Resource Blog #3

The resource I found is an article from the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development written by Pérsida Himmele and William Himmele. In the article, they list different strategies for all subjects and how to apply them to the classroom. I thought the content-based “I am” poems would be fun to use in the science classroom. To do an “I am” poem, you would assign students a scientific object to research and they will follow this outline to describe the object:

I am (two characteristics you have)
I wonder (something you're curious about)
I hear (an imaginary sound)
I see (an imaginary sight)
I want (a desire)
I am (the first line of the poem repeated)I pretend (something you pretend)
I feel (a feeling about something imaginary)
I touch (an imaginary touch)
I worry (something that really bothers you)
I cry (something that saddens you)
I am (the first line of the poem repeated)I understand (something you know is true)
I say (something you believe in)
I dream (something you believe in)
I try (something you really make an effort about)
I hope (something you hope for)
I am (the first line of the poem repeated)

I thought this would be fun for students because it gives them a chance to be creative while describing a potentially boring subject. Another thing I like about this strategy and article, is that they are low-risk for English Language Learners and really focuses on comprehension of the subject. (130)

Science Example
I am a dormant volcano
I wonder when my time will come
I hear a rumbling beneath the earth's surface
I see the clouds out of my vast crater
I want to explode!
I am a dormant volcanoI pretend I could shoot lava out of the earth
I feel the heat beneath me
I touch the land all around
I worry I will never breathe fire
I cry because I want to breathe fire
I am a dormant volcanoI understand that it has been hundreds of years
I say, come on magma, join me
I dream that I will fill the earth
I try to explode
I hope I can someday feel again
I am a dormant volcano

taken from http://www.ascd.org/publications/books/108037/chapters/C-=-Content-Reading-Strategies.aspx

Synthesis Blog #3

I really enjoyed reading this chapter of the book and thought that the strategies were both useful and potentially fun for the students! Having to read the textbook for any of my classes is always a struggle because textbooks are never fun to read and it’s really hard to engage with the content and make connections with it. I remember in high school, I was taking AP World History and there were so much assigned textbooks readings for that class I gave up reading the textbooks and started watching crash course world history videos on YouTube. 

As an aspiring science teacher, I know that not all concepts are fun and interesting to read about so these strategies will be good use in the future. One strategy I really liked was Jigsawing, and I thought this will be very useful for science textbook readings. In 8^th grade physical science, the states of matter are a really big topic to cover so with Jigsawing, I can break students into groups and let them learn a section on their own and come back as a class to discuss. So, for states of matter, one group can read about solids and they can read and learn about their properties, another group for liquids, another for gases, and lastly one for plasma. Then the students talk with their “expert group” (so all of the students assigned to one state of matter) and figure out what the big concepts were and what they want to share with their classmates. Then each student from each group forms new groups with students from other groups and discuss what they learned about their respective state of matter. I really liked this strategy because it gives students the opportunity to learn in a low-risk setting with their classmates and giving them the ability to teach one another will push them to understand the concepts more themselves. (316)

Resource Blog #2

Growing up, having to do word problems in math class were the actual worst. If you weren’t reading closely enough you can mess up and get the whole problem wrong. This week, I found a blog post from Rachel Wise with three effective strategies to help kids read math word problems. The strategy I found most helpful was a chart that had keywords used in word problems and what operation each keyword would indicate.  

When I was in elementary school, one of my math teachers kept a word wall that had a lot of the keywords as the chart and I found it to be so helpful when understanding word problems. (111)

Here's the link to the website: http://www.educationandbehavior.com/helpful-strategies-for-solving-math-word-problems/