Promising Practices
I use a quick-write at the beginning of class to focus students on the key concepts in their learning and readings. What I do is post an open-ended topic that builds on higher-level thinking skills like analyzing, synthesizing, or making a connection or application to the topic. An example of a quick-write prompt I would give my students might be, "What examples from your classroom experience do you have about teaching reading comprehension?" or, "What place does phonics have in beginning reading instruction?"
After students have written for several minutes (usually less than five), I have them share with the class. When listening to students' responses, I allow "wait time" to see if another student will respond to the first student's response, thus promoting cross-talk and less of my intrusion in the dialogue. Students enjoy hearing each other's ideas, and my role is to clarify and correct misunderstandings, keep the dialogue moving, and push students to think through the concepts for themselves.
I also collect the quick-writes and look through them during the break or after class to get a quick sense of students’ understanding of the concept. Another way to do a quick-write is to have students respond on-line using the Blackboard discussion forum in response to a prompt you give them, or on the Ongoing Course Assessment (OCA). That type of discussion is more asynchronous, but allows students more time to respond.
Quick-writes are a great teaching tool!