Group items tagged

This article discusses academic vocabulary and how it can have an impact on the achievement gap.

This article discusses the relationship between achievement gaps and literacy gaps. As many students enter high school with low literacy skills, they become frustrated and struggle with the vocabulary needed to excel in math, science, social studies and other classes. As teachers, we need to help students to build the vocabulary needed to excel in all subject areas.

This article focuses on a potential root cause for the achievement gap, which the authors identified as the language and literacy gap. When students lack the language necessary to access the material in math, science, or other specialized classes; it can be difficult or overwhelming to try to bridge that gap in the classroom. Teachers need to do a better job of incorporating and explicitly teaching the academic language needed to be successful in the subject area in question. The process can start more general before leading to content specific "jargon," but the important thing is to expose students to the language frequently.

Personal relevance examples are given in order to make lessons and information meaningful for students. Personal connections to material will help retention of material as well as motivate student willingness to learn.

One thing that came to mind when I read this article was a technique of vocabulary instruction that my school has been using for the past few years. It is called the "Marzano" method of instruction (named after Robert Marzano) which asks students to give their own impression/explanation of a new term before it is used in class. I often like using this technique for vocabulary in Physics that has a contemporary meaning aside from how we will be using it in our course. One great example is "Resistance" in circuitry. I will ask the students (as per the Marzano method) to write down a description or explanation of this word, then I will go around and record the results from random students around the room. The 'group' consensus definitions are then combined to come up with the 'official' or 'technical' definition of the word. It's amazing to see how many students have odd connections to words that help explain the science meaning of the word. Once I had a student bring up the idea of resistance meaning a "rebellion" or "uprising" of sorts. In electrical terms that is not the 'true' definition, but having the students visualizing the electric conductor 'fighting back' against the electron flow can easily guide students to the more appropriate usage of the word. This way, students can see that these 'new' terms are ones that they already have an inkling of understanding for. Their understandings are not useless, but rather need to be expanded upon as we learn more about our content.

This seems a really excellent support for the PBL model of instruction - providing real-world context to the material of a class motivates learning, and allows students to activate prior knowledge. See also the another edutopia article: http://www.edutopia.org/project-based-learning-student-motivation

Week 8: In our Data Action meeting we discussed intructional strategies involving simulation and games. This article explain some advantages and fears for educators implementing games into their lesson plans. Matthew Farber Social Studies Teacher, Ed Tech Leadership EdD Candidate, Author In the fall of 2014, the Joan Ganz Cooney Center at Sesame Workshop (a nonprofit founded by Sesame Street creator Joan Ganz Cooney) assessed the impact of the gaming in school settings.

Initially, I was very hesitant to buy into learning through online games. I know that children today spend so much time in front of screens, and I didn't want to contribute to this obsession (for some children it does border on that). I did see that BrainPop, a site which I use frequently, introduced GameUp and Spotify. I figured if BrainPop was okay with gaming for learning, then I had to give it a try. Well, my students will now beg for BrainPop and will do evey activity, quiz and graphic organizer associated with a lesson in order to get to sortify. What a great tool. I am now a firm believer.

I too see the benefits of using these online games within instruction. The games provide students with a means of engagement that we often struggle to provide students. With the growth of technology, students are becoming more in-tune with new technology and are using it more often at home. By connecting technology to instruction, we are able to meet them in the middle. There are so many tools available online that it's a shame not to use them!

Week 8: "Language plays an important part in math instruction, particularly for ELLs. This article offers some strategies for making language an integral part of math instruction and the tools and language ELLs need to master math." This article delves deeper into the importance of content vocabulary and content knowledge. Often, the foundation and basics of content areas are brushed over creating a gap for many learners. In mathematics, despite the universal language, there are barriers due to language and deficit in content-related knowledge. This article offers strategies to bridge the gap and increase content knowledge to supplement the learning taking place.

Vocabulary instruction is essential to effective math instruction. Not only does it include teaching math-specific terms such as "percent" or "decimal," but it also includes understanding the difference between the mathematical definition of a word and other definitions of that word...

"In a jigsaw protocol small groups of students become experts in one section or text and hear oral summaries of the others. The protocol allows students to synthesize across texts and gain new understandings from their classmates about the topic as a whole."

EDTC615 FALL2018 My SMART goal is after one marking period of examining musical examples, 90% of students will be able to recognize musical notes and form. This protocol is going to have a high impact on the student learning because the students are able to discuss and dive deeper into their reading. I can apply this to my music class by handing students a piece of music and having them look for the form of the song and the musical notes. They then pair up with someone with the same song and go over the notes a form together.

