WBT Teach, Okay!

I am so excited to tell you about my favorite part of Whole Brain Teaching...
"Teach, Okay!"
The idea of "Teach, Okay!" is to get your students to either share their thoughts and predictions with a partner OR (even better!) reteach their partner what you just taught!

Get your own copy of this poster and other from a Teacher on a Mission's TPT page *Freebie*

So, how does it work?
We all know our kiddos don't have the best attention spans in the world and even the ones with fantabulous attention spans have trouble staying focused for more than a couple minutes.
So, what do you, the teacher, & your kiddos do?
1. Teach a quick or important point (no more than a minute)
2. *Clap clap* (or any variation of clapping) "Teach"
3. Kiddos: *clap clap* "Okay!"
4. Kiddos: Turn to their partner and reteach whatever they just heard you teach.
    You: Walk around, listen, check in, check for understanding, judge how long this "teaching" should go on.
5. You (when you find appropriate, could be as short as 30 seconds or as long as 2 minutes): "Class" or "Hands and Eyes"
6. Kiddos: "Yes" or "Hands and Eyes"
7. Teach for another short time & Repeat process

In my class, my kiddos have assigned seats in our learning circle AND assigned partners. That way, the kiddos know EXACTLY who to turn to in order to "teach." I also then have control over what kiddos are partnered together. That way I can be pretty certain they will stay on task. Having assigned seats and partners also made the process get going right away with almost zero transition time between the time I said "teach" and my kiddos start reteaching their partner.

Check out how these teachers use "Teach, Okay!"

Skip to 1:20 and you'll see a great example of "Teach, Okay" and teacher monitoring

Another way to use "Teach, Okay"

In my class I also use "Teach, Okay" for my kiddos to answer questions, especially comprehension questions after a read aloud.

When my kiddos would answer any question in my room (especially during the 2nd half of the year), I would ask them to use T.A.P. (Turn it Around, Answer it, Prove it). 

T.A.P. has gestures as described below. 

We would do our T.A.P. gestures as a class first before using "Teach, Okay"

"Turn it Around" *one hand flat out, other hand with pointer finger down, make a circle over other hand*

"Answer It" *one hand flat out, other hand pretending to write on hand that is flat out*

"Prove It" *one hand flat out, other hand in a fist, "stamp" down on hand that is flat out*

I would then ask the question and say "teach" my kiddos would say "okay" and then turn and teach their neighbor the answer to the question. I would listen in to make sure they were using T.A.P.

Next steps...

In order to make sure my kiddos were all being teachers, and not just listeners, we used "Switch" which I will share with you the next time I blog about WBT!

And then?...

Maybe you noticed in the video above the kiddos "mirrored" their teacher... I'll tell you all about that too!