Cognitive Engagement Model

While observing my MT I noticed she favors the lecture style of teaching. The kids are not very engaged because they can only sit still and listen for a while even in a 6th grade classroom. I noticed a majority of the students in my field classroom like to move around and I think that helps them stay focused, however when they have to sit on the carpet and listen to my MT they become restless. On several occasions I have observed my MT engaging the students by calling on them to read out loud or every few paragraphs ask questions during their reading block. Which put the students into a position to be accountable for paying attention to the story. I believe that my MT utilizes this method of lecturing because she is getting them prepared for

middle school.
As reading block approaches in J101 my MT gathers the students to the carpet, with Spring Board in hand, and begins to read.

Right now the students are reading personal narrative because soon they must write their own personal narrative. My MT methods of teaching personal narratives falls into quadrant 3 of the Cognitive Engagement Model (Himmele & Himmele, 2011). My MT models what a personal narrative is and what writing techniques makes a good story, but she is also working on reading skills. The focus in reading right now is story plot so the students must identify the setting, rising action, climax, falling action and the resolution. My MT uses high cognitive action when she instructs the students to fill out the plot graphic organizer. During that lesson students must retain the information from the story and identify which part of the plot the detail from the story falls into (Himmele & Himmele, 2011). Consequently there is little verbal participation that is happening in the classroom at that time. Additionally, while everyone is reading the story my MT calls on select students to seek out descriptive words and asks about the conflict of the story- unfortunately only a few participate. According to Himmele this type of learning causes a Receivement Gap because only a select few of the student are benefiting from the high order thinking. However, the other students are not because they are not active in the conversation or do not understand (Himmele & Himmele,

2011).
While planning my math lesson for last Monday I incorporated the total participation task (TPT) of Thumbs up when ready with some slight modifications (Himmele & Himmele, 2011 p.39). Instead of having the students put their thumbs up when they were done thinking about a certain math problem or down if they were not. I asked them to put their thumbs up if they understood the problem and thumbs down if they did not (Himmele & Himmele, 2011 p.39). This help me identify who in the class needed more practice on a certain concept and which students were ready for more problems. This TPT was extremely helpful as I was able to pull a small group of students to work with and give the other students more challenging problems. I used this TPT throughout the whole lesson because when I noticed that all of the student’s thumbs were down I would then augment my lesson plan to review the problem again or do a similar problem with them.