For a Good Day

Check in with your students.  I teach special ed students…ED, ASD, and ADHD.  What just makes the day start out great is talking to each one of them and letting them know that what they have to say is more important than the clock…or the ringing phone…or the attendance person knocking on the classroom door.

For the first ten to fifteen minutes of class everyday students in the special ed program I teach in like to tell me about what they’ve done since I last saw them.  I use the first 15 minutes of the day to allow students to get breakfast (and bring it back to our class) and I check in with each one of them.  A short greeting or a longer question/answer session happens for each student.  It’s the time we use to assess how kids are and how ready they are for the day.  It’s probably the most important 15 minutes we spend because if students don’t feel welcome and accepted then they won’t be good learners for the day.


Beginning A New Special Education Program



  4. Understand choices have consequences


Based on the following from the VT Framework of Standards:

Respect 3.3 Students demonstrate respect for themselves and others.







Persevering 2.9 Students persevere in the face of challenges and obstacles.

Vermont AOE Transferable Skills/Graduation Proficiencies and Performance Indicators

Clear and Effective Communication


Creative and Practical Problem-Solving

Responsible and Involved Citizenship

Informed and Integrative Thinking






Ideas for Teaching the Cognitive Processes of Questioning to Students with Emotional and Behavioral Challenges


This is a project I designed back in 2000.  It is designed to help emotionally and behaviorally disturbed high school students learn the skills they need to do better in school and assume responsibility for their learning.  I recommend that it be used with students who are in an alternative school setting and to use this curriculum as part of the process of reintegrating students to the mainstream.  This curriculum is designed for small groups (of about 6) so that there can be follow up and more accurate observation.  Ideally parts of this curriculum would be used in all classes to aid understanding and generalization.  This program will work well if there is already a behavior management system in place so that certain positive behaviors can be reinforced. There are also many ways you can update the activities for the 21st Century.

The teaching principles of this curriculum project include:  addressing several learning styles, relating information to real life, using teacher modeling, using systematic and explicit steps, making it interesting and age appropriate, and giving meaningful feedback.


By the time EBD students are in high school, they have had thousands of terrible school experiences.  To make matters worse, they might even have disabilities in processing, reading or writing.  My goal as a teacher in an alternative school is to get these EBD students back to the mainstream.  Most of the readiness has to happen with a change in their behavior.  We have found over the past couple of years that we need to prepare them better for the rigorous academics of high school.  Many of our students who transition back to mainstream end up out of the school and referred back to an alternative setting (if they don’t drop out first).  If we can help these students become successful learners then one of the hurdles has been jumped when they transition back.

My students have difficulty answering teacher questions because they don’t understand the meaning of some of the cognitive verbs.  They also have difficulty classifying and labeling, interpreting and inferring and explaining, supporting and predicting.  We get the shoulder shrug a lot when we ask them how their behavior affects others or when we ask them what would happen if they were to behave [like that] while on the job.

A curriculum designed to help EBD students learn to learn better could help in several ways.  First it could help the teacher reach the student potential more successfully.  And it could help the EBD student feel more confident in school.  Part of being a successful student is knowing how to answer questions and discuss topics—feeling more confident about their abilities might give them the incentive to stay in school, participate and take more control of their learning.  It can’t be much fun to sit and be a passive learner—no wonder their behavior takes over, they want some control.  I want to teach them to gain it in positive ways.

I recorded my eighth grade science class in order to be able to accurately record teacher questions and student answers to assess the student learning.  These students are emotionally and behaviorally disabled and they are in an alternative school specifically dealing with that disability.  The goal is for them to be mainstreamed back to their sending schools, though that is not always the reality.

On the day of taping, I had asked students to try taking notes from one of the paragraphs on their own as we had practiced before, with disastrous results.  Students were copying word for word from the book and they were not judging the appropriate main ideas.  I quickly put a stop to it and helped them as I had been doing since the start of the school year.  As I watched the recording I wondered why these students didn’t paraphrase the notes and why they had trouble evaluating the importance of information.

