I can hear Robert Shaw’s voice. “Do ya folla’?”, Quint, the shark-hunting captain of the Orca, asked Martin Brody (Roy Schneider) and Matt Hooper (Richard Dreyfus) in Jaws. “Do ya folla’?” was Quint’s way of checking if the Sheriff and oceanographer thoroughly understood what he was asking them to do. The dangers of hunting a great white shark necessitated that Brody and Hooper followed Quint’s directions to the letter. Without exaggeration, the consequences to the future when we are teaching children can be just as serious as those in Jaws. Instead of being consumed by a shark, children may be consumed by errors of misunderstanding resulting for their failure to learn from you.
What is your checking query? As a classroom teacher or principal or curriculum director or facilities manager, how do you check to verify that those you are instructing or directing or mentoring or leading have a successful understanding of what you expect them to do? A checking query is essential. Not to have one is to be a pitcher throwing nine innings of a baseball game without ever hearing the umpire call “strike” or “ball.” Just like the pitcher watching for the umpire’s call, a teacher who models solutions to a math problem needs to know what each student heard, saw and understands regarding each possible solution. Without this feedback, the teacher should stop and not say another word. No feedback – no going forward.
In educationalese, “do you follow” can easily become one of two requests. Tell me. Show me. If you ask these two questions consistently, you will know if your students, teachers, and custodians are clear in their understanding of your expectations of their future performance. Those who study pedagogy, will recognize “Tell me/Show me” as application of Madeline Hunter’s “checking for understanding,” a timeless lesson design strategy.
What does “tell me” sound like?
You are an art teacher. You have demonstrated how to mount a lump of clay on a potter’s wheel. With students gathered around, you demonstrated the “a, b, c’s” of centering an amount of fresh clay on the center of the wheel, how to use the heels of your palms and your thumbs to work and shape the clay, and how to use finger pressure to draw the clay vertically into the beginnings of a small bowl. In a perfect world, every child now is ready to throw a bowl from a lump of clay.
Common practice is for the teacher to look at the faces of surrounding children and ask “Any questions?” And, with no children bold enough to show they did not see exactly what the teacher said or did, the teacher sends them to their wheels where more than half sit looking at the lump of clay wondering “What do I do now?”
“Tell me” is an easy question. No one has to straddle the potter’s bench to say “First, you …”. “Tell me” is verbal – just repeat back what I just said to you. The “tell” does not have to be word perfect. Just get the sequence right. Just describe how your hands should work on the clay. Describe how the turning speed of the wheel does the work of moving the clay. Describe in words that demonstrate that you have a mental imaging of what you are supposed to do when you sit at your wheel.
If enough students participate in oral feedback, you can generalize that they understand “well enough” what to do. The key is that a majority of the students participated in the “tell me” and those who did not gave adequate visible agreement in what was told.
If the “tell me” does not meet the teacher’s level of confidence, then re-teaching is in order. Re-teaching involves the same key words in a different story line. Re-teaching involves the correction of any parts of the “tell” that were clearly wrong. Re-teaching is aimed at causing all students to be able to contribute to the next “tell me.”
Then do the “tell me” again. And, again, if the second “tell” does not meet your confidence level. Subsequent re-teachings cannot be repeats of the first or even second. They must directly clarify the sequence of steps and correct the mistakes in the “tell”.
You are a principal discussing the school’s practices in using standards-based grading. “Tell me” should achieve the same feedback loop as the “tell me” of the art teacher. And, if you are a curriculum director leading an in-service on the use of formative assessments, your “tell me” will sound like the art teacher and principal’s “tell me.” The same is true for the facilities supervisor who is showing a new custodian how to use a floor scrubbing machine. The supervisor wants to hear an accurate verbal description of what the supervisor demonstrated.
“Tell me” is one of the simplest yet most often ignored or misused strategies for getting instructional feedback. Many leaders will use it once or twice and then believe that if their students and subordinates got it right once or twice, they will get it right each time new instruction is given in the future. Wrong! This may be true if the future instruction is a repeat of past instruction, but if it is new instruction, especially new and without transfer from other past instruction, “tell me” is essential.
You are half-way in confidently believing that students and subordinates understand your instruction or direction. Now, “show me.”
“Show me” is more strategic. A teacher or principal or director or supervisor does not have time to view a “show me” by every student and subordinate. So, pick one or two students to straddle the potters wheel and begin to throw a bowl or go to the SmartBoard to write out a solution to a math problem or construct a grading template for a given middle school writing standard or demonstrate how to set the height adjustments on a riding lawn mower and mow a field in a way that does not require subsequent raking.
“Show me’s” must be objective and subjective. The “show” of the persons selected may not be as perfect as the demonstration. Objectively, does the “show” meet minimum requirements? And, subjectively, the person evaluating the “show” must suspend everything else known about the person showing and observe only the demonstration of the “show”. Being objectively and subjectively fair often is hard in a “show me” but it is essential.
If you pick a representative student and rotate your picking so that all students and subordinates over time will be called upon to “show me”, you can use these selected shows to reinforce your confidence that your students and subordinates know what to do and also know how to do it.
“Tell me and show me” also conserve time. The minutes that it takes to ask students and subordinates to tell and show you what they have heard and observed you say and do is significantly less than the time and effort it would take to go forward with their unchecked work only to find later that their thinking and skills are all wrong. Reteaching after incorrect information has been practiced and reinforced takes a lot of time and very specific instruction to unlearn the incorrect and learn the correct. “Tell me and show me” is an efficient and effective way to assure readiness for independent practice of new learning.
So, now I ask you in my Quint voice, “Do ya follow?” Tell me. Show me.