It is important to post objectives in student-friendly language so that students understand what they are supposed to be learning about and practicing. Furthermore, I think it is beneficial for teachers to be able to explain their objectives in non-academic, simple terms. Too often, teachers rely on "eduspeak" that the average student (or parent) does not understand. It is our job to explain these objectives clearly so that all of us understand what we are trying to accomplish.
By writing the objectives on the board, we can keep the students (and ourselves) on track. Sometimes it helps students to know what you are planning to do before you do it, for the same reason that we like to have agendas for staff meetings or a program when we attend plays or musicals. It establishes a little bit of "routine" in the lesson that helps everyone stay focused.
Saturday, May 1, 2010
Friday, April 30, 2010
Component 7: Lesson Delivery
Chapter 8: Lesson Delivery pages 152 - 185.
Features 23 and 24: Content and Language Objectives Clearly Supported by Lesson Delivery
Feature 25: Student Engaged Approximately 90% to 100% of the Time.
Feature 26: Pacing of the Lesson Appropriate for Students’ Ability Levels
Before reading: Predictions
➢ How do you know when you know you need to change the pace of your lessons, either to make it faster or slower?
➢ What techniques and strategies have you developed to keep students engaged throughout the lesson?
➢ When and how do you reflect on your lessons to make them better?
➢ What have you learned from your experience with writing SIOP lesson plans this year?
After reading, discuss the following questions:
➢ How do you support the language and content objectives throughout your lessons? How many times during a lesson do you refer to the objectives posted in the front of your class? DO students refer to them on their own?
➢ Why is it important to write out the objectives in student friendly language?
➢ On page 154, the text says “We caution against any inclination to list the state standard in an abbreviated form, like CA history 5.2.3, as an objective”?
➢ What percentage of time do you think students are engaged in learning in your class? What activities work the best for student engagement? Share your ideas with other teachers.
➢ List 3 things Ms. Chen did to support the content objectives in her lesson? Pages 157-158. Which of these things do you do? What techniques can you add to your teaching practice that will help students learn the content goal?
➢ What makes this component so important to include in your teaching practice?
Features 23 and 24: Content and Language Objectives Clearly Supported by Lesson Delivery
Feature 25: Student Engaged Approximately 90% to 100% of the Time.
Feature 26: Pacing of the Lesson Appropriate for Students’ Ability Levels
Before reading: Predictions
➢ How do you know when you know you need to change the pace of your lessons, either to make it faster or slower?
➢ What techniques and strategies have you developed to keep students engaged throughout the lesson?
➢ When and how do you reflect on your lessons to make them better?
➢ What have you learned from your experience with writing SIOP lesson plans this year?
After reading, discuss the following questions:
➢ How do you support the language and content objectives throughout your lessons? How many times during a lesson do you refer to the objectives posted in the front of your class? DO students refer to them on their own?
➢ Why is it important to write out the objectives in student friendly language?
➢ On page 154, the text says “We caution against any inclination to list the state standard in an abbreviated form, like CA history 5.2.3, as an objective”?
➢ What percentage of time do you think students are engaged in learning in your class? What activities work the best for student engagement? Share your ideas with other teachers.
➢ List 3 things Ms. Chen did to support the content objectives in her lesson? Pages 157-158. Which of these things do you do? What techniques can you add to your teaching practice that will help students learn the content goal?
➢ What makes this component so important to include in your teaching practice?
Wednesday, March 3, 2010
SIOP Component #3, Comprehensible Input
Thanks for your great reflections! I enjoyed reading your posts on the blog. We are now starting Chapter 4, Almost halfway finished with the text. I have enjoyed being part of the process of the Professional Learning Communities, as all of you share your insights on the information about SIOP and discuss the relevance to your teaching practice.
Chapter 4: Comprehensible Input
Let's start with a little review. Many English Language Learners do not understand much of the academic English used in our schools. The learner must understand the message that is presented in class. Comprehensible input is a hypothesis first proposed by Stephen Krashen in 1981. He says that ELLs acquire language by hearing and understanding messages that are slightly above their current English language level. This is known as Comprehensible Input +1.
The 3 features of this component are:
10) Speech appropriate for students’ proficiency levels (e.g., slower rate, enunciation, and simple sentence structure for beginners)
11) Clear explanation of academic tasks
12) A variety of techniques used to make content concepts clear (e.g., modeling, visuals, hands-on activities, demonstrations, gestures, body language)
Prior to Reading• Which feature do you think about the most when you are preparing your lesson plans?
• Which feature would you like to improve on?
• How much of your speech in class do you think students understand?
• What techniques do you already use to make content concepts clear to your students?
