The Four Corners Strategy – Model Teaching

To Implement the Four Corners Strategy in your classroom:

  1. Prepare a question with 4 achievable appropriate solution options that align with the lesson articles or the goal of the verify for knowing action. Try to structure your inquiries so that they can elicit an open-ended reaction, and in which a lot more than one answer preference could be appropriate, dependent on the justification and rationale delivered by the college student.
  2. Exhibit the issue on the projector screen or go through the issue aloud.
  3. Inform college students of four destinations in the classroom, one that represents each and every remedy decision. College students really should move to the place in the room that signifies their selection.
  4. Inspire 100% participation and remind students to make their have selection and not be dependent on what other pupils select.
  5. Pick at the very least one college student from each remedy choice to protect their respond to verbally, or enable groups to examine the explanation for their selection.
  6. When probable, inspire further discourse and discussion in between teams to aid deepen knowledge of the principle.

Shut Responses

Shut responses could be made use of for Four Corners when the trainer delivers questions with only one suitable remedy nevertheless, this strategy is ordinarily not utilized for Four Corners.

A much better solution for closed responses would be the College student Response Process.

Yet, if you pick out to carry out shut responses inside the Four Corners Technique, this is what it could glimpse like:

A 3rd-quality math trainer shows a polygon with the size of each facet labeled and asks students to figure out the perimeter. She gives 4 response possibilities, and pupils stand in the corner representing the letter of their option.

Assessment: She can use a information tracker to immediately mark if pupils skip an answer to establish their in general accuracy price just after all of the questions have been answered. Nonetheless, you are not possible to get correct facts from a shut question for the reason that if a university student chooses a mistaken response and sees that most learners are standing at yet another response selection, they could be additional most likely to adhere to their friends to that response.


Open up Responses

Open up responses are the typical response structure for 4 Corners, assuming the query posed could be answered the right way by any or most of the four selections presented. The teacher can then tally scholar responses and require students from just about every side of the argument to justify their responses with evidence or rules related to the day’s written content.

Example: A trainer displays the next numbers and asks learners to stand in the corner of the selection that does not belong.

9 16 25 43

In this unique established of sequences, pupils will require to determine out how those numbers are connected- and there could be additional than just one response. For illustration, a person student may possibly say that 16 does not belong simply because the other figures are all odd. A different scholar, however, may say that 43 does not belong mainly because the other numbers could be reduced by its square root. This method permitted for the instructor to aid college students in training math assessment in assorted means and critique important ideas necessary for further critical pondering.

Assessment: Immediately after learners make their reply selection, the instructor can have them total an exit ticket explaining their reasoning for their alternative or have interaction in a group discussion. She can then form the pupils into two groups primarily based on their exit tickets: in a position to protect sufficiently and not able to defend.

The Four Corners Method can also be vital in project-centered pursuits, pursuits where by assessment is important, or when you must observe justifying a response.

Consider a science class that has accomplished a lab action and has drawn conclusions. Based on how students structured their experiments, distinctive teams could appear to various conclusions that they can defend utilizing knowledge from their experiments.

Think about examining a piece of poetry, a complicated limited tale, or chapter. If the examination is intricate, or if the problem posed could elicit more than one particular response, college students will be ready to separate into two or much more corners of the space and then prompt a deeper discussion and debate on both sides of the argument. For instance: “Do you feel the character was justified in her habits to her father?”

In artwork, the trainer could screen the names of four well known artists and request learners to pick out the most vital artist for a certain genre, prompting students to lead a discussion on their most well-liked artists and rationale for their significance in the artwork world.


Best Applied When

This strategy is most helpful when college students have to have to display their reasoning or justification expertise. It operates greatest when the four reply possibilities could be considered suitable, depending on how you evaluate the dilemma. It will allow pupils to get the job done on their interaction techniques and helps them see unique viewpoints they may possibly not have deemed prior to.

Though the 4 Corners Tactic is not explicitly required for these types of justification routines, it gives a new way for college students to interact with the articles and aids to interact them in a more reliable dialogue. It can be bundled as element of your various techniques to check out for comprehension in your classroom and additional as an supplemental precious action for your study course.