Design Question 2: What Will I Do to Help Students Effectively Interact w/New Knowledge
Module 6: Helping Students Elaborate on New Content, Summarize and Represent Their Learning, and Reflect on Their Learning. (pgs. 67-84)
*With the adoption of Common Core Standards, students are expected to elaborate and explain their thinking more than ever before. How do you ask questions that require your students to elaborate on information? Specifically, what are your thoughts on "General Inferential Questions" and "Elaborative Interrogations?"
*According to the authors, having students write out their conclusions will help them extend and refine their knowledge and they can do this by participating in a variety of writing tasks.
Share your thoughts on: "Note-Taking Strategies," "Academic Notebooks," and "Having Students Represent Their Learning Nonlinguistically."
*How do you have students reflect on their learning? Do you use or would you like to try any of the strategies listed on pages 78-79?
I see the value in using the General Inferential Questions and Elaborative Interrogations. When I gave the ECAM to 2nd graders this year, we were asked to have the students explain how they came up with the answer they did, and if they could explain it. It was hard for 2nd graders to explain. I know this is something we practice in each grade and hopefully by 5th grade the students will be able to explain their answers clearly. But questions are hard for younger students to answer.
ReplyDeleteI thought the note-taking strategy section was interesting. Going through high school and college, we had to take notes as we were learning new information. I like that the authors say the first time information is taught, students should be allowed to just listen and process and not take notes. Those of you who teach upper grades--do the students do much note-taking? If so, how does it work for you? I agree with what Polly said earlier--that it's too bad a lot of the examples and strategies we are reading about are for middle school/high school age. But maybe 4th/5th grade are doing more note-taking?
I agree that having students represent their learning nonlinguistically can be extremely helpful for them. I love the idea of having students act out what they are learning--or using music to help them learn and retain information. Music has helped me learn so much and I use it when I can in teaching.
Reflections are something I need to work on. My time with students goes so quickly--if I have a group for 30 minutes or 1 hour, I want to teach up to the last minute so I haven't done a good job with allowing students to reflect. Exit slips might work for us, but definitely oral relfections would be a place for me to start.
We do note taking on my classroom. We started the year out with making marks on sticky notes while reading and then moving them to our subject spiral. It was a struggle for students to not just copy word for word out of the book. It takes explicit instruction and lots of modeling to get decent notes by the end of the year. AVID has a couple of note taking sheets that I believe will be helpful for this year with our kiddos. I'm starting to think we need to share these with the building as a whole so they can be incorporated throughout. Even if it's baby steps, it'll help in the upper grades if they are familiar with the concepts.
DeleteI really like the statement that says kids need to listen the first time around, before they are expected to take notes. That way they can concentrate on the new information and not get bogged down by worrying about writing things down. When I was in school, all of our notes were set up like an informal outline....boring!!! There's no connections getting made with this type. On the other hand the free flowing web looks really cool! I think that it would be a lot easier for students to being to make connections with information. At first they would need a chance to draw their lines at the end, but with the goal of being able to see the connections simultaneously. (keep in mind my classroom experience is with 4/5, I know primary kids this would be very hard!) I think graphic organizers are AWESOME! I think that the kids have to interact with the information in order to fill them out. I think the book is right when they say that, this is where you can really see if the students are understanding the material. I've experienced that in my classrooms, where all seems fine, then you turn them loose to work on the graphic organizer and they are stumped! I'm NOT sold on the mnemonic devices. I think that for our ESOL kids it would be extremely overwhelming for them. In order for this strategy to be successful they are going to need a very strong grasp of the language, otherwise their filters are just not going to be able to handle it!!
ReplyDeleteI used exit slips one summer when I was teaching math, and that really let me see who was with me, or where the mistakes/confusion was still happening. I'd like to know more about the think logs. I can see this being a good opportunity to respond in writing to what the kids say, or at least give us insight to how they are feeling and if they are understanding. I like that they can occasionaly share their logs with the other kids, to compare. If you have an essential or guiding question at the beginning of the lesson, that would be something good for them to respond to, and of course, try to have them bring in the justification or evidence for their response.
I love exit slips for math. We used them all the time in my room and with math being at the end of the day it was sometimes the only way to check in with my class before they walked out of my room. It was also a way for me to group my class for the next lesson and do some reteaching. I fell in love with exit slips and intend to keep using them this year.
