4+March+MHTC+Session+4+Log

Each member reflected on the group reading of chapters 6 and 7 and responded to all or one of the following prompts on their wiki page: · **What are some strategies you use or might be interested in using to help your students build schemata in your content area? ** · **How do you make visible (demystify) reading strategies you use to make sense of text in your content area? ** · **What are some distinct characteristics of (your content area) texts that you can point to as important or characteristic of your discipline? ** · **What are some ways in which you activate your students' prior knowledge? ** The following are the highlights of the discussion from those comments: Neil noted that in history he uses the compare/contrast/predict to cover historical events. Students predict what will happen based on passed evidence. He also uses this technique in reading. He has students compare one reading to another or do it on two documents or two people they studied. For example he has students compare strategies of Gandhi and Hitler to create social change. One used non violence to get out of an authoritative leadership where as the other used force. This technique is also applicable to American History with England and predicts what will happen. Ellen applies the compare/contrast/predict in history and science. Students predict but also qualify their prediction with evidence. Evidence helps them dig deeper and find relevant prior knowledge. Student predictions use to be weak until she required them to support their predictions with evidence.  Nicole uses the technique of connecting with real life to help understand laws of motion. To understand the concept of mass and acceleration, she has students act out the idea, (visual model), then read the text and then predict how the visual model would change. To support the text reading they act out the example given in the book. Kristen used the prediction technique to teach plays. She prepares an anticipation action guide to build schemata that requires students to tap into prior knowledge. The questions are not “what do you know about a play” but rather thematic questions such as “would you ever disobey a law for a family member”. Questions students can answer prior to reading based on their life experiences. Then they read the play with a purpose. She found the class to be much more engaged when the prediction was based on theme and not story specifics. Jack also finds that students can miss the theme because they are lost in the words. So doing theme questions help students pull the theme out prior to the read. Trace commented that narratives for math and science may help students learn difficult concepts. Narratives provide a hook for students to help them engage in the lesson. Kristen countered that her experience with trade study students such as culinary arts, proved the opposite. The narratives were a turn off. These students struggled with difficult complex text i.e. culinary books because of their motivation to learn a technique, not the lure of a story. Nicole presented her work with journaling in her physical science class. This work is part of her inquiry class taught by Tom Myer. Her question is – what benefit does journaling provide to content learning. Her feeling is that journaling helps activate prior knowledge. She provided the group with student journals and asked them to review the journal with three questions in mind. 1. What happens when students write journals in science class? 2. What evidence of learning is reflected in the journal entries? <span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">3. <span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">How do other teachers use journals in their content areas? <span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Her class is diverse. She teaches five sections of physical science with three of the sections being inclusion sections where many students have IEPs. All journal work is done in class. At the beginning of class, each student writes in the journal in response to a “do now prompt”. <span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Prompts are developed with the purpose of: · <span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Accessing prior knowledge as an introduction to a topic · <span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Clarifying vocabulary – write out definitions · <span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Collecting data for lab work. <span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Clarifying Questions and Observation from the Study Group: · <span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Do you model an acceptable response (Ellen)? Put student response on the smart board and that models the good answer – gives feedback to how well writing. (Nicole) Journal meant to be in progress so want to show entries that you would add – take away the fear of being wrong. (Ellen) · <span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">For the quizzes documented in the journal – are the students allowed to take notes? Students can look at the notes which Sarah found to be a great motivation to take notes. · <span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Ellen noted that some journals showed more work as the year progressed. She asked if the journals were used as a basis for student conferencing. · <span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Jack noted the variety of entries. He found the ones that elicited personal responses the most interesting. · <span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Trace noted the varying quality of journal entries amongst the students. She wondered if students should have the opportunity to review each other entries. She also commented on the variety of writing from procedural to content prompts. · <span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Jack noted two or kinds of writing – journaling, note taking like definitions and charts. He wondered if Nicole ever tried organizing the notebooks into sections based on the writing type; terms; reflective writing; graphic organizers. Neil uses sectional journaling. He has students put all vocabulary in the back of their book. He also has a theme section and KWL’s. He has a table of content in front with numbered pages. Nicole said that she had first started with a table of contents but students focused on that and it slowed down their writing. · <span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Nicole noted that students liked the journal writing and would go right to it at the beginning of class. · <span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Trace noticed that the paper journal allowed pictures and more creative expression than computer generated journals. She also noted the side writing when students commented on their entries (metacognition). This doesn’t happen in her school now that it is completely automated and virtually paperless. <span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Participants then took a survey for Nicole for her inquiry class. <span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Neil presented his content literacy work. He wants to improve student self learning by helping students ask deeper questions. To do this he provides each student a copy of Bloom’s taxonomy. He demonstrates the level of questions by having students ask basic questions about him. Then he has them ask comprehension questions about him. This was difficult for most so he brought another student up and had them do compare and contrast. This technique helped most ask deeper than basic questions. <span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Once the questions are modeled, they watch a video and make a question bank. This they trade with each other to review how well they learned the information from the video. Other than using compare and contrast, most had hard time coming up with comprehension questions. He had the same results with a primary source documents. <span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Lastly the class looks at DBQ and tries to determine the type of question and the level of response needed. <span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Study Group observations: · <span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">The Bloom’s taxonomy is confusing and may have been a stumbling block for deeper questions. There is an on-line a list of words to begin Knowledge questions (what, where, when,) and words that begin comprehension questions (…why, compare). This may be straighter forward for the students and provide the scaffolding they need to learn by questioning. · <span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Give the students framing questions and take the composing step out. · <span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Try the description given in Chapter 5 about questions ie. Right/there, putting it together, author and me. This may help them get to the composing step of questioning. · <span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Neil found that questioning allowed students to learn the content without being told. But the process is taking too long. The study group encouraged him to trust the process and as the students get more proficient at asking questions, the time issue should go away. · <span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Ellen recommended conferencing with students who had difficulty developing questions. Provide them phrases to help them develop as questioners or use a template for questions. While conferencing went on with struggling students, more advanced students would review each other’s questions. · <span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Neil noted that the summarizing abut Gandhi after the questioning was much richer than if done from just reading or just a video. <span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Next Steps: · Our last meeting, April 9, 2010 will be used to determine next steps. We want to Look at what we have uncovered about content work and what we would like to look at in the future. Also in what form should this work continue. · Following the 4/9 meeting there is a tech study group that we are invited to attend. The focus is using technology to facilitate student learning. · April 10, 2010 is the HVWP Saturday Seminar. We will attend this as a study group to explore how technology impacts learning and specifically content area literacy. Janine and Laura are presenting.
 * SESSION # **: 4 (March 12, 2010)
 * Reflections: **
 * New Work: **