Review of 100 Teaching ideas that transfer and transform learning: Expanding your repertoire Fender, T. (2023, March 1). Review of 100 Teaching ideas that transfer and transform learning: Expanding your repertoire by F. T. Lyman. Education Review, 30. http://dx.doi.org/10.14507/er.v30.3661 March 1, 2023 ISSN 1094-5296 Lyman, F. T. (2022). 100 Teaching ideas that transfer and transform learning: Expanding your repertoire. Routledge. Pp. 188 ISBN: 978-1-032-12664-7 Reviewed by Tierra D. Fender University of North Carolina at Charlotte United States One hundred strategies, one succinct book— whether you are a pre-service teacher, an in- service teacher, or an administrator, this book will expand your repertoire indeed. An educator since 1960, Frank Lyman’s educational experience ranged from elementary classroom teacher to university coordinator to education consultant. All the while, Lyman was involved in the discovery and collaboration of teaching strategies in areas of critical thinking for both students and educators. Utilizing this knowledge base, Lyman involved more than 600 teachers, student teachers, graduate students, administrators, professors, researchers, field-based teacher educators, and professional developers in the assembling of this volume. As such, this book is designed for educators who are also learners, with the purpose of providing a toolbox of instructional strategies for educators as they try to best meet their students’ needs, which may change from year to year. The organization of this book allows the reader to pick and choose strategies to try in the classroom. Each of the 100 strategies is presented on one or two pages and for some, a template is provided in the appendix. Although a few strategies have minimal guidance on connections to other content areas (e.g., literacy), most include detailed examples so the reader can envision the strategy in their classroom (e.g., teaching math through stories, class building with weird facts). Relatable analogies are then incorporated within multiple strategies to give the reader a better understanding of the importance and rationale for different approaches. Education Review /Reseñas Educativas/Resenhas Educativas 2 A constructivist paradigm underpins the book content. For example, many strategies ensure that “students will see themselves as knowledge makers, [and] not simply as consumers” (p. 12). Lyman steps away from the goal of finding an answer and instead aims for students to design a plan of action. Like action research, some teaching ideas involve students designing their own experiments to discover their learning processes. If a student-led experiment is not possible, students engage in conversations or interviews to construct their own classroom rules, instructional practices, habits of mind, and role descriptions, among other academic features. Lyman even suggests allowing students to construct test questions. Similar to the co-craft questions routine, which encourages students to produce and analyze the language for different types of situation (Zwiers et al., 2017), one strategy involves teachers holding “regular discussions with individuals in which the students have an opportunity to participate equally” (p. 110). This concept resembles Emdin’s (2017) cogenerative dialogues (cogens) in which teachers involve multiple students in a class discussion outside of class time. The cogens that Emdin discusses may not be one-on-one, but they provide a lasting impression to impact the culture of the classroom. Several strategies suggested by Lyman involve the construction of manipulatives—some as brief as a one-page visual and others as involved as an entire database. While some of these artifacts are created overtime—like students creating a personal set of cards to act as memory cues of lived experiences that they might use as a writing prompt in the future—a majority of the suggestions are posters that live on the wall and may be referenced throughout the year (e.g., quotations, hypotheses, student wisdom, memory cue for types of thinking, questions to facilitate conversations, class theories). So numerous are these teaching ideas that it would be impossible for a teacher to implement a majority of them all at once, as there would not be enough wall space to accommodate the many posters. For students to co-construct knowledge, Lyman notes, “relationships are the classroom glue,” and it is important to create learning spaces where students can work in groups (p. 157). To this end, teachers must take the time to build strong relationships with each student and encourage healthy relationships between students. These relationships are vital for students to engage in collaborative discussions, as described by other scholars. Cohen and Lotan (2014) highlight the importance of diverse learning groups (e.g., speech, reading skills, ethnicity, clothes, friendliness) so that multiple abilities can be used to better understand the task at hand. To create a culture of appreciation and maximum participation in groups, status issues need to be addressed (Featherstone et al., 2011). Status is defined as “an agreed-upon social ranking where everyone feels it is better to have a high rank than a low rank” (Cohen & Lotan, 2014, p. 34). According to Lyman, part of the teacher's job is to highlight aspects of students’ “better selves that don’t always show up at school” (p. 103). Without directly referencing the idea of status, the author shares strategies to create a more inclusive classroom Review of 100 Teaching Ideas that Transfer and Transform Learning 3 where students’ strengths can be the bridge to stronger student-to-student relationships. Aligned with the practice of complex instruction (Featherstone et al., 2011), Lyman stresses the importance of both group and individual accountability: “if the students know they may be asked to respond later and in writing to what is being said in the discussion, they will feel more urgency to participate” (p. 77). With this, Lyman states that “effective cooperative learning is facilitated by… being preceded by independent thought” (p. 101)—highlighting the value of students working individually first and in groups second. Unfortunately, this does not always align with minimizing status concerns as individual time at the beginning of a task can accentuate previous definitions of smartness like speed and memorization (Featherstone et al., 2011). Due to the importance of both collaborative and individual work, Lyman suggests desk orientations that allow for movement between solo and cooperative time. Liljedahl (2021) echoes Lyman’s suggestion to “change partners frequently” when he suggests incorporating visible random grouping, which increases students' willingness to collaborate, increases knowledge mobility, increases