Jeffrey Ayer, WTWL Writer

Ever notice how a discussion you want to have with students can severely lag?  Okay, think May or June, and I’m sure every teacher out there has struggled with this in his or her own classroom.

Enter the parking lot.  For those of you not familiar (and some of you are thinking, “Oh, yeah, I remember that”), here’s how it works.

First,  select an area in the classroom where you could have students place sticky notes or tape scraps of paper.  What works ideally is to use a large sheet of butcher paper, or if you have room cleared on your board, you can work from there.  I usually clear white board space, and then create an actual parking lot layout. 

 To encourage students, I also intermittently place sticky notes in some of the blanks, and sometimes for fun, I’ll include a few parking lot notes (like “Student Parking Here”). 

Once that’s on the board, it’s a discussion cue to my classes (I’ve used it for the better portion of a recent novel unit).  Just direct them to take up a parking space over the course of the class period; based on how many spaces are filled by the end of the hour, I ensure them that I will leave aside enough time for us to discuss the ”parked” questions before the bell rings.

Advantages?  One, students don’t have to write their names, so there’s a level of anonymity (this seemingly defeats the “dumb question” phobia).  Two, students have the class period to think about the novel.  For many, questions don’t just arise the instant the teacher asks, “Any questions on the novel at this point?”  So over the course of the class period, no matter what activity may be taking place, students are more likely to have an “I don’t understand” moment and then post that on the board.  And third, the activity simply encourages critical thinking, because I don’t answer the questions, I prompt students to answer them together.

This activity could also be applied to just about anything where you want students to develop questions (I-searches in the research process, thesis statement possibilities, questions they would pose to a historical figure, comments, opinions on a topic, and the list goes on).

Give it a shot.  Give it some thought.  And call it what you want (parking lot works, but imagine the number of names you could assign this approach to discussion – I just thought of “Landing Pad” as another, and I’m just hacking away at a keyboard).

Share your ideas by commenting; I would love to begin collaborating with you!

Related posts:

1. The Library of Congress is Using Flickr: Shouldn’t Teachers?

• Studio 4 Learning Great collection of videos for teachers of all subjects.  Use the videos to help teach a skill or concept to your class, or upload and share your own video.
• Teacher Tube A community of teachers sharing all things related to education.  Lots of categories.  Like YouTube–but for teachers.
• Global Solutions Great videos and flash presentations to inspire class discussions about topics related to social responsibility.
• The Eight Irresistible Principles of Fun–Inspirational presentation.
• 5 Big Questions — Inspirational reflections
• The Great Work Movie — Inspirational reflections (groovy).
• Ken Robinson’s creativity TED Talk — Sir Ken Robinson makes an entertaining and profoundly moving case for creating an education system that nurtures (rather than undermines) creativity.  (awesome, funny, powerful)
• NeoK12 is a site devoted to collecting and organizing videos into categories based on discipline.  A good collection and index.  Categories include (but are not limited to): Physical Science, Life Science, Health, Earth and Space, Social Studies, English, and Human Body.  They describe their site with this subhead: Educational videos and lessons for K-12 kids.
• Jill Bolte Taylor’s Stroke of Insight — Jill Bolte Taylor got a research opportunity few brain scientists would wish for: She had a massive stroke, and watched as her brain functions — motion, speech, self-awareness — shut down one by one. An astonishing story.  (moving, amazing, incredible)
• Mathlew Needleman has created a great resource and blog (and following) at Creating Lifelong Learners: digital literacy, higher level thinking, closing the digital divide.  He writes intelligently about all things teaching (from managing parent conferences to navigating social networks), but does a particularly great job tutoring and managing a community of teachers using video to teach critical thinking skills.  This guy’s been busy for quite awhile and has uploaded a lot of valuable stuff for teachers (every one of those links above is to a different resource).  Here is a good video example of what he’s all about:

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Related posts:

1. Notes from the battlefield: toward a theory of why people write. Fox, M.
2. How Teachers Are Like Superheroes
3. The Library of Congress is Using Flickr: Shouldn’t Teachers?