DeleteOne of my professional goals for this past school year was to work on questioning with my students and having them explain their thinking. I still want to work on this. I had difficulty getting my students to really explain. I am researching this more this summer and skimming through the "Number Talks" book by Sherry Parrish as well as "Classroom Discussions in Math," by Chapin, O'Conner, and Anderson. One thing I have already decided to do to help my students with discussion is to have some question and response stems up on posters and model using them.
ReplyDeleteI am looking forward to teaching math for my class and Janice's class next year. I am planning to implement interactive math journals, or as this book calls them, academic notebooks. I have also been researching this and have found some excellent ideas and specific ways to teach & review topics in math. Last school year, my students had math notebooks, but we rarely had time (or should I say MADE time) to use them. I am struggling a bit to figure out how to fit it all in and make sure that I am also covering the lessons I am required to teach in Everyday Math.
In the past I have used exit slips with my students as a reflection tool. The exit slips have helped me to quickly see which students "got" the lesson and which students did not. I would like to incorporate reflective questions in students' math journals this coming year. I also would like to try to have some cooperative group reflections orally as this may be a quicker way for my 2nd graders to reflect, at least in the beginning of the year, as opposed to having them write.
Making time for the interactive notebooks is really beneficial for the kiddos. It's so easy to just stick to whatever canned lesson we're given to teach, but that's not always best teaching. Switching it up and giving students something more meaningful can make such a difference! I know Jamie has mentioned before that as long as we're teaching the standards and keeping on track with the timing of the sequence guides, then we're good to get more creative. Maybe that is also true for the everyday math.
DeleteI'm going to try the method of using a reflective question and write the response in their AVID journal. After using the Socratic Seminar structure students will have heard responses to the posed question in various levels from their peers. I would start the Socratic Seminar with a default question, one that allows students to use their own background knowledge to respond. This would allow students to become familiar with the process. I would after a time move on to more elaborative interrogations and ask them to provide some kind of support for their conclusion. There are various configurations for the Socratic Seminar. I have tried using a single circle of students answering a question posed by me. I kept a running tally of how many times they responded. This helped me evaluate their listening and speaking. I have learned a new technique involving two circles. The inside circle sits down on chairs and uses talking chips to monitor who has spoken and who still needs to speak. You can start with one chip and progress to more. The outside circle stands behind a student a monitors them with a checklist or chart of how they respond. After discussion, they will trade spots. Students will be able to process the information heard, go back to their desks and take notes, then write a summary or answer a question. I plan to provide sentence stems to help them support their answers.
ReplyDeleteThis new method sounds really cool, Val. It sounds like you teachers are getting some great ideas from AVID!
DeleteI think student questioning is a great way to bridge our students thinking to what is now being asked of them with common core. While we were at AVID training (sorry but after that training my brain is all about how to make everything AVID like) we discussed how important it was to ask higher thinking questions of our students. More importantly teaching and modeling so our students can start asking their own questions while reading. We learned about Costa's levels of question which seems a step above the two categories of Marzano and a step below the levels of Blooms. I fully agree with Val that using Socratic Seminars would be great for this. Starting with teacher given questions to maybe pulling some of the students questions to lead the discussion. When we practice, we created 3 questions and then if the discussion needed new life, we would ask one of our questions.
ReplyDeleteI've used interactive journals quite a bit the last few years and my students love doing them. After reading this module and training, I want to change how I do them to make them a little bit more student driven. I also want to incorporate their note taking into the journal so it's all in one place and organized by skill or concept. This way they have examples and the fundamentals as well as their personal notes on how and what they are working on.
In our agenda's there is a place for a learning statement. We worked hard this year on having students express what they learned that day. I like having them make that statement at the end of the day, but allowing them to draw conclusions at the end of the lesson that they can look back to would help them be more successful. It's just finding that time (or making the time) to allow that 5 minute writing piece for the conclusion.
When the module discussed Think Logs I immediately thought of AVID study buddies. This is when you match a student to a buddy who helps them throughout the year. They gather information and homework missed when they are absent. They discuss their ideas and notes with a new skill or just to bounce ideas and thoughts off of each other. This would be the perfect partnership to share their think logs.
To help bring this all together, I agree with Kim to putting up question and answer stems for students to reference. They can use them during the seminars, conclusion writing, coming up with their own questions, and their thinking logs. We received some from our AVID training, but I may need to make them kid friendly. One idea I had was to have some generic ones and then have the class come up with some themselves. I'm all about having my kids have ownership in what we're doing in the class. If they have a say, they're more willing to use them.