After Reading
Read about feature 10 on page 80-81.
Observe your class and think about their proficiency levels.
• At which proficiency level would you describe your students as: Beginning, Early Intermediate, Intermediate, Advanced or Transitional?
• How do you explain or clarify this concept and/or vocabulary for students?
Feature 11: Clear Explanation of Academic tasks. On page 81, the text says, “Oral directions should always be accompanied by written ones, so ELs can refer back to them at a later point in time as they complete the assignment or task.” Do you think that this would be good to do in your class? Would it help your students follow directions?
• What types of grouping and interaction strategies do you use to help students explain academic tasks? Checking individual students, small groups? Any others?
Features 11 and 12.
Identify a concept you will teach soon and think of one content objective and one language objective for the lesson.
How you would adjust your explanation to ELs to students who are at various proficiency levels?
• Beginning
• Early Intermediate
• Intermediate
• Advanced
On pages 82-84, there are 10 activities that you can use to make content clear.
• What techniques can you use to make new concepts clear?
• What techniques do you already use that are not listed in the book?
Teaching scenarios on pages 85 through 88
• How do teachers make content accessible to all students? Notice the strengths of the activities that Mr. Lew used to help his students gain access to the curriculum (p. 86-87).
• How do these activities provide ELLs with access to the content material?
Friday, February 19, 2010
Chapter 3: Building Background
Discuss these questions prior to reading:
1) What are you students´ strengths in the area of background?
2) How have you helped your students make connections to their background in the past?
3) How will making greater efforts to connect to students’ background knowledge help students make greater gains in achievement?
Before you read a chapter, ask yourself: What will this chapter be about? Jot down any questions or predictions you have.
Questions after reading:
Pick one or more questions you want to discuss in your study groups. Or you can come up with your own questions.
On page 54, feature 7, “Concepts Explicitly Linked to Students’
Background Experiences” is explained. What strategies do you use to connect concepts to your students’ experiences? What new ideas did you learn?
Have you heard of the word “Schemata” before? How would you define it? What does it have to do with students’ background knowledge?
Answer the 3 questions on page 56:
What does activating prior knowledge mean?
What does building background knowledge mean?
How do they differ instructionally?
List 3 additional ways you can introduce, write, post, repeat and highlight vocabulary for students to see.
Page 61 to 62. Do you think it is important to spend time teaching academic words? What are some of the academic words that your students struggle with?
On page 63, the book says “There is little benefit to selecting 25-30 isolated vocabulary terms and asking ELs to copy them from the board and look up the definitions in the dictionary. Do you agree or disagree?
Why do you the research would indicate that this is ineffective?
Page 63 to 68. Pick 2-3 new ideas for vocabulary instruction. Share your favorites with your colleagues in your books study.
Alternate activity: The Lesson on Building Background and Teaching Scenarios. Read the section from 68 to 77. Score each teacher according to the rubric on pages 70, 73 and 74.
For your reflection, think about the discussion and new ideas you learned from the text. Reflect on what you feel was most important to your teaching. Write a 2-3 paragraph reflection.
Quyana!
1) What are you students´ strengths in the area of background?
2) How have you helped your students make connections to their background in the past?
3) How will making greater efforts to connect to students’ background knowledge help students make greater gains in achievement?
Before you read a chapter, ask yourself: What will this chapter be about? Jot down any questions or predictions you have.
Questions after reading:
Pick one or more questions you want to discuss in your study groups. Or you can come up with your own questions.
On page 54, feature 7, “Concepts Explicitly Linked to Students’
Background Experiences” is explained. What strategies do you use to connect concepts to your students’ experiences? What new ideas did you learn?Have you heard of the word “Schemata” before? How would you define it? What does it have to do with students’ background knowledge?
Answer the 3 questions on page 56:
What does activating prior knowledge mean?
What does building background knowledge mean?
How do they differ instructionally?
List 3 additional ways you can introduce, write, post, repeat and highlight vocabulary for students to see.
Page 61 to 62. Do you think it is important to spend time teaching academic words? What are some of the academic words that your students struggle with?
On page 63, the book says “There is little benefit to selecting 25-30 isolated vocabulary terms and asking ELs to copy them from the board and look up the definitions in the dictionary. Do you agree or disagree?
Why do you the research would indicate that this is ineffective?
Page 63 to 68. Pick 2-3 new ideas for vocabulary instruction. Share your favorites with your colleagues in your books study.
Alternate activity: The Lesson on Building Background and Teaching Scenarios. Read the section from 68 to 77. Score each teacher according to the rubric on pages 70, 73 and 74.
For your reflection, think about the discussion and new ideas you learned from the text. Reflect on what you feel was most important to your teaching. Write a 2-3 paragraph reflection.
