Trying Out What I Learned This Summer

I have now been back with students for 3 1/2 weeks - I started with students on Monday, August 4 after seven days of pre-planning which began on Thursday, July 24! This past summer, I attended both Comprehensible Iowa and CI Summit, and I came away from both conferences with many new strategies which I was wanting to try out in this new school year. Here are those strategies which I have begun to implement:

• Magic Cards - I learned this from AnneMarie Chase at CI Summit, and it is SUCH AN EASY way to call on students and to assess them in the moment for a formative grade - no more popsicle sticks! It simply involves a 3x5 card which students fill out in the beginning of the semester, and you keep it on hand. I have been using them to call on students for bellringers, and they are so easy to use!
• Left/Right PQA's - I learned this from Eric Richards at Comprehensible Iowa when we co-led the German workshop lab, and he then facilitated it in his German lab at CI Summit. It is a great way to implement movement in a class while asking PQAs - it definitely exemplifies purposeful communication. Last week, I just happened to be observed by an administrator when I was doing a Left/Right activity (students had to guess in Latin which was the most popular sports in certain countries by moving to X side of the classroom), and he thought it was such a great kinesthetic activity!
• Write and Discuss - Although I have known about Write and Discuss for awhile, I never really used them properly as intended. I primarily had used them the day before a timed write to prepare students, but I have since learned that a Write and Discuss is something which should be done as often as possible as a way to review that day's material. At CI Summit, I saw Andrea Schweitzer do this with a One Word Image which she had created in Spanish with our squad. I now see the power of a Write and Discuss in giving students another added layer of input as a review. Although I am now slowly implementing Write and Discusses as a review, my goal is to facilitate them as often as possible.

What is a CI strategy which you learned this summer which you wish to implement?