Strategies
While teaching this unit I plan to employ a variety of strategies providing the opportunity to teach to the different intelligences, strengths, and learning styles of my students. I teach Enrichment Math and English Language Arts, therefore I will be using strategies that can be transferred across both subject areas. Independent Practice will be integrated throughout the unit and presented as options on some assignments.
Technology Integration is a key strategy that will be part of this unit. Students will use the technology available to them in a variety of ways. They will use the software available in my school district, Kidspiration and Inspiration specifically at this point in time, to create various graphic organizers in order to organize data or represent other types of information in a visual way to maximize learning through visual representation. They will be instructed on the use and creation of spreadsheets in order to capture and represent specific data or information in a relevant chart or table format. Students will be engaged in interactive online websites that will present or illustrate concepts that might otherwise be inaccessible for them. Students will also use the available technology to conduct research, obtaining information pertinent to project assignments. The more simple applications of word processing and/or presentation development including importing illustrations into a document will also be part of the technology integration strategy.
The use of Visual and Graphic representations to explain a topic is going to be a significant strategy for delivering this unit topic. I know that I could not have grasped many of the concepts and ideas without visual representation so I know that my students wouldn't either.
Another strategy I believe to be highly effective is collaborative pairs. Students' working in pairs helps to promote discussion, which aids in clarifying content and concepts. The use of collaborative pairs reinforces social interaction, a significant part of learning and promotes student interaction effectively and manageably. It provides the teacher with the opportunity to check for understanding as students interact.
An additional strategy that expands on the theme of collaboration is cooperative teams. This will be presented as an option for larger, more time-consuming, projects. While most students don't object to working with a partner, not all students like working in a larger cooperative group of up to four students. This strategy will be presented as an option in order to be sensitive to the fact that one size does not fit all. I see this strategy being more relevant to a research project that will result in a team presentation or a panel discussion connected to resolving some type of societal problem through some form of biomimicry. This will be particularly relevant to students' study of one of the critters they have previously studied in their life sciences kits.
Writing across the curriculum is a strategy that will be utilized in this unit integrated with observation and making inferences, similar to what scientists do based on what they know about how certain elements and or molecular substances are expected to work or react. Creative writing will also be included as a component of this strategy. Students will be provided with choices for producing their written assignments. Some of the choices that come to mind include a technical information page, a comic strip or book, a short story, and a flipbook. I also envision integrating art into this strategy for those students who have excellent visual and/or graphic art skills.
Hands-on interactive activities are another strategy that will be an integral aspect for teaching this unit. This strategy may include teacher made and/or purchased manipulatives, paper cutting and folding. With regard to the idea of molecules and their shape students will be engaged in a manipulative activity whereby they create and record their different molecular structures. Setting up experiments using the scientific method will be a by-product of this unit resulting in science fair projects to be entered into our school-wide science fair.
Summarizing strategies are good to use with this unit particularly since the focal subjects are Math and English Language Arts. Summarizing will be used along with reading across the curriculum fostering non-fiction reading materials including current science related articles from newspapers and/or magazines. The Nanooze publication for kids and its accompanying supporting website will be a good resource for this purpose.
Brainstorming ideas, solutions, alternatives, etc. is a useful strategy to employ in this unit. It will provide students with the opportunity to think out of the box generating new ideas and revisiting old ones with a new twist. This approach will potentially create experiences that correspond to industry-type think tanks or research and development departments.
Extended thinking strategies will be employed to encourage students to analyze data, evaluate situations based on some predetermined criteria, draw conclusions through appropriate inferences, and synthesize or apply conclusions in an authentic situation or problem.
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