AEIOU Responding

In early May, I had the good fortune to go to the iT Summit. I often feel like I have a good grasp on the tech end of things so my goal with conferences is to pick up as many instructional strategies as I can so I can share them out with my staff. I consider myself somewhere between a tech advocate and tech evangelist so the gleaning and sharing fits well with my M.O. One of the interesting questioning/responding models that I picked up this year comes via Dean Shareski.

After watching an activity like watching a video, reading a book, doing a lab, etc. have students respond using an AEIOU approach:

A: Adjective – a word or two that describes something they saw or learned (synthesis)
E: Emotion – describe how a particular part of the learning made you feel (stories should evoke an emotion, so it’s right to acknowledge them)
I: Interesting – write something you found interesting about the content/topic (engagement in activity – students who say there wasn’t anything interesting could answer “what was the least interesting part”)
O: Oh! – describe something that caused you to say “Oh!” (reflection of own learning)
U: Um? – write a question about something you learned or want to learn more about (extension)

This seems like a good model to engage students. I particularly like that it makes use of both cognitive and emotional ties to the subject and I particularly like the “U” as it encourages the students to think deeper (ie: growth mindset). You can use this as an exit slip or take it further.

To add my own thoughts, aka, “and sometimes why?”
AEIOU could be used as an intro to a deeper-thinking assignment to investigate a “how”” and a “why?”. You could use the question as a launch point for students to write a paper from a common short story/poem/video; in science you could do likewise where you have students use the Um? To develop/propose their own lab to test their question. Math could use this to develop questions and problems to solve for the W&A classes (and likely others, too).

What are some ways that you see AEIOU working in your classes?

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