Series The Power of Collaboration for ELLs: Sticks & Spoons: An Engagement Strategy

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Sticks & Spoons: An Engagement Strategy

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Sticks & Spoons: An Engagement Strategy

Lesson Objective: Teaching Practice

All Grades / All Subjects / ELL

2 MIN

Discussion
Supporting Materials

Thought starters

How do the sticks and spoons promote equity of voice?
Why is this strategy especially beneficial for English Language Learners?
How does this strategy encourage student collaboration?

16 Comments

Michael Burnett Jun 13, 2020 10:12am

How do the sticks and spoons promote equity of voice?
Each student has an equal chance of being called upon at any moment. This keeps favorites (or non-favorites) from being selected more often.
Why is this strategy especially beneficial for English Language Learners?
Because each student might be called upon at any moment, they have to focus and listen to what is being asked/answered. This keeps the students engaged in the moment of the class.
How does this strategy encourage student collaboration?
Teamwork is a great collaboration building tool. By having the groups divided not just into stick teams, but also into spoon cohorts, the students are involved in 2 simultaneous groups where collaboration can occur.

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penny oates May 6, 2020 10:35pm

This is really inventive

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Ann Sues Feb 13, 2020 12:17pm

Each child has an equal likelyhood of being drawn so they are responsible for the same information. Students are able to practice and build confidence before having to speak infront of a large group.

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Ashley Peralta ... Feb 12, 2020 11:01am

This strategy is great especially if you have English Language Learners. They are able to collaborate with a group and listen to team members, then have a chance to answer out to the class with the help of their group. This hold students accountable because it is random and they have to be prepared to share. This also helps with equalizing the responses from the class instead of being the same few students, and gives others a chance to answer as well as the expectation to answer.

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Materials

Transcript: Sticks & Spoons: An Engagement Strategy

Transcripts

Sticks & Spoons: An Engagement Strategy Transcript

Speaker 1: Greeting team number three. One strategy that we use to encourage student

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Sticks & Spoons: An Engagement Strategy Transcript

Speaker 1: Greeting team number three. One strategy that we use to encourage student voice, student participation and student engagement in our lessons and activities, is we use a strategy called Sticks and Spoons.

Purple team number two. The students are sitting in teams. Each of those teams is assigned a color and they come up with their own numbers between one and four. In our cup, we have sticks that are labeled with those colors. The spoons are labeled with the numbers. Can we try to get something, some other important facts up there as well? Take a second and think about that.

One thing with Sticks and Spoons is we always want to make sure that the students have had a chance to talk with their team and feel comfortable with what they're going to share before we pull that stick and spoon.

Blue team number one. If there are more than four students on that team, we would double up. Sometimes we'll strategically assign the numbers and if we have a very limited English proficient student, we'll maybe pair them up with a student with stronger English, also has the same number so that they can support each other.

Red team number five. There is a number five spoon in the cup and it means anybody on that team can answer.

Purple team number two.

Speaker 2: [inaudible 00:01:23] public schools cause [inaudible 00:01:23] just said school-

Speaker 3: Oh yeah. There were no public schools before the Civil War.

Speaker 1: All students are expected to answer. There's no passing involved.

Let's take maybe two more.

We find that this really helps students to stay engaged because they can be called at anytime.

Blue team number four.

Speaker 4: [inaudible 00:01:43] juniors. [crosstalk 00:01:44]

Speaker 1: It's also a really safe way of getting students to answer because they are able to talk with their teammates, so teams are encouraged to help each other.

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