators, if not all, implement intentional and subtle teaching strategies in the classroom to assess students’ understanding and enhance their learning and engagement. Here are some examples of small teaching moves that I frequently use in my classroom:

1. Using thumb signals to assess my students’ understanding

This formative-assessment method is straightforward and effective. I utilize a visual aid with thumb signals—thumbs-up (mastered and can teach it), side thumb (almost there), and thumbs-down (not there yet, need extra help).

At the start of each academic year, I introduce this approach to my students, emphasizing that their use of the signs helps me identify those who may need additional support.

Fostering a positive learning environment encourages students to confidently use the thumb signals that reflect their understanding without any fear of judgment. For those indicating a side thumb, I engage in a discussion to uncover challenges, often finding common struggles shared by multiple students.

2. Peer teaching, or as I call it, getting help from the “junior teachers” in the classroom

My students understand that I rely on them to help their peers who may need extra support. Some years, we have students who quickly grasp concepts and are eager to share their understanding with others. I typically kick off peer teaching by inviting volunteers to go to the board and teach the class.

This not only allows me to assess their comprehension but also helps me understand the language they use for teaching. Following that, I assign them to peer teach in one-on-one sessions.

This simple yet effective strategy has been beneficial over the years, particularly this year with a class of 33 4h graders, including 10 with IEPs and 14 who are English learners.

I’m always amazed at how my students come up with creative ways to solve problems and how they share those approaches when teaching others.

3. Engaging in collaborative conversations through a partner or table sharing

Students find it more comfortable to express their thoughts with a peer or a small group rather than in a whole-class setting. In my classroom, I frequently employ Kagan Strategies like Rally Robin (partner share), Round Robin (table share), and stand up-hand up-share up.

The last strategy works particularly well when students are getting a bit bored or sleepy. I play lively music on my phone, and they dance around with their hands up. When the music stops, they pair up with the nearest person and start sharing. To keep this activity more organized, I guide them on who goes first, whether it’s the tallest, someone with the longest hair, the one with more pockets on their shirt, or any other creative criterion.

Typically, each sharing session lasts no more than one to two minutes. As I move around the room, I listen to their discussions. When the time is up, I request volunteer teams or pairs to share the key points of their conversation with the whole class. To ensure active listening, I prompt them to recap what their partner shared.

In summary, not only do these small teaching moves not require significant preparation, but their combined influence creates a rich and supportive educational environment, where students are more likely to be actively involved, feel understood, and experience meaningful learning.

‘You Good?’

Sarah Nichols is a national-board-certified teacher and a Utah Teacher Fellow in Salt Lake City:

In my classroom, the two words that have gone a long way for me in connecting to my students and increasing their engagement are: “You good?”

When I notice that students are disengaging and disconnecting, instead of assuming that their behaviors are a condemnation of my teaching or some private act of defiance, I assume that there is pain or an unmet need behind that withdrawal.

For some students, the “you good?” conversation can happen right at their desks as I walk around the room. For others, I check in with them up at my desk. If I think students may need even more privacy, either because their answer might be sensitive or because they have a reputation to maintain with their peers, I’ll ask to talk to them in the hall.

My follow-up question to these students is, “What do you need to learn/work/be successful today?” I can’t even count how many times I’ve had students put their head down and disengage just because they didn’t have a pencil or weren’t sure which assignment to work on.

I love it when I can break down an easy barrier to participation. Should they be able to self-advocate and solve these problems? Of course. That’s a great life skill. But while they develop that skill, I’m there to offer support.

Sometimes, what they need to be successful is beyond my ability to provide. My students come in with real and real-big problems, and it’s hard for them to do math or write an essay when their mom is in the hospital or their sister just went to jail or their family is living out of their car. While I can (and do) help them access resources for some of these issues, those might not be things I can provide in the moment.

When students have significant, ongoing concerns in their life outside of school, this check-in allows me to be aware of those needs and help students make decisions about prioritizing work considering the mental, emotional, and physical space and energy they might have at that moment.

Students are half-grown humans and deserve comfort, care, and the grace to still be loved even when they have bad days (or weeks…or school years). By having and showing genuine concern and care for them, I can help build up their sense of safety and sense of belonging in our school. That’s good for the students, good for my classroom environment, and good for our community. And it all starts with “You good?”