Dimension: Student Engagement Rating: 4 - High engagement for most students I particularly enjoyed this strategy presented by fifth-grade teacher Jennifer Dauphinais. The highlights for me were the students engagement from the very beginning in stating the 'Learning Goal.' It's one thing for the teacher to know what the end-goal is, but it strengthens the activity when the student understands the "why." Having students become "experts" in their reading to then discuss details and main ideas in groups is a great recipe for reading comprehension. The students have the ability to hear different perspectives and everyone has a voice. I really enjoyed this. Author Daniel Venables challenges educators in his book, How Teachers Can Turn Data into an Action Plan to "do something different in the classroom" if one approach doesn't materialize student-learning (pp. 60). My gropu's SMART Target Learning Goal is for 75% of students will improve their informational text comprehension by 1 grade level. Dauphinais' 'Jigsaw' method is a fresh approach to literature instruction and could be a great tool for us to get the students to reach this goal. #EDTC615 #Spring2018

(Week 9: Adiatu, Julie, and Heather) This journal article was found in the UMUC Library by Julie, and is accessible through the link given above. The article was written by Daniel Willingham, a cognitive psychologist. Mr. Willingham believes that comprehension strategies, such as questioning and monitoring, are effective in improving reading comprehension and should be taught to students. The article raises the question of how much the strategies should be taught. Mr. Willingham determined that two weeks of strategy instruction is sufficient because students learn everything they need within this duration. The article is useful to teachers because it discusses the benefits of various reading comprehension strategies at a variety of grade levels, and points out the most powerful and weakest strategies. This journal article is useful to our group because the teachers' artifacts are based on the reading comprehension and vocabulary gaps of their students, and the authors stress that teachers should strictly monitor the oral reading skills of students that are having reading comprehension difficulties. Reference Willingham D. T. (2007). Ask the cognitive scientist: The usefulness of brief instruction in reading comprehension strategies. American Educator, 30(4), 39-45, 50.

This article explains different types of reading strategies that are best to use when teaching comprehension across all grade levels. This article is very useful to my group because we are all focusing on reading skills/comprehension and determining learning gaps in each grade level when it comes to this topic. The author describes which type of strategy works best for which grade level and everyone in my group teaches a different grade.

This article explains different types of reading strategies that are best to use when teaching comprehension across all grade levels. This article is very useful to my group because we are all focusing on reading skills/comprehension and determining learning gaps in each grade level when it comes to this topic. The author describes which type of strategy works best for which grade level and everyone in my group teaches a different grade.

This article offers strategies to early childhood educators as they are instructing English Language Learners in language and literacy development. Highlights in this article include instructional strategies, explicit vocabulary activities, exposing students to multiple opportunities to speak with both peers and adults, and encouraging language development inside and outside of the classroom. These strategies are helpful in thinking about guiding my ELL students to improve their oral language skills.

This website provides teachers with free printable center activities for students in grades K-5. All of the activities are well organized under different categories relating to the five core components of reading: Phonological Awareness, Phonics, Fluency, Vocabulary, and Comprehension. All of the resources also provide teachers with detailed instructions on how to play each of the games.

Contains sample lesson plans and narratives explaining the plans. Also includes a Q&A with literacy expert Cynthia Shanahan with information on teaching strategies, differentiation, and vocabulary instruction.

This article explores the use of mathematical discourse, or misconceptions, to promote student discussions and learning. It goes on to examine the process and best practices of using mathematical discourse to teach students content and practice mathematical vocabulary skills.

Author Rebecca Alber shares six scaffolding strategies designed to provide successful learning experiences for our students. Teachers can use these to support our diverse learners.

(Week 7: Michele, Ericka and Spencer) This article is accessible through the link --> https://www.edutopia.org/blog/scaffolding-lessons-six-strategies-rebecca-alber. This article focuses on a learning technique called scaffolding. Used as a precursor to differentiated instruction (DI), scaffolding involves chunking the lesson into parts so a higher level of emphasis can be placed on information the teacher desires the students to learn. In the article, the author, Rebecca Alber, provides the reader with 6 strategies to use in their lessons that can incorporate the learning tool scaffolding. To determine the scaffolding strategy, the author emphasizes the use of the zone of proximal development (ZPD). "The ZPD is the distance between what children can do by themselves and the next learning that they can be helped to achieve with competent assistance." Some scaffolding strategies include pre-teaching vocabulary, fishbowl and use of visual aids. Teachers can use scaffolding in class to help encourage higher level thinking which allow students to better understand the information and skills learned in class. Additionally, teachers who do not have the resources to DI (space, time, additional teacher support) can use scaffolding strategies to aid in meeting the educational needs of all their students. Although one strategy does not work, the author emphasizes the importance of trying other. Reference: Alber, R. (2011). 6 scaffolding strategies to use with your students. Retrieved on October 23, 2018 from https://www.edutopia.org/blog/scaffolding-lessons-six-strategies-rebecca-alber EDTC615 Fall2018

Most teachers believe that students have a fear of word problems, but this article will have you second guessing that. The article will have teachers thinking that word problems should be used from the start of a lesson and not at the very end of a homework assignment. Students normally perform better on word problems then algebraic solving because they have context clues to help them solve the problem.

To sum up this article you can look at the following quote from it; And he warned that the tendency to wait before using word problems could exacerbate gaps for students who struggle with algebra early on, because they may not be exposed to many word problems at all. Students have a fear of word problems because they perceive that they are too hard before they even begin working on them. This combined with the gaps in the vocabulary knowledge are making word problems more difficult for them.

This is an article that explores the strategy of introducing word problems first during math instruction. As a math teacher, I tend to introduce concepts first then build up to applying those concepts to word problems. The strategy of introducing the word problems first acts to help students solve a problem using any method they are comfortable with, without getting bogged down with the math too soon and becoming unwillingly to solve it. This could address the SMART learning goal, by helping us to rethink the way in which students approach word problems.