Goal and Objectives:

Goal:   To teach EBD high school students to recognize teacher questions and improve their questioning techniques.

Students will:

  1. understand question/answer and discussion patterns
  2. understand the meaning of some cognitive verbs
  3. understand the purpose of questioning and the rules of questioning
  4. understand some different roles of the questioner
  5. understand how to recognize what answer the teacher is looking for
  6. understand how to use questions to check own understanding of the learning

Objectives and Activities:

  1. Students will review the question-answer-discussion pattern of learning and analyze the value of questions and discussions.

Activity 1:  Twenty Questions

Before doing this activity, a teacher should let students know that there are certain patterns for discussion that teachers follow in school to help students learn better and to help them learn to think.  Students can learn these patterns to help them follow a discussion better and to help them anticipate what will happen.  This game, when followed up with a “debrief” discussion, will help students practice the pattern.  The format of the game is that the teacher chooses an item and students have to guess what it is.  Here are the rules:  students can only ask yes or no questions; no answers can be repeated; students can only ask 20 questions (total); students only get three guesses (total); students must ask their questions in turn; students must write down questions they want to ask; students must raise their hands to speak.  Repeat the game 3-5 times.  Afterward, ask students:  What questions were asked?  Which questions helped us get the answer more easily?  What do we notice about these questions?  (looking for things like:  they were specific, they were related to the other questions)

Activity 2:  Taped Talk-show Segment (or news interview)

The teacher will carefully select and edit a segment of a talk-show where there is questioning and answering going on (an interview will work the best).  A teacher might be able to find a segment with a group interview as an example of a discussion for the students to watch.  As the students watch, they should be filling in a graphic organizer while viewing to help them focus on what specifically they are looking for.  They should be looking for general things like how the interviewer presents his/her questions; how the people interact with each other (social skills); and how the interviewer’s questions relate to previous answers. Go over the answers students put on the organizer.

Activity 3:  “Debrief” Discussion

Students have a teacher-led discussion about what they did in the first two activities.  The teacher states that a discussion has the following form:  question-answer- response (which could be another question).  A student’s job is to participate in the discussion in all parts—answering, questioning and responding.  The teacher should model the questioning and follow-up student answers with additional questions while also inviting students to ask their own questions.  So they can see how to use this format with anyone, not just with the teacher.  The teacher can ask questions, but so can they.  On an organizer, have students first answer questions about a discussion.  For example, these questions might include:  What are some reasons for asking questions?  Where are some places (what are some times) where you will have to ask questions?  The teacher will then lead the discussion this way to move students to a higher order of thinking:

  1. Let’s list all of the things that were said and done that we can remember that happened during the game and the video. What kinds of questions were asked?  What kinds of responses were given?  What do we know about having a class discussion?
  2. Now let’s group things that seem to go together (for example, let’s group all of the questions together)
  3. How do we know these things go together?
  4. How can we use this information that we just gathered?  What does it tell us?

What things helped the questioning?  What hurt the questioning?

  1. What are some ways that questions can help with learning? With our job?
  2. Let’s predict some specific questions that could be asked in certain classes (students should write these down and also share them orally). How about in certain jobs?

Students then write a journal entry:  What did you learn about discussions?  What is the purpose of the question-answer-discussion pattern of learning?  How does it help a student to learn better?  Give some examples of questions you could ask in school.  How will questioning and discussion help you in your job later in life?


The teacher will be able to read the journal entry to see what the students took away from the discussion and activities.  The teacher will also be able to see their organizers and the questions they wrote during the twenty questions activity.  The teacher should also set up an ongoing “contract” with the students (this is based on a behavior management system already in place.  When a student asks an appropriate question during a discussion in any class then it is recorded and after a pre-determined number have been recorded then the student earns something). It is ok to remind students of their ongoing contract because after awhile it will become something of a habit for them and you won’t have to do much reminding.

