Justification
How am I addressing students' prior knowledge?
Students approach any topic with a plethora of prior knowledge. Sometimes this prior knowledge is correct and sometimes it includes misconceptions. Before the students in my class begin researching unknown words, they will document, on their own student page, anything that they think that they know about the word that they have chosen. This is important to do because students initial understandings of a particular vocabulary concept should be the starting place for instruction (Bransford, Brown, and Cocking). Students can document their understanding of a particular vocabulary word in the form of a bulleted list or concept map, whichever way they feel most comfortable sharing their information. When students have finished creating a product portraying their vocabulary word, they will be able to look back at what they thought they knew about that word and explain whether their initial notions were correct or incorrect. If students were to learn a new word without first addressing their misconceptions of the word, then they may learn the vocabulary temporarily, but they would ultimately return to their preconceived notions after the vocabulary unit was over (Bransford, Brown and Cocking).
How am I teaching my students metacognition skills?
Often my students will read a passage and they will think that they understood it until we sit down and have a discussion about their reading. One way to increase students' comprehension skills is to require them to tell me when they don't understand a word. In order to do this, students must slow down and reflect upon what they are reading and learning in class in order to pick out words or concepts that they are not understanding. In the past, I have picked the words that I want students to learn. However, using this method means that sometimes students are learning words that they already know or they are learning words that may be disconnected or out of context from the words that they are using within my classroom or their general education classroom. By allowing students to generate the words that they don't understand and want to learn, they are required to set a goal of learning particular vocabulary words and to monitor their own progress by creating products that will showcase their understanding of the word. Requiring students to establish goals and to keep tabs on their progress themselves will help students take control of their own learning (Bransford, Brown, and Cocking).
How am I building context through this inquiry based lesson?
Students are generating words that they do not understand and want to learn more about as they are encountering about these vocabulary terms in class. They are then responsible for finding a method of researching that word and learning its meaning by themselves. This is an important life skill because many of the children in my class have low vocabulary knowledge, and I will not always be around to tell them what a word means. Inquiry should involve real world problems that students are solving, and this is a real life problem for many of my students because they need to know how to figure out the meaning of a word on their own (Bransford, Brown, and Cocking). Also, when students must do the research and create a product of their own to explain a word, it is more deeply ingrained in their long term memory than if I simply explain the word to them each time that they ask me. Now that students have learned how to solve the problem of understanding a foreign vocabulary term, they will need to create a product that will show me that they truly understand the meaning and application of this vocabulary word. In order to do this successfully, students need to have a deep foundation of factual knowledge about what that vocabulary word means so that they may represent it visually (Bransford, Brown, and Cocking). Also, in order to have a successful inquiry project, students need to organize their knowledge in a way that facilitates retrieval and application (Bransford, Brown, and Cocking). By displaying their words on their own student pages on this website, students will have a place that they can go back to in order to remember and make use of their vocabulary words until they have stored them in their long term memory. They will also be able to learn new vocabulary words by looking at other students' final vocabulary products and collaborating on one vocabulary product with other student in class.
**Note:
All of my students have vocabulary knowledge that ranges from one to seven years behind their peers. Two of the three students who will be involved in this inquiry project have very minimal reading skills and cannot benefit from text-to-speech software that can read information on the internet to them because of their hearing loss. Additionally, this is the first lesson that these students have been asked to complete which involves researching on the web and creating a final product based upon their findings. Therefore, because of the context of my classroom, this simple introduction to inquiry based learning is a first step in helping students learn how to do research on the web on their own. This simple method of inquiry is also a stepping stone to begin to require students to do increased amounts of higher level thinking.
Why did I choose the particular technologies highlighted within this website?
I wanted to be able to give students options so that children who learn in different ways can all be successful within this project. This is why I allowed students to document their prior knowledge either through a bulleted list or through the use of the concept mapping tool Popple. As far as the web tools that students are using in order to search for information about their vocabulary words, I tried to include tools that could be useful to students with very good reading skills as well as struggling readers. My very good readers may choose to learn more about a word by looking it up in the Merridian-Webster Word Central dictionary or finding more information using Kidrex.org. I chose to use Kidrex.org because it is a child safe search engine, and I specifically picked the Word Central dictionary because it used short succinct definitions with kid friendly language. My lower readers and my signers may choose to find out more information about their word through the use of google images, aslpro.com, or our classroom sign generator software program. ASLpro.com is the most comprehensive and accurate sign language dictionary that I have found to date. Additionally, I searched many image sites, but google images is the website that is most likely to produce a comprehensive list of photographs that are most accurately aligned with the words that I am looking up. By incorporating sign language, print, and image websites, I am hopeful that all my students can complete this project whether they use English or ASL to communicate and whether they are strong readers or beginning readers.
When students are creating their products, I chose to give children the option of using either Photovisi, Popplet, or Wordle. Again, I am hoping that students will choose to use the website that makes the most sense to them and fits in best with their learning style. Popplet will allow students to insert video, pictures, and words in order to create a concept map. Photovisi will allow students to combine words and pictures to display the meaning of a vocabulary word, and Wordle will focus on words alone, using the size of the words and phrases to emphasize their meanings. After looking at the choices that I offered students, I realized that students who are audio learners are not having as much of an opportunity to grow during this lesson. Therefore, I added a component which will require students to think more deeply and explain their thinking about their finished products. Students can use Voki, type their response, or videotape themselves signing or speaking in order to explain the final product that they have created. Audio learners will love using Voki to explain their thoughts instead of being forced to type them out.
Resources:
Bransford, A.L., Brown & R.R. Cocking (Eds.), How people learn: Brain, mind, experience and school (pp. 3-27). Washington, D.C.: National Academy Press.
