Doug Lemov's field notes

STAR…Successfully Explained

Two of the most important culture building techniques in Teach Like a Champion are Habits of Attention and Habits of Discussion.

Habits of Attention is about teachers shaping the non-verbal signals students send to one another when they are talking. When the people in the room are looking at you–and looking a bit interested–you are inclined to share you true thoughts. You’re inclined to take some risks. If someone asks you to share your thinking in a room full of people who look like they could not care less what you say and if you speak at all, you say little–just enough to get off the mic–and seek to not speak again. And this obviously diminishes both your learning and your sense that you belong in the classroom. Among teams that care about one another and among high performing teams, people generally are not talking to the backs of other people’s heads.

Habits of Discussion is about the idea that whether people talk to each other or past each other is a key determinant of their sense of belonging and a key driver of their learning. When speakers refer back to what previous speakers said to build off their ideas, rephrase them or connect what they are saying to earlier comments, they show that those comments mattered to them. They make other participants feel validated and important AND ALSO help participants listen better to one another… and thus learn more.

But these techniques are challenging to build into a classroom.  They require student buy-in. They require us to build norms and take risks.

Often that means doing a “roll out” where you explain to students the what why and how… and then get them to start building their habits.

That’s why we love–LOVE–this video of Steve Kuninsky’s class. Steve teaches AP Bio at the Gwinnett School of Mathematics, Science, and Technology outside Atlanta and here you can see him rolling out these two techniques to his class using an acronym called STAR.

• The S is for “Sit up” which as Steve explains is a broader reminder to attend to one’s body language and look interested in what classmates are saying
• The T is for “Track the speaker. As he puts it in ideal classrooms people aren’t talking to the back of each other’s heads.
• The A is for “Appreciate.” Steve reminds his students how important it is to show one another that we appreciate their ideas. He gives them a variety of ways to do that.
• The R is for “Rephrase”- the idea that one speaker should build off of the previous.

A couple of things we loved about Steve’s rollout:

• The way he credits students for already using and thinking about these habits. You guys are already mostly pretty good at the S, he tells them. And many of you do the T. I’d just like us to be more attentive and intentional about it.
• The way he combines expectation–we’re going to be tracking; we’re going t be attentive to body language; I’m going to remind you–with optionality–there are different ways you might choose to show appreciation; we’ll be experimenting with it a bit.
• The way he includes students in the process of building culture: I’m trying to weight what’s going to work for our classroom. We’ll figure out what works best for us.
• The way he gives students concrete examples of what they could and should do to exemplify the ideas he’s talking about.
• The way he uses a warm supportive considered tone.
• The way he then reinforces right away as they start teaching.

If you’re rolling out these techniques and aren’t quite sure how to do it, this is a pretty good road map.

Thanks to Steve and his students!