  1. Students will determine the meanings of: explain, analyze, summarize, compare, predict, contrast and describe

Brainstorm/Underlining Activity

Students will go through sheets in their folders (worksheets, quizzes etc…) and they will underline all of the cognitive verbs from the list above that they can find.  They will count the number of times those words are used in their work.  As a group the results will be tallied.  The teacher will ask what the importance of this number is and then move on to “what do these words mean?”  The group will brainstorm some definitions (in a style appropriate for them…some drawing, some semantic mapping, some listing).  Then students will do a worksheet that has example scenarios that the students have to match with a word from the list.  The group goes over the sheet when it is done and they write down the correct definitions.

Vocabulary Activity

Students will again fill in scenarios (examples and non-examples) of the words.  This sheet will also have a section where students write their own scenarios for the words.  Discuss the answers as a group.

Semantic Feature Analysis

As a group, the chart will be discussed and filled in.  The main point that the teacher should now be expressing is that the teacher will choose the words according to what information he/she wants to find out.  Where and how can they be used?  Let’s find out.

Writing Questions

Students will write quiz questions using the words.  They will use their notes from a particular subject to do this.  Students also need to make an answer key for their questions (they need to answer their own questions correctly so that the teacher can see if the students know how to use the words appropriately).  Students can pass their question sheets on to other students if there is time and interest.


Students have activity sheets including written scenarios.  They also have their own written questions and answers.  The teacher can also get a feel for how the group understands the words when they discuss the semantic feature analysis (since there are at most, 6 kids in the group it makes it more obvious).  A teacher can also set up an ongoing contract where a student can earn 1 bonus point on work for every time they find and underline the words and answer the question correctly.

  1. Students will establish and use the rules of questioning and discussion

Discovering the Guidelines of Group Discussion

This is a teacher-led discussion for students to come up with some good practices for speaking and listening.  The quality of the information and the amount the teacher needs to lead the group depends on the group itself.  Students should take notes.  The discussion should be lead in the following way (and it will vary a little depending on the group and how much prodding the teacher has to do):

  1. a) let’s list/draw everything we know about speaking and listening
  2. b) what ideas seem to go together?  How do we know?
  3. c) how will these things help us communicate better with each other? How will good speaking and listening skills help us in school and on the job?
  4. d) where are some places we use speaking and listening skills? Why do we need these skills?  What happens when we don’t use these skills?
  5. e) Using what we know about speaking and listening, what are some good guidelines for asking questions? Let’s make three rules we should always follow.

Group Mock Interview

The teacher thinks of a “famous person” and the students need to figure out the identity of that person using questioning skills and keeping the guidelines (they just created) in mind.  Here are the rules for the activity:  each question must be related to something that has just been said (for example:  if a question is “are you living or dead” and the answer is “dead,” then the next logical question could be “what year did you die?”—this could be difficult for students to attempt right off—it could be something students start to practice after doing the activity a few times) questions must be asked one at a time and a student must raise hand to speak.  If necessary a teacher might incorporate a strategy to help with the questioning:  for instance, take one word from the last statement made and use it to form your question—this should teach students to listen to each other and it can help them keep to the topic at hand.   This activity should be recorded so that students can go back over it and judge whether or not their discussion topic flowed and their questions followed each other.

Partner Conversation

Students work with a partner and ask questions of each other on a topic of their interest.  They need to write down their topic and the questions that they will ask (but these can be revised based on the flow of the conversation).  Students should ask at least one question using one of the cognitive verbs and  the teacher can help them formulate these questions if necessary.  When students have practiced a little, then they can perform their “conversation” in front of the group.  The group should be evaluating the partners using a pre-made form.  There should be a discussion after everyone has performed.


The videotape and observations will help the teacher understand what the students took away from the learning.

