Article by Angela Miller, 
Principal 
Mentone Elementary School

Remember your school days. The desks were all lined up in straight, neat, rigid rows. The room smelled of chalk dust. The teacher instructed from the front of the classroom, and if you were not prepared to answer the teacher’s questions you just simply focused on not making eye contact with the teacher.

In the 21st century classroom, not answering is not an option. The classrooms in Mentone Elementary School are filled with teachers using 21st century instructional practices that keep students engaged and learning all day long. 

What are 21st century instructional practices? Part of being a 21st century learner is the ability to communicate effectively and think creatively. Those two skills require student participation in activities that include team collaboration, interactive communication, higher order thinking and sound reasoning. That sounds like something you may have studied in high school or college.

Today’s teacher introduces these skills in kindergarten. At Mentone Elementary, students work on these important communication skills through the following instructional practices: accountable talk, non-verbal signals and think-pair-share.

Imagine a classroom discussion in which no one raises their hands to answer the teacher’s question. After all, raising your hand is the universal sign for, “I have an answer, please call on me.”

Picture all of the students in a circle, the teacher asks a question and a student just responds like a normal conversation. Accountable talk requires students to listen to the whole conversation and be prepared to start their answer with “I agree because …” or “I disagree because …” or another response that requires the student to share his or her personal thinking about the statement or question. Students follow each other in answering and participate in a conversation about learning. Every student is listening and thinking and preparing to share throughout the discussion.

Another 21st century instructional practice is the use of non-verbal signals. Non-verbal signals allow students the opportunity to respond to questions and give teachers another tool to assess understanding. Examples of non-verbal signals are thumbs up to agree, thumbs down to disagree, and thumbs sideways if a student is unsure or neutral. A teacher who has established signals talks less and enables students to think and respond more.

Think-Pair-Share is an instructional practice where students have an assigned partner. Before a teacher poses a question he or she tells the students that they will discuss the question with their knee buddy, (students face each other knee to knee), or their elbow buddy, (students turn and talk to the person sitting beside them). These prearranged partnerships help build relationships between students and allow them to feel comfortable sharing their thinking and answering questions.

These 21st century instructional practices put the learner in charge of his/her learning. Teachers at Mentone Elementary create rich learning environments where students feel safe enough to fail as well as succeed. Engaging all learners in the classroom creates a community of learners and thinkers that will be prepared to meet the challenges of jobs that do not even exist today. These 21st century instructional practices lead to success for students at Mentone Elementary School.