Whole Brain Teaching: Yes/No Way! & QTs

One of the many reasons I love Whole Brain Teaching includes their frequent progress monitoring tools.

Throughout a lesson, there are many ways to ensure that students are learning what teachers are teaching.  "Teach-Okay" uses students as teachers and at the end of the lesson is the "Yes/No Way!" and Quick Tests.

Have you been to the WBT website? Go there immediately if you haven't! They have TONS of free resources and ebooks to help you through each step of the process.

One of my favorite ebooks is shown above- Whole Brain Teaching Model Classroom. It is FULL of great descriptions of each of the parts of WBT.

On page 25, there is a fabulous description of Yes/No Way! and Quick Tests (QTs). I am summarizing both below.

Yes/No Way
At the end of your teaching minilesson, you will have kids participate in Yes/No Way. This is a whole-class activity that involves gestures (of course!) and requires yes/no questions about the lesson just taught.

You begin by asking a question, such as, "Is water a liquid?" and they will reply "Yes!" and fist pump (from WBT) or I have them give me two thumbs up and a nod. You could certainly create your own gestures, but don't forget about them- they are an important part to Whole Brain Teaching!

If the answer is wrong, such as, "Is steam a solid?" they will reply "No Way!" with disbelief and a gesture. WBT recommends pointing their fingers to their foreheads and then extending their arms outwards. I had my students shake their heads and move their hands from side to side in front of their body, as if they were refusing something. We say "No Way!" as if what I'm asking is the craziest thing I've ever said :)

Quick Tests
After you have a good sense that the kids understand as a whole group about the concepts through Yes/No Way, there is a more individual assessment called Quick Test, or QT ("Cutie").

Again, this is found on page 25 in the WBT Model Classroom book. When the teacher says "QT" the students reply "Cutie" and cover their eyes with one hand, while getting ready to answer questions with the other.

The teacher will ask true/false questions and as the kids answer, they will give a thumbs-up for true and thumbs-down for false. This is a quick gauge on a more individual level. Kids might sometimes try to sneak a peek, but if you have the questions prepared in advance, you can keep up the tempo so they won't have time to do anything else but focus and answer.

I always look at my strugglers during this time to see what they are answering. If you see that less than 90% of your students are getting these answers correct, you will need to go back and reteach those concepts with new material.

I love Yes/No Way and QTs because they are quick, easy, and familiarizes your students with assessment-type questions from the very beginning in a non-threatening format.

Be sure to check out the WBT Model Classroom book from their website and let me know if you have any questions!