Quyana!
Wednesday, February 10, 2010
Book Study, this FRIDAY! Feb 12th!
We will have a book study this Friday, Feb 12th. Each group will have a facilitator, to help guide the meeting. We are on chapter 2, Lesson Prep. This will be good review and time to talk about what is working in our lesson prep.
Remember, you do not have to answer all the questions. You can pick which questions you would like to answer as a group.
Please read chapter 2, Lesson Prep, Pages 22 through 51, before FRIDAY. When you are done with the book study, please reflect on the most valuable things you have learned, from the book and the discussion with your colleagues, and write a 1-paragraph reflection.
Post your reflection on the blog. Do not post answers to the questions.
Book study groups:
Group 1) Noel, Julia, Paul, Melissa, Sandy and Katie
Group 2) Jeff, John F., Erin, John, Matthew, Vonnie and ChanaSue
Remember, you do not have to answer all the questions. You can pick which questions you would like to answer as a group.
Please read chapter 2, Lesson Prep, Pages 22 through 51, before FRIDAY. When you are done with the book study, please reflect on the most valuable things you have learned, from the book and the discussion with your colleagues, and write a 1-paragraph reflection.
Post your reflection on the blog. Do not post answers to the questions.
Book study groups:
Group 1) Noel, Julia, Paul, Melissa, Sandy and Katie
Group 2) Jeff, John F., Erin, John, Matthew, Vonnie and ChanaSue
Friday, February 5, 2010
Making Meaning Comprehensible, Ch 2: Lesson Preparation
Pages 22 through 51.We are going into our 5th month of SIOP implementation here in Chefornak. By now you have learned a great deal about SIOP Lesson Prep. How is it going? You can share with your colleagues some of your successes and some things that you still want to improve.
Just to review the 6 features of Lesson Prep:
1) Clearly define content objectives for students
2) Clearly define language objectives for students
3) Content concepts appropriate for age and educational background level of students.
4) Supplementary materials used to a high degree, making the lesson clear and meaningful (e.g., computer programs, graphs, models, visuals)
5) Adaptation of content to all levels of student proficiency
6) Provide meaningful and authentic activities that integrate lesson concepts with language practice opportunities
Pre-reading Questions
1) Why do lesson plans for Sheltered Instruction take extra considerations?
2) What has been your experience with SIOP lesson planning over the last couple of months? What has worked well for you? What feature of Lesson Prep has helped you the most?
3) Do you notice any improvements with your students and their learning in your classes, since you have added some of the SIOP features to your planning?
4) What feature would you like to work on more?
5) What do you not understand about SIOP Lesson Prep?
After reading Ch. 2: Lesson Prep (you may choose from these questions or come up with your own)
1) What do we need to do, if a major part of the information we need to teach are students is in textbooks that are above their level of English proficiency? (p. 24)
2) What is one new thing you learned about content and language objectives that you learned from reviewing the information on pages 24 to 32?
3) What supplementary material could you add to your lessons that could help students master the language and content objectives? (Feature 4, pgs 33 to 34)
4) Share one example with your colleagues about how you can use a scaffolded outline (p. 35) for the grade level and subjects that you teach?
5) How could you use Native language text in your class to help increase comprehension (p. 38)
6) Read the SIOP lesson teaching scenarios about the Gold Rush, on pages 39-45. Score the lessons according to the protocol for lesson prep on pages 42-45. You can have 1-2 people in each group read about one teacher and score their lesson. Then compare your scores with the scores and analysis on pages 46 to 50.
You can also use the questions on pages 50 to 51. Question 2 is a great one to discuss with your colleagues.
Wednesday, February 3, 2010
Chefornak SIOP Superstars
This blog is for Chefornak teachers to post their reflections following their book study. We have just read the introduction to the book, Making Content Comprehensible. Our first book study took place on Saturday, January 30th, was great. It was wonderful hearing all your ideas.
If you did not answer the following questions in your book study, take time to share some of your thoughts now. "How does the book define Sheltered Instruction? How is Sheltered Instruction different than Content-based ESL Instruction?"
Also: Skim through pages 15 through 20. What is one new thing that you have learned about SIOP that you did not understand before? What makes you excited about teaching SIOP? Write a 1-paragraph reflection.
If you did not answer the following questions in your book study, take time to share some of your thoughts now. "How does the book define Sheltered Instruction? How is Sheltered Instruction different than Content-based ESL Instruction?"
Also: Skim through pages 15 through 20. What is one new thing that you have learned about SIOP that you did not understand before? What makes you excited about teaching SIOP? Write a 1-paragraph reflection.
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