Working the Room Revisited

On numerous occasions, I have referred to the work of Paul Vermette, Don Mesibov, Pat Flynn and Mike Smith from NY State. They have published several books about the importance and benefits of constructivist, student-centred learning. In addition to giving students the chance to construct their own meaning about a topic (which they will do anyway), teachers are free to work the room to intervene in a spontaneous fashion with students. A spontaneous intervention is one that the teacher has not planned, but that is extremely valuable for students. Instead of sitting a his or her desk, the teacher wanders around and observes groups or individuals working. He or she can pose questions, read student answers and offer suggestions, apply low-level "bumps" (see Bennett and Smilanich), etc. Once we retire to the desk, students are less likely to be productive; their level of concern drops. They are masters at looking busy...we have all had the student who looks as though he or she is making notes or reading and when we pass by, they quickly flip their page to conceal a note to a friend or the doodle of the day/hour/minute. The more we work the room, the less chance a student has to get off task.

Here are two examples from one class today:

Grade 10 history students were completing a very "Where's Waldo" type of question and answer sheet that dealt with the Canada's position at the end of WWI. I made sure to actually read each student's work as they worked to make sure they were on the right track and that they answered all parts of a question (some questions asked for a whopping two pieces of info!). Quite often I will walk by and casually observe students and intervene if they are off task or if they have a question. Today, I was able to help 3 students with one question alone, just by passing by and scanning their work. After seeing their difficulty with the question, I made sure that I checked everyone's and sure enough, others had the same error, missing info. Spontaneous intervention-productive result.

When working the room, the teacher also has a chance to interact with students who are less likely to raise their hand and answer in front of the class, or ask a question in front of the class. Today as I passed by a student, she quietly asked "Why was more independence important for Canada? How would that make us stronger?" I sat down and gave her an analogy that I had used before in a similar situation. I asked her what many teens desire from their parents when they are at or around her age, and she answered "responsibility." I was able to draw parallels between a teenager's quest for independence and Canada's quest for the same thing, which really helped to clear things up for her.

The point that Vermette et al. continually make is that humans (and especially teens) quickly discard information that they view as meaningless or unnecessary. Even if we have explained it to the class, it doesn't always sink in at the time. On numerous occasions I had touched on the importance of our new independence, but until that time today, this student did not see it as necessary info. I believe she was very genuine when I asked if she better understood things after our chat and she replied "Yeah, a lot."

Working the room leads to better student understanding and fewer management headaches for teachers.