Introduction

This book aims to provide an alternative to stand-and-deliver teaching through Total Participation Techniques (first introduced in Himmele & Himmele, 2009). We hope to provide ways to actively and cognitively engage all students in the learning process. We have written this book for teachers, using real classroom examples and a variety of field-tested techniques that can be implemented in your classrooms tomorrow. It is also for administrators who want to provide teachers with a toolkit of such techniques and a model for analyzing lessons in a way that can help teachers make their classrooms engaging places where the content is made relevant and deep to students. It can even be used by college professors and professional developers who are tired of relentlessly lecturing. Yes, even with adult students, these techniques can enhance the delivery and understanding of the concepts that you are hoping to teach. Many of the Total Participation Techniques presented can be modified to work regardless of whether you teach 2nd grade or college physics. As you read, we encourage you to pause and think about how you might modify and apply each technique to the specific audience that you teach.

The Second Edition

The first edition of this book was released in 2011. Since then, the book has been the topic of an award-winning DVD, an online course, and a quick reference guide for planning (all available through ASCD). It has been featured in research studies, several university extension courses, hundreds of professional development sessions, and it has been cited in numerous books, studies, articles, online publications, and school and district improvement plans.

We've learned quite a bit more about the power of instruction that is cognitively engaging, and as a result we have included the following:

• 51 TPTs (the first edition had 37), and a new chapter with techniques for "Wrap-Ups"
• New research featuring TPTs and supporting their use
• Updated research for existing topics and research related to student attention and learning
• Emphasis on important components, such as Ripple Questioning
• Common pitfalls that we've noticed as we've observed TPT lessons since the release of the first edition and solutions for avoiding them
• A more extensive Appendix describing Bloom's original and revised taxonomies and Webb's Depth of Knowledge
• An Appendix that contains reminder posters for helping teachers remember to ripple and maximize their use of TPTs

Book Overview

This book covers the why and the how of Total Participation Techniques (TPTs). First we look at the why in Chapters 1 and 2, exploring the heavy toll that disengagement is taking on student success. In the United States, slightly more than 20 percent of students fail to graduate from high school (DePaoli, Balfanz, & Bridgeland, 2016; Rennie Center for Education Research & Policy, 2012). Although most students graduate in spite of disengagement and boredom, they fail to flex their cognitive muscle and develop higher-order thinking skills that could have made the learning deep, lasting, and meaningful. We believe that the use of TPTs could have made a difference for these students. The how is addressed in Chapter 3 on tools and supplies, such as TPT toolkits, that allow for smooth and seamless infusions of TPTs in your classrooms. Then, in Chapters 4 through 8, we present the actual techniques for ensuring total participation. Most of the presentations include the following four sections:

Description—We present an overview of the technique.

How It Works—We present specific steps for using the technique.

How to Ensure Higher-Order Thinking—We present ideas for going beyond surface-level comprehension.

Pause to Apply—We encourage teachers to adapt and personalize the technique to the contexts and content areas that they teach.

Chapters 9 and 10 address how TPTs function as formative assessments and how to create "TPT-conducive" classrooms. Finally, in the Afterword, we address common pitfalls with regard to effectively implementing TPTs.

This book is also a visit to modern-day schools, with teachers who created TPT-conducive classrooms. You'll meet the following excellent teachers from Manheim Central Middle School in south-central Pennsylvania:

Meghan Babcock, 6th grade teacher

Matt Baker, 8th grade English teacher

Courtney Cislo, 5th grade teacher

Liz Lubeskie, 8th grade history teacher

Shannon Paules, 7th and 8th grade English teacher

Keely Potter, reading specialist

Mike Pyle, 5th grade teacher

Julie Wash, 6th grade teacher

We included insightful conversations with these teachers, who eloquently phrased what we had hoped to convey to you. At the time of the observations, the teachers ranged in teaching experience from 2 to 16 years, with an average of 9 years. Their implementation of the techniques provides this book with real-life examples of how you might implement the same techniques in your content areas. Several of the teachers now hold different positions than those that were held at the time of our interviews and observations. To avoid confusion, their grade levels and positions appear as they were at the time of our classroom visits.

We also have included examples from Heather Berrier, a 5th grade student teacher from Millersville University. Heather's impressive implementation of TPTs in her daily lessons proves that TPTs can work for novices as well as experienced teachers. In this second edition, several other teachers are featured as well. We hope that this book will spark conversations among teachers and administrators around the topic of active participation and deep cognitive engagement for students. We also hope that you will begin conversations with us. You can contact us via our website, www.TotalParticipationTechniques.com, where you may also find helpful tools and resources, and join the mailing list for updates on content.