Teaching Strategies
Vocabulary Instruction Using Cornell Notes
Cornell Notes are a tool that will be beneficial in teaching the vocabulary required for this unit. The Cornell Note style of note taking requires students to take notes but also generate questions and summaries to ensure their understanding. The Cornell Note taking system assists students in “reviewing their notes and make deeper understandings after the learning has taken place”.4 In the article “Narrowing the Language Gap: The Case for Explicit Vocabulary Instruction”, Kevin Feldman and Kate Kinsella break down the importance of vocabulary instruction in the classroom. They discuss how it is important to focus on vocabulary instruction and take vocabulary beyond just looking up definitions in a dictionary. I agree that it is important to explicitly describe vocabulary, to make sure no student homes in on a wrong student-given answer, in a “who knows what this means?” situation.
Direct vocabulary instruction is seen in such small quantities in Mathematics classrooms across the United States. In all subjects, it is vital for vocabulary instruction to take place, particularly in mathematics where terms are often foreign to the students outside of the classroom setting. Vocabulary is a key element to the curriculum and without content-based vocabulary instruction; students may not understand entire units and the concepts within them. Feldman and Kinsella brought up great points in this article about why we should not have students use the dictionary to learn vocabulary. Dictionary definitions tend to be very confusing and skip words that make the definition too obvious. That is the opposite of the type of definitions teachers should use when explicitly teaching vocabulary. In addition to the confusing wording and the length of these definitions, there is also no way for teachers to ensure students actually understand the usage and meaning of the words.
The Cornell Note-taking model however is a strong and suitable for all learners. The model starts with discussions around the vocabulary. It is important for language learners to develop vocabulary by hearing more vocabulary both by reading aloud themselves and by hearing read aloud readings where teachers emphasize important vocabulary. The model then moves towards the idea of directly teaching specific words, which is one of the most important keys to successful vocabulary instruction. The most important tools for all students are the strategies for word learning. These skills in breaking down and analyzing parts of words for meaning will assist all students as they continue their learning through high school, college, and adulthood. Finally, fostering opportunities for students to work with vocabulary through designing questions and reflecting back on their questions to summarize their learning will support their vocabulary acquisition.
Using Manipulatives
The usage of manipulatives is beneficial for learners when teaching this unit. Students who are visual learners or do better with concrete examples will strive by using physical objectives as facilitators to learning. There are a variety of different objects that were developed to help instruct students with addition and subtraction. Manipulatives allow learners to get more hands on to gain a greater grasp of the concepts. Research from both learning theory and classroom studies shows that using manipulatives to help teach math can positively affect student learning. This is true for students at all levels and of all abilities. It is also true for almost every topic covered in elementary school mathematics curricula. Papert calls manipulatives “objects to think with.” Incorporating manipulatives into mathematics lessons in meaningful ways helps students grasp concepts with greater ease, making teaching most effective.”5 This connects to this unit because the addition and subtraction skills can be modeled with manipulatives and will be a great tool in solitary or in conjunction with another teaching strategy.
Blended Learning
A teaching strategy that is vital to this curriculum unit is the incorporation of technology through blended learning. To many, literacy is defined as the ability to read and write. In schools, literacy is focused on the ability to read books, write papers, and understand underlying concepts such as phonics, syntax, semantics, and so on. According to the article “Confronting the Challenges of Participatory Culture”, many adults while very knowledgeable about traditional means of literacy they “lack basic information that would help them deal with both the expanding media options and the breakdown of traditional gatekeeping functions”. With the expansion of gatekeeping literacies through the introduction of new Medias and technologies within the classroom, the definition of literacy in turn has expanded.
New media consists of all the culture changes that came about after the changes in technology the latter half of the twentieth century. Today’s youth live within this new media culture. Youth see culture as their ability to access all things at all times. Because of the importance of the new media culture, the definition of literacy should expand to include the elements of the new media culture. According to Jenkins, the new media culture “shifts the focus of literacy from one of individual expression to community involvement… the new literacies almost all involve social skills developed through collaboration and networking which build on the foundation of traditional literacy, research skills, technical skills, and critical analysis skills taught in the classroom”. 6 With this change of definition to the term literacy, literacy education in the classroom must change.
Going forward, it will be increasingly important to consider the new media and participatory cultures as we think of education. In order for students to be successful in a new media literate world, they must learn these skills in school to better prepare students for their future in the new media technology driven world. I plan to implement a blending learning model within this unit by using interactive websites, virtual manipulatives, and the adaptive software iReady as tools for review, reinforcement, and modification purposes.
Intentional Math Talks
The key to ensure that students understand these retaught skills will be to engage them in intentional class discussions. I want to ensure that my students are confident and competent when engaging in class discussions. I ensure students are confident by never discouraging student’s attempts. I don’t ignore their errors but I make sure that I commend the students for fixing a mistake. I also make an attempt to make sure questions for guided discussions are crafted with clarity and vocabulary that is appropriate for my students. This promotes student competency. At times I may repeat the key points so students are certain of the discussion topics and are more comfortable with talking about them.
I believe that academic talk is a type of presentation where you discuss an academic idea. I sometimes engage in an academic talk with students at the beginning of units for students to self-discover the unit. I include evidence checks throughout our talks to ensure that students are indeed responding to my instruction. (Appendix A)
Socratic Seminar
The Socratic Seminar is a strategy used to facilitate in-depth, meaningful conversations between students. The strategy allows students to discuss and question the work they complete while collaborating to reach conclusions on the topic at hand. Socratic Seminars are based on analyzing text and higher-level problems in math by raising questions around them and working as one cohesive unit to find solutions.
The key to creating successful Socratic Seminar questions is to develop a question that does not necessarily have one “correct” answer, rather a question that encourages debate and dialogue. According the AVID Write Path Mathematics text, “Eventually, when participants realize that the leader is not looking for the “right answers” but instead is encouraging them to think out loud and to openly exchange ideas, they discover the excitement of exploring important issues through shared inquiry. This excitement creates willing participants, eager to examine ideas in a rigorous and thoughtful manner”.7The idea is for the facilitator to question students based on their learning to think about the “why” and “how” of mathematics. A good question provided by the facilitator should encourage the seminar participants to explore the topic in their minds in order to come up with even more questions for discussion. “In Socratic Seminar, participants share with the leader the responsibility for the quality of the seminar. Good seminars occur when participants study the text closely in advance, listen actively, share their ideas and questions in response to the ideas and questions in response to the ideas and questions of others, and search for evidence in the text to support their ideas”. With the use of Socratic Seminars, students are able to develop thoughts and ideas to increase conceptualization.
Socratic Seminars are extremely beneficial in the Mathematics classroom. Socratic Seminars allow students to use their social skills in an academic world while simultaneously increasing their questioning and reasoning skills. Socratic Seminars also allow students to hear a variety of responses, strategies, and techniques to encourage a collaborative learning experience opposed to one that is teacher lead. Students who may struggle with expressing Mathematics in a written form are able to express their arguments and connections orally. Working in heterogeneous groups allows students who may have a misconception about a topic, work with their peers to understand and work through the content. The expectation is that all strategies and answers, whether right or wrong, are acknowledged and respected during the discussion. While the teacher will prepare questions to continue the conversation, it important for the Socratic Seminar to be student-led with little teacher input. As a result with this work, not only will student confidence grow when it comes to discussing mathematics, additionally students should have an easier time responding to brief and extended response questions on assessments.
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