‘Review, Revision, Reflection’

Valerie Bolling is a 30-year educator, the author of nine books for children, and is currently writing a book for teachers about goal-setting that leads to student success:

Your students have just turned in their latest assignment, and you’ve put aside precious time to read their work. You’re looking forward to seeing all that they’ve learned reflected in their writing. Instead, as you begin to read the first few papers, it’s evident that your students didn’t take the time to read over what they wrote before turning in their work. You get the sinking feeling that the stack of documents in front of you contains many papers like these.

If this experience sounds familiar, you’re not alone. But there’s hope! An instructional move worth making time for—that requires very little prep and greatly benefits students—is to build in time for the three Rs: review, revision, and reflection.

Before students submit an assignment, allow a few minutes of class time for them to read it over. Not only should they review what they wrote—and make quick revisions and edits—but they should also review the directions that accompany the assignment to make sure they’ve responded thoroughly to all the requirements. For example, did they include specific quotes and/or examples from the text when they are asked to support their thinking with evidence from the text? Did they demonstrate how they solved each step of the math problems when they are required to show their work? If not, they can do so before submitting it.

This seems so simple and obvious, but, as you know, students often hand in assignments that they haven’t taken the time to read over carefully. Making review and revision a requirement—before handing in work—ensures it will happen. To further enrich this opportunity, you can also provide time for peer review and/or the chance for students to reflect on what they did well and what they can improve in their assignment.

Though reflection can occur before an assignment is handed in, it should also occur when assignments and assessments are returned. Students should reflect on what they did well, so they can replicate it in future work, and they should also note areas where they can do a better job the next time.

If you’ve had students set goals, they can reflect on their progress toward their goals based on the feedback they received from you on the assignment. They can notice the progress they made and what they can continue to work on, jotting this down on a goal-monitoring sheet or somewhere else they can turn to—and be reminded of—before starting their next assignment.

Hopefully, if you provide time in class for students to review and revise their work and reflect upon their performance, they will eventually do this on their own outside of school. After all, this is an integral part of how students become independent learners and take responsibility for how they can achieve greater academic success.

In schools, both teachers and students often rush from one subject to the next—or from one assignment to the next—without taking time to pause. Making time to review, revise, and reflect is an important part of the learning process. When you provide your students with time to do this, you indicate that process and growth are as important as the final product. Make sure you take time for yourself to review, revise, and reflect, too, on the lessons you teach each day and on the academic goals you have set for yourself and your students.

Writing Everywhere!

Angela M. Ward, Ph.D. is a veteran anti-racist educator with over 27 of experience in the field and a Public Voice Fellow at UT Austin with The OpEd Project. Follow her @2WardEquity on Instagram, Threads & Twitter (X):

Writing across the curriculum.

In an era of test prep and accountability measures, it is hard for teachers to make the time for writing, a teaching move that increases student engagement and learning.

As a writing teacher, my favorite teaching move was to use a prompt to spur my students’ imagination. We wrote a list of prompts in our writing journals for the days when we couldn’t think of anything to write about. In science, my students wrote from the perspective of a seed. In history, they wrote from the perspective of a historical figure or from the perspective of a person in a piece of historical fiction we were reading.

The students had a routine prompt to: rate how you are feeling today from 1-5 and write a few sentences about why.

Writing is a small teaching move. One journal set aside for all writing is a teaching move that you can use at any moment to engage students in deep thinking. Writing their thoughts and then discussing them in the context of the curriculum requires little to no prep on your part and is an easy routine to develop lifelong habits of reflection and inquiry in your students.

Thanks to Laleh, Sarah, Valerie, and Angela for contributing their thoughts!

Today’s post answered this question:

What is a “small teaching move” that you think is not as common as it should be? A small teaching move in this context is an action that would require very little prep, can easily be made into a routine or habit, and is likely to result in increased student engagement and learning.

In Part One, published last fall, Maegan Giroux, Amanda Muffler, Cindy Garcia, and PJ Caposey shared their ideas.

Consider contributing a question to be answered in a future post. You can send one to me at [email protected]. When you send it in, let me know if I can use your real name if it’s selected or if you’d prefer remaining anonymous and have a pseudonym in mind.

You can also contact me on Twitter at @Larryferlazzo.

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