Teaching Strategies
Grand Conversations
Grand conversations are student led discussions that support students in developing deeper comprehension of text, both literary and informational. The conversation begins with reactions from a reading with a student asking “who wants to start” or “what are you thinking?” Students will respond to the student who answers the question. This will continue until another idea is presented. Then the focus shifts to analyze the author’s craft, how and why the text is structured the way it is. Students ask questions about their peer’s ideas, make connections to the text and clarify their comprehension of the text. Students share their opinions, using evidence from the text to support their thinking. After the conversation, students reflect and write about the ideas discussed. Teachers serve as more of a participant than a leader, by asking questions to help students focus on big ideas and noticing what needs further clarification.
These conversations are beneficial for a variety of reasons. One, reading and writing are reciprocal processes so analyzing an author's craft serves as a model for students when they craft their own writing. Another reason, students tend to focus on surface details and need to be taught to dig deeper for higher level comprehension. Also, when students discuss their thinking, it deepens their comprehension as they are able to clarify their thinking. This strategy also helps students take ownership of their learning as they are leading the conversation and discussing their own questions and thoughts rather than the teachers. This format also establishes a sense of community. Students will need to be expectations so that all students feel safe when participating. The strategy is also easily paired with multiple other strategies and activities.
Visual Thinking Routines
In the 21st century, students are required to not only analyze the texts they read, but the images they see as well. Learners today must “demonstrate the ability to interpret, recognize, appreciate and understand information presented through visible actions, objects and symbols…” Students need to be taught competencies to evaluate images and videos they see, advertisements and more. Using images to teach about the past is also helpful for primary age students and English Language Learners because it helps make learning accessible and age-appropriate. Using these visual routines will also help students analyze primary and secondary sources. This also supports students in analyzing bias in sources as well. “In the 21st century, students need to respectfully question the author’s authority, articulate what is represented and how, and infer what had been excluded and why.”
We also want to teach our students to read and write appropriately for each discipline. For Social Science, students should read and write like historians. Helping students analyze visual sources from the past, as some historians do, will help them understand how we can interpret and study the past through images as some historians do. Engaging with sources helps students connect to the past and understand history as a series of human events, it helps students question the validity of sources and construct new knowledge as they analyze and investigate sources.
Visual thinking strategies require students to observe images, then ask and answer questions to interpret and evaluate the images. Students will ask and answer questions related to the people/objects, the setting, the action and the source. Students will also sketch, write and discuss their thinking. the following questions to interpret images: what do you notice? What do you see that makes you think that? And What more can we find? Students have to think inferentially to decipher multiple meanings and make connections from the images. Students need to be taught visual grammar to discover how images communicate.
Inquiry Based Learning
Students should focus on content and the process of inquiry in the Social Sciences. Through this process, students will be able to apply disciplinary concepts about a topic they are familiar with, in order to construct and answer questions, determine helpful sources to conduct investigations and take informed action. This process supports students in using their concept knowledge at increasingly complex levels and serves as a way to integrate content. Inquiry also supports students in collaboration skills, critical thinking, decision-making and interpersonal skills.
There are five stages in the inquiry process. In the first stage, engage and ask, students are expected to generate questions about the topic they are learning. This can be done by allowing students to brainstorm independently, in pairs, in a small group or as a class. Their thinking can be written on a chart. It is helpful to display either an image, a video or audio clip or a text excerpt to prompt their thinking. The next stage, think critically, focuses on students exploring and analyzing sources. During this process, allowing students to discuss their thoughts, providing sentence frames, sketching their thoughts and using post-its as they read are some scaffolds that may support students during this stage. Drawing conclusions is the next stage and the focus is on students synthesizing the information they’ve gathered in their investigation. Next students draw conclusions and then communicate their findings. The last stage allows students to reflect on their learning throughout the inquiry process.
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