Teaching Strategies
Each year I receive a diverse population of academic abilities in my classroom. In order to meet the needs of all students, I utilize a variety of different strategies to address different learning styles and academic needs. One key strategy my department implements throughout all of our units is what is referred to as a Key Concept Tracker, which essentially becomes a student-developed reference sheet of scientific principles. It is a paper document that students store in the classroom and revisit after each investigation or lesson. The document is broken down into questions we aim to answer generalized as scientific principles we learn from evidence gathered during our investigations. This tool also allows me to differentiate instruction because students independently answer the investigation questions based on their understanding at the culmination of each lesson and each student receives individual feedback before proceeding to record their response on their tracker. Based on responses, I can plan to reteach the whole class or pull a small group while simultaneously providing extension activities to push students’ critical thinking for those that have mastered the principle. In the event that I reteach a concept in a new format or I pull a small group, students answer the question again and receive feedback and this cycle continues until students have mastered the concept and proceed to record it as a scientific principle.
Another strategy I will use throughout the unit is structured notes. Since this will be the first unit I teach in my sequence of units across the year, I structure notes so that students record and keep track of useful information that we cover in each lesson and investigation. The type of lesson we are conducting determines the content that is recorded. For example, notes related to an informational text might ask students to interpret quotes from the text, or ask students to go back in the text to find evidence that supports our investigation question. Whereas, notes for a hands-on investigation or simulation might ask students to record data, analyze the data and then interpret the data with guided questions.
Other strategies that are implemented throughout different lessons are science seminars in which students discuss their findings. This strategy complements inquiry based lessons because it allows for students to come together to discuss their data and come to consensus about the principles they uncover in different lessons. In a science seminar, we introduce a focus question. Typically, the question is our investigation question for whatever lesson we are discussing. Students have already been presented with multiple claims, or they generate their own claims. Once they present the claim they are defending, they provide evidence and reasoning as they debate against other claims. In the event that they all support the same or a similar claim, they debate which evidence most strongly supports the claim. The seminar can be run in a fishbowl style, where some students participate in the discussion and the rest observe and track the discussion. Or, all students can be a part of the seminar, which is most easily done by still keeping discussion group small but running multiple rounds of the discussion. If all students participate, I still have students who are observing and tracking the discussion. Items that students track could be pieces of evidence, logical reasoning, specific sentence stems, participation, etc.
Students will also take part in a variety of lessons to appeal to their different learning styles like hands-on activities, informational text readings, simulations and labs. This allows for students to engage in lessons to learn and experience the same principles in multiple formats.
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