  1. Students will determine different roles they can take in discussions

Redefining a Product

The teacher will begin this activity by first asking students if everyone participates in a discussion in the same way (hopefully students realize that the answer is no).  The teacher will then give examples of different ways people participate in discussions:  the leader, the summarizer, the “idea-generator” etc.  Students can then try to guess what role they usually play.  After the discussion, the teacher will define 4 roles:

the “idea-generator” who cranks out ideas/accepts feedback well

The nurturer who gives positive feedback to everyone and encourages by saying things like “that’s a great idea”

The summarizer who puts ideas together/takes notes “let me see if I have this right…”

The leader who mediates arguments/keeps time/decides order/asks questions to keep discussion going

The students are assigned roles and then given an activity to “redefine a product.”  They work for a company that has created 10 tons of radioactive jell-o and they can’t just dump it somewhere.  They are the committee formed to come up with a way to use it safely.  Their job is to talk about what to do with it and then make a decision to propose to the CEO.  This activity should be video-taped.

Create a Jingle

This is a continuation of the previous activity.  Students are given new roles:

The justifier who explains ideas and why they are important

The interpreter who talks about the value of the ideas

The arguer who is the “devil’s advocate” and thinks of all the reasons why an idea won’t work

The evaluator who makes decisions based on the best idea and what has the best outcomes and asks clarifying questions

The teacher will have to help students with their roles by leading a discussion about what these characters might say.  When that is set, the group goes to work on writing a commercial or jingle to market the radioactive jell-0 (also videotaped).  The jingle/commercial should be based on the decision they made in the first activity.  After the activities, there are discussion sheets to fill in and talk about.

What are some observations we can make about the two activities?

What was hard about the activity?  Easy?

Which roles were helpful to the group?  Why?

Which roles weren’t helpful—how do we know?

How would these roles be used in conversations with friends? Parents? At work?

What could happen if you stay in one role all of the time?

What could happen if you always argue or never argue?

What are some good ways to approach discussions?  What do you want to keep in mind about the roles?

Journal Writing

Analyze your conversational style.  What role(s) do you usually play?  Why do you like that role?  Analyze how the role is different at work or with friends? Set a goal:  how will you improve or change your conversational style?


The teacher will analyze the question sheets, videotapes and journal to evaluate the student’s learning.  The teacher should write meaningful comments (especially in the journal).  The teacher should also give meaningful comments as the groups are discussing.

  1. Students will recognize what answer the teacher is looking for when he/she asks a question


Students will refer back to their semantic feature analysis and review the meanings of the cognitive verbs.  They will brainstorm knowledge they’d use to answer types of questions.  The teacher will give examples (for instance, when a teacher asks a multiple choice question he/she wants to know if the student knows a fact and when a teacher asks an essay question the teacher usually is determining if the student can apply the facts they know).  Students will also figure out what kind of information they can use to get the answer to the question.  Students will take notes during this discussion.


Students will be given a sheet with several scenarios on it (for example:  The teacher wants to know if a student can compare bacteria and viruses.  What kind of question (using your cognitive verbs) would he/she write to find this out).   Scenarios should also relate to work and home (for example:  You have to train a new employee to work the cash register at work tomorrow and your boss wants to make sure you can give that person the correct information.  What kind of question (using your verbs) might he/she ask you just to make sure you know the information?)  Hopefully students will write questions like:  “Compare a bacteria with a virus,” and “explain how to use this cash register.”

Index Cards and Wall Charts

Students will make their own index cards with reminders about types of questions and answers which can be laminated for them to keep handy.  Update this for 21st Century learning by having students use their 1:1 iPad instead of notecards. They can also make a wall chart for each classroom for a reminder as well.  They should include things like:  the definitions of the major cognitive verbs, and what kinds of answers (information) are being sought for certain kinds of questions.


The teacher can look at the index cards, wall charts and scenario sheet to evaluate the learning from these activities.

  1. Students will analyze how to use questions to check their own understanding and to get clarification


Students will do role-plays of social skills that use questioning formats to gain understanding (following instructions, receiving negative feedback, negotiation, giving negative feedback).  Before the role-playing starts the teacher should ask “What are some situations where we might need to ask what is going on (get a better understanding of a situation)?”  Lead students to their social skills and then help them discover situations at home, school and work.  Have students role-play pre-made scenarios of difficult instructions to follow where they have to ask questions to check their understanding and/or get clarification.  Example:  You have to give instructions to your house to someone who has never been to [Burlington].  One person gives the instructions and one person is the “out-of-towner.”

