One of our school-wide goals where I teach is all about literacy in all of it's forms. As I read over the standards and article I was encouraged that I am doing a lot of what it discussed already.
Even though I teach high school, I found a lot of value in the ideas contained within the "Science and Literacy" article. I think anyone who has taught for any amount of time comes to the conclusion that to teach successfully and really give our students the best opportunity to succeed, we need to clue them in on what we expect and clarify what that actually looks like and sounds like. It is amazing to me how much better my students do and how many more risks they are willing to take when they know exactly what the expectations are. It's almost like we give them a bubble to work within and they then are willing to work outside that bubble and be more creative.
I really like the guidelines for note-taking that were given - because I teach high school and my students are not always able to write in their books I would alter some of the statements so that they work a little better and force my students to do a little more higher level thinking. One of the most valuable aspects to this is the summary portion - you can really see what the students understand (or don't understand) when they are forced to summarize the information. I often have to go through an example with my students on how to read the textbook and how to take notes and I think this list would be very helpful to them.
It will be interesting to see what the new standards will be and how much they will include.
I really like the note-taking guidelines as well, especially being a high school teacher that assumes the kids already "get it." I have my students write a summary of a reading or short textbook excerpt in 1-2 sentences as a tool to see if they are comprehending. This has been a great tool as I can quickly go through a class of 30 and see who has it down and who needs help either in content or expressing their knowledge.
ReplyDeleteI agree that it is really valuable to have the students summarize what they have read. Last year I started many of my senior physics classes with 10 minutes of time for them to discuss their background reading that they were supposed to do for homework. The diligent kids realized the value of taking a few notes. My challenge has been differentiating for students who read at different speeds and levels when I do an in-class reading of even just a page of text or short internet excerpt. Ideas?
ReplyDeleteI typically end up giving my students quite a bit of time to read what I have them read in class because I am a slow reader myself. I've never really run into issues with students getting off task when I give reading time, they are usually respectful of each other and the differences in reading speeds. One things you could do is have students read the section and then have a variety of questions to answer (different levels) and tell them to work on those until you get their attention. That way even if they don't have time to finish all of the questions they can still fully participate in the discussion.
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