Strategies
Cook-Wissahickon Elementary School is an urban public school that features a small learning environment with science prep classes. I teach several resource level classes for grades 3 rd through 8 th with a focus on literacy. These classes are organized into five 50 minutes periods per day. Due to the numerous amounts of students who are required to receive special education services, grades 3 & 4 and grades 5 & 6 are combined. This literacy block will enable me to incorporate the nutrition unit over the course of 6 to 8 weeks, which is equivalent to one grading period. Therefore, the unit will be taught primarily during my literacy block. It will extend across the content areas to complete the goals and objectives. Furthermore, I will collaborate with our science teacher to obtain scholarly input on complex science concepts and implementation of the lesson plans.
I want to teach lessons that have students utilize meta-cognitive skills. I will incorporate hands-on interactive lessons to reach the various categories of learners that Howard Gardner describes in his book Frames of Mind: The Theory of Multiple Intelligences such as visual, auditory, and kinesthetic.26 The unit incorporates a range of learning styles and abilities, which is an educational approach that was developed by Howard Gardner. Students arrive in the classroom with numerous strengths and deficits, educators are encouraged to incorporate differentiated instruction as part of the routine learning environment.
Reading Comprehension
Mastery of the numerous reading comprehension skills is an extremely difficult task for my struggling learners to achieve. Usually, these students are at least one to three years below grade level. My responsibility is to provide students with strategies that will help them close the achievement gap. To facilitate student success in this unit, I will focus on the following reading comprehension strategies, which are defined in the following paragraphs: anticipation guide, monitoring comprehension/meta-cognition, and responding to text (TAG it a 3).
The purpose of the anticipation guide is to activate student prior knowledge and help them focus on the most important concepts. It is a pre-reading strategy that provides a non-threatening learning environment for students as there is no right or wrong answers. Students will be given a list of statements about fast food restaurants in which they have the choice to agree or disagree (See: Appendix B). I will have an opportunity to engage students in an open-ended discussion that generates a multitude of information about a specific topic. Due to the fact that the majority of my students frequent McDonald's and other fast food restaurants regularly, I believe this preliminary activity will help me to measure students' prior knowledge and interest.
At the same time, monitoring comprehension is essential given that students need to be aware of what they understand and identify what they do not understand. This strategy correlates to meta-cognition since students need to think about why they do what they do. This is not an easy skill for students to accomplish because often they are unsure of the requirements. In order for students to reach a level of proficiency there is a method that I must implement for student success. First, there is direct instruction to explain and clarify the task. Second, modeling is an integral component of my special education class where I demonstrate how to apply the strategy. Third, guided practice means it is necessary for me to direct and assist students as they become reacquainted with the skill. Lastly, I continue to assist students until they can independently apply the skill. Generally, monitoring comprehension is a repetitive skill in the unit since students will read and respond to an array of informational text.
Responding to text utilizing the TAG3 strategy has resulted in one of the most powerful impacts on overall improve content knowledge. The acronym is defined in the following manner: Students are instructed to turn (T) the question into statement, which forces the student to make sure they understand the question requirements. Students then must answer (A) the question with accurate information. Students are reminded to appropriately answer the question. Next, they are required to give (G) at least three details or examples to support their answer. Students are expected to extend and explain their answers using evidence from the text. Students are advised to first obtain evidence from the text and fully develop their written response. After they have fulfilled this obligation they can extend their answer to make personal connections depending on the type of question.
PowerPoint/Video
Students will complete a K-W-L before the PowerPoint presentation. What do students know (K) about the topic as it relates to their prior knowledge? What do you want (W) to know are the questions the students will create. At the end of the unit, students will answers questions to assess what they have learned (L). This strategy will allow students to review prior knowledge, create questions, and discover answers throughout the unit. Do they know the difference between obesity and overweight? What does healthy nutrition mean to them? Also, they will answer the essential questions posed at the beginning of the unit. Students will continue to review and update the K-W-L. Next, I will introduce the history of fast food restaurants with a focus on the McDonald's Corporation utilizing PowerPoint slides to generate student interest in the topic. The focus on technology will be an important part of my unit for several reasons. The majority of my students are normally interested in technology and they are a generation that is accustomed to interactive visuals and graphics. Students will watch a video and/or excerpts of early fast food businesses to reinforce the PowerPoint presentation. The video and PowerPoint will be ideal for auditory and visual learners.
