“Content Differentiation in 3rd Grade Science”
"Teachers Have Homework Too"
Tiffany did a great job of putting in the work outside of the classroom to best help her students. She really opened herself up to growing in a very humble way by having this “inspector” come in and tell her ways to improve her lesson. She had a variety of tools in each lesson. She called on a “random reporter” which was equity sticks of each students names to pick someone to answer the question. This kept the students engaged and ready to answer. Then she had these vocabulary cards in their science binders. At first, she just had them check off a word after they learned in. I felt like she wasn’t doing enough with those. The woman helping her suggested that she adds photos to these cards so that students can picture the vocabulary even when they are having trouble reading it. She also suggested having the students separate the vocab into three categories that they create. And then seeing if the students can give an example of these words which helps with application and understanding their depth of knowledge, which is what we learned about in Marin and Autumns strategy lesson. Another great tool she used was this new puzzle cards on the group desks. She came up with this idea after working with the woman. I personally loved this idea and can easily see myself using this! She had puzzle pieces with question that increased in depth of knowledge. When students could answer a question, they could add the piece into the puzzle. This is fun and interactive and gives the teacher a great way to assess where the students are at in real time. Overall, I learned a lot about great techniques and tools to use in my future classroom.
295
Tiffany did a great job of putting in the work outside of the classroom to best help her students. She really opened herself up to growing in a very humble way by having this “inspector” come in and tell her ways to improve her lesson. She had a variety of tools in each lesson. She called on a “random reporter” which was equity sticks of each students names to pick someone to answer the question. This kept the students engaged and ready to answer. Then she had these vocabulary cards in their science binders. At first, she just had them check off a word after they learned in. I felt like she wasn’t doing enough with those. The woman helping her suggested that she adds photos to these cards so that students can picture the vocabulary even when they are having trouble reading it. She also suggested having the students separate the vocab into three categories that they create. And then seeing if the students can give an example of these words which helps with application and understanding their depth of knowledge, which is what we learned about in Marin and Autumns strategy lesson. Another great tool she used was this new puzzle cards on the group desks. She came up with this idea after working with the woman. I personally loved this idea and can easily see myself using this! She had puzzle pieces with question that increased in depth of knowledge. When students could answer a question, they could add the piece into the puzzle. This is fun and interactive and gives the teacher a great way to assess where the students are at in real time. Overall, I learned a lot about great techniques and tools to use in my future classroom.
Hey Caroline,
ReplyDeleteYou mentioned a very important idea with the teacher adding pictures to the vocabulary cards. When students can view information in multiple mediums it not only strengthens established neural pathways of the information, but it gives the students more pathways to the information! So, adding different media in the classroom adds excitement and also gives students new ways of storing information. I’m glad you mentioned adding pictures in your post!