Clarifying Directions

Students will be given a worksheet of directions for various assignments.  They must read the directions and write a specific question for each to check their understanding (to question the question).  This question is not something like “what do I do?” but it could be something like “I’m not sure what this word means…am I supposed to just list information?” and “What does this question ask?”  After completing the sheets, as a group, students pool their best clarifying questions and try to make them as universal as possible so that they can create another wall chart (and/or index card); They can also be given a list of Paul’s Critical Thinking Questions to help them with the index cards.

Comic Strip

Students will draw or create a comic strip or picture of characters involved in a discussion.  Characters are asking clarifying questions of each other to continue the discussion.  Show a teacher model of this so that students know what to do.  An example is included in the materials section of this project.  Before they begin to draw, brainstorm some situations where clarifying questions will have to be asked.

Guest Speaker

Students practice asking questions and having a discussion with a guest speaker willing to come in and talk about a topic of interest (of high interest).  The teacher should let the speaker know before-hand what the goal is and that the students are working on asking questions and participating in discussions.  The speaker can also model by being sure to point out what kind of information he/she is giving based on the student’s question (and the speaker can question the students in return).  For example:  a student asks “when were you born?” the speaker might respond by saying “that’s a simple fact, 1972.” Or a student might ask “what is the hardest thing about being a meteorologist?” and the speaker could say “well, I have to analyze a lot about my job to answer that question…”  In short, the teacher should prep the speaker.  It is also a good idea to have everyone sit in a circle for this activity—it will be more intimate and fun that way.  This can be videotaped for teacher review.


The teacher will use the video tape, the scenarios and comic strip.  The teacher should also fill out an evaluation form for the role-plays so that the students get feedback.

Ongoing Evaluation

Once the curriculum is done, the teacher helps shape behavior that is desired in the mainstream by using the behavior management system that is already in place.  For instance, a teacher will now point out “it’s great to have you participating in this discussion,” and “That’s a good clarifying question.”  Students receive “positives” or “points” toward incentives when the teacher observes and acknowledges this type of behavior.

Using Nearpod For Safe Discussions

nearpod app for ipadUsing 1:1 iPads can be tricky with middle school students.  They want to access music and games, and otherwise multi-task while attempting to complete their class work.  In addition,  the type of students I work with will do everything in their power to avoid classwork; they also can be super anxious about talking out loud or contributing to a discussion.  We want to have classrooms be more real-life project-oriented to get students interested in learning, but the students I work with need intensive structure and support; they aren’t good at independent learning. I wanted to provide a fun way for students to interact and participate in a class discussion in a safe way.  Last school year I heard about an app called Nearpod, and I’ve found it to be really fun and engaging for my students.

Nearpod allows someone to create a “presentation,” and then allows others to see it on their own device and to interact.  Presentations can be created usingnearpod featuring creator's screen Nearpod or they can even be uploaded from Powerpoint or from your Google Drive.  I like building presentations in Keynote on my iPad and then uploading them to Nearpod to finish off because Nearpod doesn’t have as many building options as other presentation building tools.  Once the presentation is in Nearpod, the creator can add activities which include polls, open-ended questions, multiple choice questions, drawings, or quizzes.  The creator inserts opportunities for the users to answer questions and provide input.  It becomes an interactive presentation and discussion tool.  To set up, the creator logs into Nearpod and then shares a presentation; when that is done, the creator gets a code.  The code is what everyone else enters in order to access the presentation.  Each person creates a screen name to use when they log into the presentation.  The creator can see everyone’s names, and when activities are shared, the creator can see everyone’s responses.  The creator is the one who controls the presentation and shares it with the group.  My students are especially fond of “draw-it” scenarios because they love using the drawing or picture tools, and they love to see each other’s artwork when I share for the discussion.

