Cold Call

Cold Call can be an effective technique for checking students understanding of basic skills and content knowledge. I personally enjoyed using Cold Call because it allowed me to carefully select students who I wanted to participate in the activity because no one is allowed to raise their hands. I also used Teach Like a Champion's "Right is Right" technique to make sure I was able to reinforce the importance of the material and review correct answers with students who were confused by the information.

Cold Call was a new technique for me. I rarely drill students on specific skills in my 7th Grade English classroom, but with the ELA test looming on the horizon, I decided to try Cold Call as a part of my ELA Boot Camp procedure. The students really liked the intensity of the activity and I truly feel that Cold Call helped me narrow in on skills that individual students needed reinforced. Had I not tried Cold Call, I think some gaps in student knowledge would have been missed because during a typical Do Now, I assumed the majority of the class was following along. :)

In order to measure success, I found I could easily tally up the number of correct answers each class was able to get during the daily Cold Call. As the class adapted to the practice, they began to master the literary devices I was reviewing with them to prepare for the upcoming ELA Exam.

In the following video clip, you will see an example of the daily Cold Call technique. At the time this video was taken, the class had adapted to process and was used to the routine of Cold Call.