Apply Knowledge in Meaningful Ways
Introduction
Applying knowledge in a meaningful way is an important aspect of instructional strategies that allow students to demonstrate their learning in ways that convey their ideas, encourages self-expression and builds relationships between teachers and themselves. For this reason, the following three bundles of evidence were chosen to highlight meaningful ways knowledge is applied in my classroom.
Discourse Prompts
For students to be the leaders of their own education, there are some discourse prompts I use in my classroom. By utilizing these questions, I can stimulate discussion that serves different purposes as well as support and expands student's communication. A key component of discourses success is student participation. From the beginning of the year, students practice listening with understanding. I reinforce this habit by utilizing some cold calls to recall information previously stated. Another strategy used to build this habit is non-verbal communication to ensure all students are participating. Students have internalized non-verbal signs for agreeing, disagreeing, or seeking to build on to another student's idea. At the beginning of the year, this is a skill that students need more prompting on; however, as we develop our discourse skill, students begin to use these non-verbal signs more organically.
Seen below is an example of discourse prompts I use regularly. My choice in questioning is dependent on the key point, students responses, and student engagement. For example, if I notice students are struggling to participate with a particular question, I send them to a turn and talk where they can share their ideas organically. Typically when this occurs, I can identify common trends in thoughts for my next question or a studnet a strong response to continue the discussion.
Teacher Reflection
In the video evidence above, you hear four students discussing the chart the error problem picture above. Students discuss whether they agree with student A or student B. Throughout the clip you hear student discuss their answer through justification. As seen in the discourse prompts above, I try to base my instruction in questions. This puts the heavy-lifting back on students and engages all learners in developing higher order questioning skills by conversing with one another. Additionally, in this clip, there is flexibility in instruction. At one point studnets illuminate a misconception that a whole number always coming first in a division expression. My approach to identify key vocabulary terms at this moment demonstrates a flexible teaching process that adapts instruction to learners responses and ideas.
Personalized Word Wall
Within my class, word walls are used to provide students with opportunities to demonstrate their knowledge through a variety of products. While they are practicing different skills, word walls allow them to write and/or illustrate their thinking in a way that is best for them. This is important for me to help ensure students are building a deep understanding of content knowledge. Additionally, this strategy demonstrates my understanding of how to provide students with an assessment that conveys ideas, fosters self-expression, and builds relationships between themselves and teachers.
Shown in the images below are different students' word walls. Student 1 chose to color-code each shape and write notes to the right. This demonstrates this student favoritism with two learning styles of imagery as well as jots. Student 2 chose to draw creative representations for each vocabulary term. This student is an artist who thrives with assignments such as this where she is able to foster her self-expression and convey ideas in a way that make sense for her. While both Student 1 and Studnet 2 chose to use words to help them remember key differences, this was not true for all students. Student 3 chose to represent her thinking with multiple representations of each vocabulary term. This allowed her to represent her thoughts and recall key differences amongst shapes through the learning style of visual representation.
Present Challenge
Every year, before students leave for Winter Break, they practice applying their knowledge in meaningful ways through a Present Challenge. As seen in the PowerPoint slide below, students are given the challenge of identifying if their teachers have enough room in the car to bring all the presents they have when traveling to NYC. The activity is collaborative both on an individual and whole class scale. Students work in groups to identify the volume of two boxes. After a few minutes, they then come back together to share their data. Students break into their groups again to solve the problem completely in order to answer the question.
The image to the left illustrates the presents used during this activity. In total, there are 20 presents for students to find the volume of using a ruler. The need to differentiate and identify a length, width, and height demonstrates an ability to apply knowledge in meaningful ways.
The image to the right shows a student measuring one of the presents in the Present Challenge. One of the most important facets of this challenge is that it implements relevant learning experiences with measuring. This is a skill that students will need throughout their lives thereby making this challenge transferable.
The final piece of evidence for this task is an exemplary student response. While students partake in hands-on learning that requires them to use a range of learning skills and technology tools to access, interpret, evaluate and apply information. Here students calculate the final volume by adding the volume of each present. This type of challenge prepares students for high-stakes testing by chucking multi-step problems.
Conclusion
Once students have developed procedural skills and a deep understanding of content areas, it is important to apply knowledge in meaningful ways. I provide my students with the opportunity to apply knowledge in meaningful ways by using multiple forms of communication to convey ideas, foster self-expression, and build relationships. By facilitating student-centered discourse, I am allowing all students to have access to a rigorous curriculum. The incorporation of a word wall has brought creativity into math class. Designing and implementing project-based learning such as the Present Challenge has helped me build relationships with my students through content. Each of these instructional strategies allows all learners to be a leader in their own learning process.