With a massive shortage for paper in my school, I have been racking my brain to come up with ways to study the RTQ's for ELA in my 5th grade class as review for the STAR. Today, I posted an ELA story on my Eno board, used the Crazy Professor strategy with my class (as I read, the class used gestures), then asked the questions. What a response. About 95% of the class scored 90% or more on the multiple-choice questions. Such a remarkable difference in staying on task and staying focused during reading passages. I think Crazy Professor is so effective. My students had a great time, and time goes by so fast when everyone is engaged!!!! Thanks so much Chris Biffle and team!!

The Crazy Professor is a great tool. I'm glad you had such great success with it.

My class played the Crazy Professor game today with a non-fiction article. There was great participation. Students wrote a summary afterward, and I found a many of my lower-level students putting markedly more effort into their writing than they normally do. I can't say all of them showed good comprehension. However, I did find that students who normally turn in very little work gave me so much more today that I could clearly see their strengths and weaknesses in reading comprehension and writing.

I found it advantageous that I have already used reciprocal teaching as a reading comprehension strategy this year. This is an oral activity in which students teach each other about reading passages through questioning (surface level and inferential), asking for clarification, and summarizing. The Crazy Professor was a nice variation on this activity because it got students excited about the conversation they were having, much like the scoreboard gets students excited about classroom management. (What an odd phenomenon!)

I'm happy to be a teacher.

This makes me happy too!!! Thanks for sharing!!!!

I introduced my second graders to three of the Crazy Professor reading strategies this week. We used Dramatic Reading, Silent reading with gestures, and Question and Answer. Participation was 99.9% and so was the enthusiasm. I am looking forward to using this "game" more and more, with the ultimate goal of going totally Crazy Professor as I observed on the great video of this game on YouTube.

Karen

One addition that you all could try is that at the end of each time you use the beginning stages you need to end with a short session of the Crazy Professor. Make it short, but let the kids spend just enough time having some chaotic fun.

You could even play a side game of the scoreboard for just your reading time. The reward being the Crazy Professor/Eager Student stage. Tell them that you are specifically looking for students that are energetically involved and using great gestures.

Once they win play this stage for only about 15-20 seconds per student. This way you can make it a longer reward later as the year moves on....we call this Habituation. The idea is that what works in September, won't work in November.


Power to the Teacher!
Chris

That was a great suggestion Chris had. (Thank you, Chris.) I'm wondering, for second graders (I have a group that is reading on grade level,) about how many pages at a time should they be reading and rereading in your opinion? I started with one or two and it seems to be working, although some of the students' enthusiasm seems to be waining, but then I try to amp it up with the score board. I'd actually like more demonstration on how to use the arm world and desk world tools. I've used it, but definiteley as well as an expert WBT would. Help!

You notice it too. So do I and I have second graders. Keep it up! I will too.

Hey it would be fun to have your class and mine get together to play the CPG some time. We should be video taping our students and showing the rest of the staff how great this is!

After reading the positive posts about the Crazy Professor I decided to give it a whirl! I modeled, and modeled, and modeled gestures and switching. When my students worked with a buddy they seemed inhibited using gestures. Any suggestions?

Karen

Karen in the beginning it can be this way, it's normal. One thing that may help if you haven't done this already, is front load the gestures for a few of the common ones that will be repeated over and over. In other words, give them a gesture for two to three of the story pieces and then they will see how that goes. Later as they become more comfortable, they'll get more creative.

Power to the Teacher!
Chris R.

I agree with Chris. I show my class specific gestures and tell them that I want to see them using these gestures.I think this is probably a crucial step for second graders. All I can say is keep it up. I plan to. I love activating brains

Karen C.

Thanks so much for the advice. Great suggestions...Believe it or not I can't wait to go to school tomorrow and give it a try!

Karen

After procrastinating a bit, I am finally going to use the Crazy Professor Game today in class. I'm excited! I will be doing this during reading workshop and use a short fiction article. Cross your fingers!

EDIT to Add: I just had my first period class. This is my "sleepyhead" group. I varied the scoreboard by using smilies and frownies instead of teacher vs. student. I also had the Volume-o-Meter on the board and we practiced it with "yadda yadda yadda." They definitely were more engaged and participating right away! Hooray!

I quickly realized that we were running low on time after going over this week's vocab. list. I did use vocab. candy a few times. I am looking forward to it being discussed during our next webinar. I am just not sure if I did it correctly. I did get some great sentences using the words though. Anyway, we played the Crazy Professor for a few minutes. I struggled getting some of the twos to make gestures while the ones were reading. I had to stop and we practiced as a whole class. It got a little bit better. I also moved to Level 3: Q & A and modeled with a student before setting them on their own. Due to time, they had just a taste (10-15 seconds) of Level 8: Crazy Professor.

I want to try Crazy Professor again tomorrow. I'm also going to adjust my delivery during the other two periods I have this afternoon so we have more time for the game. Here's hoping!

Given that there are significant differences in classes and teachers. In your opinion, about how long should a teacher use WBT before starting to use the Crazy Professor Game? Generally would you suggest a few weeks, a couple months, or right away after basic training?

Perhaps, one way to answer this question is how long did the teachers you know (and you) use WBT before feeling confident enough with WBT to start using the Crazy Professor Game?

Thanks,
jason

Jason,

With my second grade on grade level readers, I started by picking one or two C.Pr. strategies and getting good at having the students implement those. Right now, are getting good at silent reading with gestures, silent rereading with fingers in air to show number of times page or pages are reread, question and answer, and retell. I followed Chris R's advice and gave them a 1 minute taste of the full blown Cr. Pr. Game at the end of each reading period.

I am still working on this teaching strategy, but hope this helps.

Karen Chavez

Hey Jason!
I would say that as soon as you have gotten down the Basic 7 you can move to some more critical thinking strategies, such as the brain toys and the Crazy Professor. Of course the sooner they can get there the better!
Hope this helps!

After listening again at the National Conference about the Crazy Professor game, I have a better idea of the progression of getting to this stage. I am wondering, since I teach fifth grade high reading and we read 2, 3, 4, and 5 week chapter books, how often would you play the Crazy Professor game?

Thanks,

Laura Caisse
WBT Intern 2011-2012

Laura...so sorry I didn't get a chance to talk with you this week, we'll have to meet up at another conference.

Since you are using this incredible game with high readers over a course of several weeks, I would teach them the game on a simple/short story in the beginning. There are some great higher level picture books out there that these kids would get into...any Van Allsburg, Pollacco, or Bunting book would be super. Do this several times and that way they are familiar with the process.

Once you get to the chapter books, then you can assign parts of the chapters to be done with certain steps. It is a different way to do it, but it sure can be just as effective.

Power to the Teacher!
Chris

Chris,

This will work perfect for my reading group! At the beginning of the year, we spend a week of getting to know you and the routines! I will definitely use the Crazy Professor beginning with picture books and then working our way into using it with chapter books!

Thanks for the clarification!

Laura Caisse
WBT Intern, 2011-2012