CTE Workcell courses are built around student-centered learning and assessment. This enables teachers to meet students where they are, so that they are teaching and learning in partnership with one another. In order to effectively implement the Units in the course, teachers are put in the role of facilitator, where they are continually in a responsive and reflective cycle of teaching and learning.
Conversations and check-ins with students occur regularly throughout the course, and within a class period. From the co-creation of learning targets at the start of a Unit to the Debrief Conversation at the end, students and teachers are continually assessing and reflecting on their learning and progress. This is built into the course materials in a variety of ways:
- Co-creating learning targets – students and teachers co-create learning targets based on what students will need to do and learn to complete the Unit.
- Whole group reflections – the Mid-Unit Reflection and Goal Adjustment, as well as the Wrap Up Reflection allow students and teachers to reflect on their progress.
- Check Your Understanding questions – students answer CYU questions at the end of each Lesson, to assess if they understood the concepts in the Lesson before moving forward.
- Engineering notebook documentation – students are prompted to record their learning throughout the Lessons.
- Conversations and check-ins during class – students are prompted to check in with their teacher throughout a Unit, and teachers regularly check in with students, ask and answer questions, and look at notebook documentation while students are working.
Each of these moments offer teachers the opportunity to engage in formative assessment with students, so that they can adapt and respond in real time with their teaching strategies. In particular, the Check Your Understanding questions give a quick and easy way to assess students’ level of understanding of the concepts in the Lesson.
Once students have completed answering the CYU questions, have the group or whole class discuss their answers. Students can share their answers and why they chose that answer. This gives group members the opportunity to learn from one another and for you to hear how they are understanding each concept.
If you find that students are not clear on the concepts from the Lesson, you have a moment to address those misconceptions or misunderstandings – using the formative assessment to form your teaching moving forward.
Addressing Individual Misconceptions
When individual students struggle with concepts, personalized attention becomes essential. Here are strategies to guide one-on-one reteaching:
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Diagnostic Conversations: Engage the student in a conversation to precisely identify their misunderstanding.
- Use probing questions that encourage them to explain their thought process. This could be asking students to explain how they came to choose each answer in the CYU questions to understand where potential misconceptions may be occurring.
- Have students compare the learning targets identified at the beginning of the Unit to the difficulty they are having now. Can they pinpoint which learning target is not being met? Remind students that this misconception is not a failure on their part. Emphasizing the importance of the process over the final product can help students to embrace their misconceptions and feel open to communicating those with one another.
- Peer Explanations: Encourage other group members to try to explain how they got their correct answer on the CYU questions with the individual who is struggling. That provides an opportunity for the student to learn through different types of explanations as well as opportunities for the other group members to communicate their understanding through the explanations.
- Scaffolded Practice: Provide practice problems that gradually increase in complexity, ensuring the student builds confidence and understanding step by step. This can be done by taking the Lesson activities and breaking them down into smaller segments. As students complete these small activities, ensure they can explain how and why they are completing each element.
Correcting Class-wide Misunderstandings
When a significant portion of the class misunderstands a concept, a different approach is needed. It is important that you do not move onto the next Lesson or activity until these misunderstandings have been addressed.
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Group Reflection: Initiate a class discussion where students share their answers and reasoning. This can help students identify and correct their misunderstandings through peer interaction.
- When asking questions to prompt this discussion, frame the questions in ways that are more likely to uncover students’ thinking. Question structures like “Why is the z-coordinate of a Cube higher than a Disk?” will reveal more about how students are thinking as compared to “Is the z-coordinate of a Cube 25mm?”
- Questions can also be reframed as contrasts to try and help students express their reasoning. For example, “How does the position of the 6-Axis Arm different when at (0, 200, 0) versus (200, 0, 0)?” This can help you elicit if students understand the positioning of the x and y axes and how they compare to one another.
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Interactive Reteaching: Bring the Lesson activities to be a whole class demonstration. This gives students a different lens to learn about the various concepts as you explain them in context rather than reading about these concepts on the computer.
- To keep those students who did not share the misconception engaged, fold them into your re-teaching and whole class demonstrations. Encourage them to take small sections of the Lesson and explain the same concept you just covered in a different way. They then can use various methods of communication from sketching the path of the 6-Axis Arm on a whiteboard to verbally explaining each step. These varied methods of explanations can also help to present the information to other students in a new way.
Recording the Process
Students are using their engineering notebooks throughout these courses in order to document their learning and how their understanding of concepts changes over time. As you work with the students through these various reteaching strategies, have them continue to document the process and what they are learning by taking additional notes or augmenting the ones they took earlier to clarify where those misconceptions were formed. After students have communicated verbally that they understand the concept, have them once again answer the CYU questions and provide a justification for each answer to ensure that they are ready to move onto the next Lesson.
Incorporating these reteaching strategies into the CTE Workcell courses will not only enhance student comprehension but also foster a more engaging and inclusive learning environment.
Looking for more?
- Do you have more questions about reteaching strategies? Ask them in the PD+ Community, and learn how other CTE educators are reteaching these concepts in their setting.
- Curious about a specific concept and how to reteach it to your students? Schedule a 1-on-1 Session – we'd love to talk with you about how to reteach a certain concept or what strategies can work best for you.