With the pressure to cover large amounts of new material, sometimes I forget to slow down and present new information and topics in small chunks so students are able to process it. Discussion with their classmates is important to help synthesize information for the auditory learner. According to the Marzano text, this helps students process various perspectives on the topic. It's important to find out first what students already have as far as prior knowledge. It is helpful to have realia on hand to stimulate discussion. Perhaps a short one-two minute video would be effective.
DeleteThe traditional teacher lecture to the class isn't as effective as students process new information. A variety of small group configurations is important. Using the traditional teacher lecture doesn't allow for groups to interact. The text suggests pairs and triads as effective grouping configurations.
These small grouping configurations allow student to gain perspectives on other student's points of view. Of course students must be taught rules to follow when using small group configurations. As learned in AVID, the Socratic Seminar would be a good method. The teacher would assign interactive tasks so students would know what was expected and help them remain focused.
The text points out that respecting opinions and asking for clarification is important. After sharing in small groups, students could summarize what they learned with the entire class. The teacher would then be responsible for clarifying any misconceptions, allowing for refining and modifying. Groups could then revisit their initial discussion and make modifications. Students could present information on a poster using text along with illustrations. This method allows students to use different modalities to show what they have learned. As students present information, the other groups would take notes. These notes could be used when students would answer the required reflection for an assignment and turn it in for an evaluation or assessment. Hearing small group responses several times, compiled with note taking, allows students to process information in chunks. The text states students need to actively process information based upon their readiness levels and their background knowledge. Before giving any assessment, it is important to summarize, clear up any confusion, and make predictions.
My least favorite method for cooperative learning is to jigsaw. I find this structure doesn't allow me to process information effectively. If I'm not directly involved with the task or text, I don't feel that I become responsible for the information or curriculum as much as the group that was assigned that section. I actually need to read, speak, and write about that section.
I like the idea of reciprocal teaching after students have had access to all aspects of the curriculum. I feel this method enhances comprehension.
The strategy of concept attainment would also be an effective method for the teacher to use. This allows for clearing up any confusion abut the topic. Students could respond and reflect to examples and nonexamples pertaining to the new concept.
Very thoughful, Valerie! I agree with you about jigsaw, it's not the best way for ME to process, either. (wink)
DeleteI like the study buddies idea too!
DeleteAsking questions is something I feel comes naturally to me. However, that doesn't necessarily mean my students are very good at answering them! My class last year was the worst... I'd ask questions, see a sea of blank faces, scaffold that question, maybe get a couple hands... And cold-calling, ugh. Thankfully they got better at thinking, but what a tough class! Fifth grade focused a lot on elaborating interrogations; continuously asking for evidence to back up their responses.
ReplyDeleteNote-taking is a difficult balance when is comes to grammar. Many of our students are so drilled on complete sentences, they want to use them even in graphic organizers! Then our AVID book showed a sort of short hand for notes, which made me think of texting and I just don't feel right about bringing that into a classroom of students who already don't have a clear line of "correct" and "quick".
I think academic notebooks can be a huge benefit for students, if used correctly. Students need to care in order for it to be a benefit though and instilling internal motivation is so very difficult. I'm wondering if our AVID binders will be a type of Academic notebook.
Having Students Represent Their Learning Non-linguistically is important because it taps into multiple intelligences. Graphic organizers is far from a new concept, but having students create their own to correctly represent specific content could be a good way to increase the level of thinking. The same could be said for mnemonics too. So often teachers are the ones providing students with ways the specifically memorize information, when In actuality, students need to learn to come up with their own ways to remember things. Their college and high school teachers aren't likely to give them a mnemonic device for their finals!
To check for understanding or to form groups, I often ask students to reflect on their understanding. After a lesson, I would love to have the time to ask them to reflect on specifics parts and then be able to actually address those goals for growth... Our math lessons give us exit slips and the students and both tend to prefer these!!
Reflection is so important and we don't give students the time to do this. We don't give adults the time to reflect. I like the exit slip that have been used more. This gives the students not only a purpose for wanting to complete the information but helps them put that learning "to bed" before they venture into the new learning. I think the new interactive journals our great too. Interactive learning journals allow students to reflect on their learning in a nonthreatening manner. Putting it in a journal helps the students keep their thinking in one place so that they can go back and think about their own learning and thinking.
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