enthusiasm for learning, eliminates social barriers, and reduces social stress. A number of Lyman’s strategies focus on student and teacher mindset as “intrinsic desire to know something is essential to true education, both short- term and lifelong” (p. 3). To construct such knowledge, students must better understand how their minds work via metacognition and metastrategies. For Lyman, metacognition, “knowing how you know” (p. 26), is connected to what he terms metastrategies—the idea that students can think about possible strategies that can be used for proceeding with a task. As students develop this toolbox, they are strengthening the nodes and interconnections in the mind, similar to Hammond’s (2015) description of brain science and culturally responsive instruction. According to Hammond, when students and teachers better understand how the brain works, they can use that knowledge to deepen their learning practices. For example, flow charts can be used for processing, and Lyman provides visual organizers to support this endeavor (related to his previous work with ThinkLinks). Teachers’ mindsets have an impact on student learning as well, depending on if the teacher believes in students’ capacity to learn or not. Lyman suggests that educators take a personality test to better understand their strengths when planning and creating diverse student learning experiences. Lastly, Lyman encourages teachers to question myths about teaching. For example, one common myth is that to prepare students for the next grade level, teaching must be done in parts. Yet, as Lockhart (2009) notes, this practice may lead to a world where students paint by numbers instead of becoming artists. Lyman agrees and offers an example concerning soccer and the value of first observing a game to understand the overall picture of the sport. Education Review /Reseñas Educativas/Resenhas Educativas 4 Strategies to transform learning may seem idealistic, but throughout the volume Lyman incorporates authentic classroom scenarios, including note- taking strategies, homework, handwriting, and testing. For example, instead of expecting the most legible handwriting from students all of the time, the author suggests using different types of handwriting for different purposes and allowing students to write according to the task. As for testing, Lyman admits that “we may have to choose at times between the lords of testing and true education” (p. 52), that is, he is aware that some standards do not always align with students’ genuinely learning material. His genuineness allows the reader to feel comfortable in not agreeing with all of his suggestions. After reading Grading for Equity, a teacher may not share Lyman’s vision of requiring regular homework, as it takes away from students having opportunities to experience life outside of school work (Feldman, 2019). Lyman even admits that it is unrealistic for observers to enter a classroom looking for perfection and that constantly naming the one student that is disengaged can be demoralizing. Specifically, he states that “classroom management is an overused term” (p. 152). Instead, he encourages educators to aim for maximum student engagement by balancing instruction, management, and a positive climate. For educators who are looking to expand their toolbox in order to best meet their students’ needs, I recommend 100 Teaching Ideas that Transfer and Transform Learning. However, one might question the feasibility of the 100 suggested teaching ideas. Although Lyman involved hundreds of teachers in the creation of this volume, it is important to note that he does not give specifics about data from research exploring these strategies; he instead asks teachers to implement the practice and see growth on assessments to demonstrate the educational value of the practices. Such a method relates to the idea that each student, teacher, and classroom environment is different. Just as Lyman deconstructs false dichotomies, compelling his readers to consider the nonduality of instructional practices, the readers should recognize that pedagogical strategies are not considered either good or bad. Different strategies have value depending on the situation. There is not one answer for great instruction, but rather educators should be open to thinking through possible paths and trying new ideas. Lyman notes, “students persisting as interested and confident learners is the true mark of great teaching” (p. 13). Similarly, teachers identifying as lifelong learners is the true mark of great educators and leaders. References Cohen, E. G., & Lotan, R. A. (2014). Designing groupwork: Strategies for the heterogeneous classroom (3rd ed.). Teachers College Press. Emdin, C. (2017). For white folks who teach in the hood ... and the rest of y'all too: Reality pedagogy and urban education. Beacon Press. Featherstone, H., Wood, M. B., Parks, A. N., Oslund, J. A., Jilk, L. M., & Crespo, S. (2011). Smarter together! Collaboration and equity in elementary math classroom. National Council of Teachers of Mathematics. Review of 100 Teaching Ideas that Transfer and Transform Learning 5 Feldman, J. (2019). Grading for equity: What it is, why it matters, and how it can transform schools and classrooms. Corwin. Hammond, Z. (2015). Culturally responsive teaching and the brain: Promoting authentic engagement and rigor among culturally and linguistically diverse students. Corwin. Liljedahl, P. (2021). Building thinking classrooms in mathematics, grades K-12: 14 teaching practices for enhancing learning. Corwin. Lockhart, P. (2009). A mathematician's lament: How school cheats us out of our most fascinating and imaginative art form. Bellevue Literary Press. Zwiers, J., Dieckmann, J., Rutherford-Quach, S., Daro, V., Skarin, R., Weiss, S., & Malamut, J. (2017). Principles for the design of mathematics curricula: Promoting language and content development. Stanford University: https://tinyurl.com/2p889tsj About the Reviewer Tierra D. Fender is a Ph.D. student in urban mathematics curriculum and instruction at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. With experience as an educator in multiple U.S. states, she now designs curriculum resources, coaches secondary math educators, and creates professional development. Research interests for Tierra include increasing student collaboration while learning mathematics, enhancing the professional development experience, and using a strengths-based lens to increase learning. Education Review/Reseñas Educativas/Resenhas Educativas is supported by the Scholarly Communications Group at the Mary Lou Fulton Teachers College, Arizona State University. Copyright is retained by the first or sole author, who grants right of first publication to the Education Review. 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