Students approach any topic with a plethora of prior knowledge. Sometimes this prior knowledge is correct and sometimes it includes misconceptions. Before the students in my class begin researching unknown words, they will document, on their own student page, anything that they think that they know about the word that they have chosen. This is important to do because students initial understandings of a particular vocabulary concept should be the starting place for instruction (Bransford, Brown, and Cocking). Students can document their understanding of a particular vocabulary word in the form of a bulleted list or concept map, whichever way they feel most comfortable sharing their information. When students have finished creating a product portraying their vocabulary word, they will be able to look back at what they thought they knew about that word and explain whether their initial notions were correct or incorrect. If students were to learn a new word without first addressing their misconceptions of the word, then they may learn the vocabulary temporarily, but they would ultimately return to their preconceived notions after the vocabulary unit was over (Bransford, Brown and Cocking).
How am I teaching my students metacognition skills?
Often my students will read a passage and they will think that they understood it until we sit down and have a discussion about their reading. One way to increase students' comprehension skills is to require them to tell me when they don't understand a word. In order to do this, students must slow down and reflect upon what they are reading and learning in class in order to pick out words or concepts that they are not understanding. In the past, I have picked the words that I want students to learn. However, using this method means that sometimes students are learning words that they already know or they are learning words that may be disconnected or out of context from the words that they are using within my classroom or their general education classroom. By allowing students to generate the words that they don't understand and want to learn, they are required to set a goal of learning particular vocabulary words and to monitor their own progress by creating products that will showcase their understanding of the word. Requiring students to establish goals and to keep tabs on their progress themselves will help students take control of their own learning (Bransford, Brown, and Cocking).
How am I building context through this inquiry based lesson?
Students are generating words that they do not understand and want to learn more about as they are encountering about these vocabulary terms in class. They are then responsible for finding a method of researching that word and learning its meaning by themselves. This is an important life skill because many of the children in my class have low vocabulary knowledge, and I will not always be around to tell them what a word means. Inquiry should involve real world problems that students are solving, and this is a real life problem for many of my students because they need to know how to figure out the meaning of a word on their own (Bransford, Brown, and Cocking). Also, when students must do the research and create a product of their own to explain a word, it is more deeply ingrained in their long term memory than if I simply explain the word to them each time that they ask me. Now that students have learned how to solve the problem of understanding a foreign vocabulary term, they will need to create a product that will show me that they truly understand the meaning and application of this vocabulary word. In order to do this successfully, students need to have a deep foundation of factual knowledge about what that vocabulary word means so that they may represent it visually (Bransford, Brown, and Cocking). Also, in order to have a successful inquiry project, students need to organize their knowledge in a way that facilitates retrieval and application (Bransford, Brown, and Cocking). By displaying their words on their own student pages on this website, students will have a place that they can go back to in order to remember and make use of their vocabulary words until they have stored them in their long term memory. They will also be able to learn new vocabulary words by looking at other students' final vocabulary products and collaborating on one vocabulary product with other student in class.
**Note:
All of my students have vocabulary knowledge that ranges from one to seven years behind their peers. Two of the three students who will be involved in this inquiry project have very minimal reading skills and cannot benefit from text-to-speech software that can read information on the internet to them because of their hearing loss. Additionally, this is the first lesson that these students have been asked to complete which involves researching on the web and creating a final product based upon their findings. Therefore, because of the context of my classroom, this simple introduction to inquiry based learning is a first step in helping students learn how to do research on the web on their own. This simple method of inquiry is also a stepping stone to begin to require students to do increased amounts of higher level thinking.
Why did I choose the particular technologies highlighted within this website?
I wanted to be able to give students options so that children who learn in different ways can all be successful within this project. This is why I allowed students to document their prior knowledge either through a bulleted list or through the use of the concept mapping tool Popple. As far as the web tools that students are using in order to search for information about their vocabulary words, I tried to include tools that could be useful to students with very good reading skills as well as struggling readers. My very good readers may choose to learn more about a word by looking it up in the Merridian-Webster Word Central dictionary or finding more information using Kidrex.org. I chose to use Kidrex.org because it is a child safe search engine, and I specifically picked the Word Central dictionary because it used short succinct definitions with kid friendly language. My lower readers and my signers may choose to find out more information about their word through the use of google images, aslpro.com, or our classroom sign generator software program. ASLpro.com is the most comprehensive and accurate sign language dictionary that I have found to date. Additionally, I searched many image sites, but google images is the website that is most likely to produce a comprehensive list of photographs that are most accurately aligned with the words that I am looking up. By incorporating sign language, print, and image websites, I am hopeful that all my students can complete this project whether they use English or ASL to communicate and whether they are strong readers or beginning readers.
When students are creating their products, I chose to give children the option of using either Photovisi, Popplet, or Wordle. Again, I am hoping that students will choose to use the website that makes the most sense to them and fits in best with their learning style. Popplet will allow students to insert video, pictures, and words in order to create a concept map. Photovisi will allow students to combine words and pictures to display the meaning of a vocabulary word, and Wordle will focus on words alone, using the size of the words and phrases to emphasize their meanings. After looking at the choices that I offered students, I realized that students who are audio learners are not having as much of an opportunity to grow during this lesson. Therefore, I added a component which will require students to think more deeply and explain their thinking about their finished products. Students can use Voki, type their response, or videotape themselves signing or speaking in order to explain the final product that they have created. Audio learners will love using Voki to explain their thoughts instead of being forced to type them out.
Resources:
Bransford, A.L., Brown & R.R. Cocking (Eds.), How people learn: Brain, mind, experience and school (pp. 3-27). Washington, D.C.: National Academy Press.