This week’s reading included topics that provided insight to
student thinking, student language in the classroom, and how to adapt
instruction. Through the reading, I will start a unit with an opportunity for students to make a hypothesis and provide an explanation. In order to drive
helpful feedback I will amplify parts of their responses, re-voice, or probe them
to support their reasoning. This way I provide an opportunity for the students
to see where we can make revision throughout the unit. By further using models
of small group or list of hypothesis on the board that we can revisit. This
model allows me to uncover student idea and conceptions and allow students to
go beyond a hook; they’ll explore their thinking, ideas, and knowledge in the
long term. This is also the reason that
talking in the classroom that works to introduce scientific language and have them
engage in discussion that goes beyond one word answer dialogue (guess in my
head). This along with student
interviews will allow me to have a higher cognitive demand and make lessons
that connect the activity with student ideas, seeks the “why” explanation, and
allows probing and pressing. Student talk allows students to make their
thinking public and as a teacher it ties back into knowing what my students are
curious about, how they process ideas differently, and how I can plan my lesson
to clear misconceptions.
Moving forward I want to make sure I build a classroom
environment that is safe and allows students to feel comfortable to voice their
thoughts. I really enjoyed the picture in the Ambitious Science Teaching
article that showed different dialogue starters on how to respectfully disagree
with an idea. This poster was made by students and allowed them to create a
document that they collectively agreed on. I thought this was clever because it
allowed students to think about the impact of their language and provided reassurance
to students that you can disagree with ideas and not the individual. The interview portion was also a new idea that
I am excited to incorporate in my classroom. It was an easy way to get some
student insight without it being a time consuming assessment. Moving forward I also
want to have more resources that tells me how I can incorporate more student
voice and language for ELL students.
I'm glad I read over your post because I was reminded of amplifying student responses. I am excited to implement this practice better in my classroom. I am also interested in what resources might be available for my ELL students. The only resource I can immediately think of is sentence starters that can be used to express ideas.
ReplyDeleteI love your comment over how important it is to make the classroom safe for students so they feel they can share their ideas. I think so often people get silenced for fear that their thoughts won't be valued. I think it is important to teach kids that their thoughts are important as well as teach them that other's thoughts should be respected. Are there other ways you have found so far to make your classroom a safe place? Thanks!
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