(soft acoustic music)
[Narrator] The more time students spend actively engaged during instruction, the more likely they are to learn, remain on task, and demonstrate expected behaviours. During today's art lesson, I'm going to provide opportunities to respond, or OTRs, to my students during instruction. I'll use questions, statements, or gestures to seek an active response.
To make things efficient, I teach and practice how each OTR works with students. Research suggests OTRs are most effective when each student has many opportunities to respond and there's a high likelihood of success. For new material, this means aiming for four to six responses per minute and accurate responses 80% of the time. When reviewing material, this increases to eight to twelve responses per minute and accurate responses 90% of the time.
My first tip is to use a variety of verbal response techniques to encourage both individual and choral responses.
"Ah, Harvey, it's your turn. Orange is made up of yellow, and what other colour?"
Remember to pause and allow sufficient think time for your learners to increase participation. Also, consider how you can increase nonverbal response options. My top tips are to use whiteboards, response cards, signalling and movement responses, and technology.
My last tip is to analyse, plan, and prepare. Collecting baseline data helps me understand my current use of OTRs, so that I can plan how and when to focus on increasing OTRs to get the right balance, particularly during those tricky times in the week. And don't forget to monitor your progress, so that you can adjust your approach.
Together, these techniques help me to support students in achieving academic success and demonstrate expected behaviours in the classroom.
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