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!
What I learned about building background knowledge is that we should focus on what our students already know and explicitly link new material to this prior knowledge. Our students have a deep understanding of many topics that are relevant to them, but they don't always connect those experiences and their importance to what we are doing in class. We should focus on making connections for them so that they will better understand new material and why it is relevant to their lives.
ReplyDeleteMatthew, thanks for sharing your reflection. I like how you say that when you can make the connections between the students’ background knowledge and the lessons in school, that “they will better understand new material and why it is relevant to their lives.” Do you think that the students will be dependent on teachers to make these connections, or will they learn to make these connections for themselves? How can you help students make connections with background knowledge on their own? How did you learn?
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