In addition, students will access the Internet to view the digestive system diagrams and process. This will give students the opportunity to view an animated explanation of this complex process, which will bring alive the intricacies of the human body. For example, Michael Pollan points out the complexity of the digestive system "the human digestive tract has roughly as many neurons as the spinal column. We don't yet know exactly what they're up to, but their existence suggests that much more is going on in digestion than simply the breakdown of foods into chemicals."27
Cooperative Groups
Establishing cooperative groups as part of this unit will offer positive outcomes for my students. Cooperative Groups will provide a learning environment where students can help, assist, encourage, and support each other's efforts to learn. Student will engage in cooperative groups during a jigsaw activity and a walking tour. In the case of the jigsaw activity each group will be assigned text to read based on their ability. This is one of the many opportunities when I will incorporate differentiated instruction. After completion of the reading, each group will assign a classmate to summarize the information. Next, the walking tour allows students to work in small groups. I will use this strategy as a review. Questions related to the topics discussed are written on chart paper around the classroom. Each group is given a few minutes to write their responses. When the signal is given, the groups move to the next chart. At the end of the activity, the group assigns a classmate to present their responses.
Journal
Students will maintain a three-part reflection journal to document thoughts and ideas as we complete the curriculum unit. In part one, students will respond to teacher generated journal prompts that relate to current health topics. Over a specific time period, students will maintain a food journal to track food consumption. Also, students will respond to journal prompts to reflect on their progress towards making healthy choices. Part two is when student will interview grandparents, parents, and relatives to complete a simplistic family history chart regarding nutrition. Students will improve questioning and communication skills and they will make a personal connection to family elders. The information obtained from the interviews will help them to grasp the obesity crisis. Students will discover that family members may be prone to certain illnesses and diseases. Part three is designated for students to maintain a glossary of health terms and facts covered in the course of reading and analyzing fats and sugars in fast foods. Students will complete activities to demonstrate their comprehension of terms. Students will write the formal definition and then include a written definition or illustration to help them take ownership for the term. The purpose of this strategy is to improve students' vocabulary development.
Graphic Organizers
A picture is worth a thousand words. Graphic organizers illustrate the concepts and it helps students to read and understand difficult text. Consistently I use graphic organizers to enhance my lessons. My students use graphic organizers to help them focus on specific comprehension skills as opposed to becoming overwhelmed with a multitude of expectations. Graphic organizers provide two benefits. First, it allows them to work in shorter chunks. Second, it allows time to digest new or difficult ideas. The graphic organizers I think are applicable to this unit are cause and effect, compare and contrast, timeline, fact or opinion, and summarization.
Assessments
Students overall assessments will be based on a portfolio of a collection of the above assignments and completion of the lesson plans that follow. The assessment criteria will include rubrics with a score of five indicating outstanding work, and a score of one indicating the assignment needs improvement. Typically, my students have extreme difficulty following directions based on countless reasons. Therefore, to help them remain focused they will consistently need to refer to the checklist to ensure adherence. A score of five indicates the student followed directions, stayed on task and helped other students while a score of one informs the student that they did not listen to the directions, so they did not know what to do. Student scores for independent work are essential because seventh and eighth grades students will soon transition to high school. Sometimes this transition is difficult because my school is based as a small learning community; as a result it is paramount that my students gain confidence and independence with the use of resources. A score of five means that the student was able to complete the work independently, on the other hand a score of 1 means that the student was unable to find the assigned information and failed to accept or ask for any assistance. It should be noted that there is a range with five being the highest and one is the lowest score a student can earn.
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