Teacher View of Textmasters

After the implementation of the strategy, Mrs

After the implementation of the strategy, Mrs. Stelkan and I talked at length about ways to improve the strategy.

Her first concern was about keeping students occupied who finished the reading and their role sheet early. She found that 20 minutes was sufficient for almost all of her students to finish their work but those who read quickly often found themselves staring blankly or bothering other students. Students who finished early were invited to read silently from their independent reading books, to create new and different role sheets, or to reread the section to be true experts at the reading.

Another way that Mrs. Stelkan changed the strategy during the first trial was to begin each session with a quick activity to highlight and pronounce important words. She found that struggling students benefited from this quick group introduction to the lesson and it led to fewer queries during silent reading time regarding unknown words.

Finally, Mrs. Stelkan hopes that in further implementation of the strategy, she can lessen students' reliance on the role sheets: "I noticed that talkative groups would only use the sheets for quick reference during the Textmasters discussions. Hopefully, all students can make this transition so that it becomes less about the role sheets and more about the discussion."

Mrs. Stelkan praised the strategy in three specific ways. "The students really worked toward clarifying important ideas in the chapter for each other, often with no help from me." She said the heterogeneous groups that she purposefully created for the strategy assisted with this first strength. All students had a chance to teach one another something through the rotation of the roles.

Time on task was the second highlight of the strategy for Mrs. Stelkan: "Students were engaged from the moment they picked up their textbooks and role sheets until the bell rang. I was surprised how little direction the students needed after the initial practice period; in fact, they were almost always disappointed when I told them it was time to clean up!"

The final positive feature of the strategy for Mrs. Stelkan was the lessening of preparation during the actual strategy. She said, "Don't get me wrong; it took a long time for me to put together those folders with the different role sheets, draw up the schedule, and divide up the reading. But, after that work period, I was done. I could concentrate on helping students who needed my attention during the reading period, rather than focus on organization and discipline."

Teacher View of Textmasters

By: endeavor

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