So how can you use this tool?  This week I created a presentation on friendship since we’ve been discussing it in our social skills class.  What I did was create “tricky situations,” scenarios that we needed to discuss.  I would share a slide of a situation, then present an activity for student comment or response.  Once all responses were in, I would share them, and as I shared them across the ipad screens, we had our discussion.  Each student was actively engaged, and they felt safe to participate.  They created silly screen names and would laugh when I used those names instead of their real names:  “I like what Goldfish shared, he had a great suggestion for this situation.”  I like to use scenarios and have students respond to the scenario using Nearpod; they feel safer doing it this way rather than just speaking out in class.

Complex Trauma and How it Looks in the Classroom

One of my 8th grade students has significant difficulty regulating his emotions, more than other students at the school anyway.  Thankfully, this is a student who receives special education services and who attends an alternative school, yet, his behavior even stretches our abilities to effectively work with him sometimes.  This is the start of his third year at our school, so his pattern of behavior is quite well-known and predictable now.  We also have been trained in complex trauma (there is lots of information here) so we are better at addressing the behavior.

This student comes to school every day and is able to start each day being appropriately social with peers and staff.  During our morning meeting (where we use the Responsive Classroom model) he is an active participant and has a positive attitude.  But anything unpredictable or unstructured can trigger him;  he has even told staff (when he is calm) that his thoughts can intrude and trigger him. Once he is triggered, he begins his downward spiral. What he shows outwardly at first is loud sighing or groaning about the school work or the class expectations, or he might start calling himself stupid because a task is hard for him.  Then he will yell at peers (even though they are using normal voice tones to ask questions and complete their work) to quiet down because he can’t concentrate, and when they respond to him, it’s to tell him to quiet down.  This causes him to lash out with threats and name calling (which might then trigger trauma responses from them, and then everyone escalates).  His language becomes inappropriate for school. Then he becomes extremely oppositional, refusing to leave the room to regulate, continuing to openly challenge students, roaming the hallway, calling people names. When he finally gets into a separate space long enough to work with someone to regulate, it takes quite some time for him to get to a point where he can return to class and meet expectations.

Sometimes he walks out of the school building and goes home before the end of the school day; other times he is able to make it to the end of the school day even though he didn’t complete much work in any of his classes.  When he is on task and participating in class he is focused and can ignore little distractions in order to complete his work.  Sometimes this focus will last all through the morning and into the afternoon; sometimes it lasts only for a few minutes of a class.  Sometimes his oppositional behavior lasts through consecutive class periods; sometimes he goes through this behavior cycle within the span of one class period.   This behavior in a mainstream school would end up getting him sent out of the classroom or suspended; he would also probably be referred for a risk assessment.

Staff usually intervene once he begins his loud sighing or groaning, but there are many factors throughout the day that can affect how quickly we teachers respond to this student:  we may be helping other students with their school work; we may be helping other students regulate their own behavior and work through their issues; we may be introducing a lesson and giving instructions.

This is a quick fact sheet that provides good information about how to help a student like this.  Here are some pointers that are included on the fact sheet:

  • Model respectful, non-violent behavior and relationships.
  • Provide many genuine choices to increase sense of self-efficacy and self-control.
  • Be clear about expected behaviors; teach rules and expected behaviors explicitly. Remember, repetition is key. Children who have experienced complex trauma will likely take longer to generalize a skill than their peers.
  • Avoid using words when a child is disregulated. Consider walking, rocking, etc. as an intervention until the student is regulated.
  • Develop a system for consequences that is not punitive. Consequences should be logical and designed to teach, not punish. Avoid power struggles.
  • If behavior is a consistent problem, consider having a functional behavior assessment conducted to determine triggers and develop a behavior intervention plan.

There is a lot of information here about this type of behavior and how to respond; it’s not information that most teachers readily have because it’s not something that they usually need.  I am a special education teacher working in an alternative school, so this information has helped me do my job better.  I share it because it is useful to know, and it can help all teachers decode the meaning behind some outrageous behaviors they see (no matter how rare they might be in a mainstream setting).