Reflection #10

Sinatra: Teaching Learners to Think, Read, and Write more effectively in content subjects

This reading was about teaching students to more effectively learn content material. It starts out by emphasizing the amount of different ways you can graphically organize material from an expository text chapter, or a unit of material. It also outlines a shift in teaching style that would be more beneficial for students.

I really liked the different concepts map included in this article. I know when I’m studying for a big test I organize my ‘study guide’ on un-lined paper in the form of a graphic organizer. I have not used this type of strategy in class. I teach mostly juniors so many of them have study skills that work for them, but definitely not all students do. When reading this article I also consider the limitations for drawing concept maps. I would need to emphasize to students that our concept map is not a end-all be-all but that we constructed this map in a specific context.

(For us, this could be in a unit which ignores air resistance. Our map for a later unit could include some of the same topics/concepts/nouns but with new and different relations.) Similarly, recognizing differences in concept maps throughout the year may also reinforce those constraints. For example, the acceleration in freefall is 9.8 m/s^2 only when there is no air resistance. It is an approximation when air resistance is ignored.

The article also notes that this strategy is useful for all age groups-- but may benefit low achieving low income students the most. I thought this might be a good opportunity to purposefully pair specific students together. If some students are already experienced graphic organizers I can pair them with a student who has lower reading comprehension or study skills.