New insructional strategy with "high yield"

Year after year, teachers find themselves teaching the same curriculum in the same way to different kids.  Falling into a "slump" by using the same teaching strategies is very easy to do.  Often times the strategies are not effective and don't produce a "high yield" of learning.  Looking at over 1,000 new teaching strategies and aligning some of them with Marzano's 9 principles of learning has led me to a new tool for summarizing strories.  The "Exit Out" strategy is one I tried with my 3rd graders this week.  Instead of verbally summarizing the story we were reading together, 1/2 of the students wrote a big idea summary on a note card and the other 1/2 wrote the detail summary on their card.  Then, each 1/2 shared with the other 1/2 what they wrote before they could leave the group.  Not only is this a jigsaw sharing strategy, they also have to come up with an answer rather than waiting for someone else to summarize the big ideas and details.  This encourages whole group participation and learning from one another.  The students were highly engaged in the reading of the story knowing that they would be responsible for their "exit out" summary.