LIteracy and Science

My students use interactive notebook in my class everyday and as a part of the interactive notebook students have to summarize the days lesson in three to five sentences. The summary part helps the students to put their thoughts into words and also helps them to reflect on the subject what they learn every single day.

Literacy in my classroom

I have worked very hard to incorporate literacy in my classroom. I've taken various literacy courses through UNLV and many different professional development classes as well. I've found that the theories and approaches are all best practices for all learners. I really enjoy using new strategies in my classroom because it really seems to draw the kids in when you do something they've never done before.
I love incorporating things that get students writing. An example is constructed responses and other things that prepare the kids for testing. Putting a diagram on the board and having the kids write all about it has been critical to helping my students understand what is expected of them when they get to their tests. Another fun example is having the kids do stations for different cycles. The water cycle and rock cycle is perfect for incorporating this. The students journal their life in the cycle as they roll a die at each station and follow the prompts to the next station. Then I have the students summarize their life.
In all of the reading that we have done I have found the most difficult part to be collaboration between collegues. We haven't had any planning time with our subjects, on grade level all year! This seems to defeat any of the professional collaboration models that we are supposed to follow. I believe that this is integral to getting the students the best of what the teachers can offer them. I find that totally frustrating. I do spend late evenings working with other teachers in an effort to do some planning together but feel that there is more appropriate times where we should be working together instead of pointless meetings.
As a science teacher I have found other barriers. As I have incorporated interactive notebooks in my classroom I would really like to do more modeling. I have requested an ELMO to help do this due to the high number of ELL students that I work with. I still don't have one. I also feel that science isn't getting any budget at my school because we don't have the supplies that we need to effectively do labs with the students. From complete rock and mineral sample sets to digital scales there is a lack of funding. I did try a fund raiser this year but we only made $30. I've written grants and not gotten any of them. Another teacher at my school just got one and we now have meter sticks and stop watches!
I hate to sound too pessimistic about this, but I feel that you really need some basics in order to effectively teach. I feel that the budgets of schools are very top heavy in Las Vegas. If the teachers had the equipment they lack for teaching we could do so much more!
Thanks for your patience! If you have any insight that could help me out, bring it on!
Happy Holidays! :)
Cindy

Incorporating Polar Opposites

I have chosen to incorporate the Polar Opposites activity in my classes quite a bit. Like Melissa mentioned, I also use it as a follow up activity to content reading based on articles we read in class or occasionally from the text. I have found that it really helps to model the concept first, so that the students are able to better grasp the concept. Therefore, I make a polar opposite that we can all do as a class together. I also try to explain to them that there is not necessarily a "right or wrong" answer with some of the statements, just that I ask them to support their reasoning with a written explanation, so we can see how they have come to that conclusion.

I have had them do it individually, as well as in pairs. I have found that when I have them complete the activity in pairs, it promotes more discussion, debate, etc. My next activity with this will be to have them create their own polar opposites for the class based off a content related reading article.

Hi,

We had community speakers in the PAYBAC program present to our classes this last Thursday. As a BDA activity I found a series of articles on Science careers in an older Science World Magazine to be used on Monday. I arranged the students in my 8th grade Physical Science classes in groups of 4 and each student read silently one of the articles (their choice) and made a list of any vocabulary words they were not familiar with. They individually completed the BDA outline that Erik had supplied. After completing the BDA they were to write their own definition of the words they did not know. When they completed this they re-told the article to the other three group members. Those members were then ask to write a short paragraph explaining what they were told about the other articles.

Upon review of the exercise I believe the students not only learned from the experience but also enjoyed it on a number of levels. Although I did not instruct them to share their vocabulary lists I noticed several groups actually asking each other about the possible meanings of these words. In the future on similar exercises I believe I will ask them to share these as well.

Phyllis

multimodel identity

A lot of the ideas in the book have been challenging to relate to a math class. The Multimodel Identity and Literacy chapter is an excellent example of how good practices stretch across the curriculum. All of the practices and activities mentioned are used, to some extent, in a math class. For example, I use colors and movement to help reinforce mathematical algorithms. When planning a math lesson, the different modes are always considered. This really helps the second language learners and the lower level students.
I think it all just goes back to best teaching practices and good ol' common sense.
Paula

Multimodal literacy

I've adapted and merged the literacy training activities with the NeCoTIP info for BDA strategies. Notably, for ‘After’ activities, the students have been working on multimodal literacy. Students work on visual literacy by drawing a specific representation using details or inferences gleaned in the reading. Depending on the visual activity, an actual representation can be shown for comparison (this was done with a nanoparticle reading). Alternative literacy is addressed by allowing the students to complete an activity using texting, foreign language, or slang formats. The culminating activity is writing in ‘Standard’ literacy. This topic has been addressed with the students as the bar to be measured by; for example: in China the standard literacy would be Chinese; France, French; and the US, English. The intention is to help students understand why a standard literacy is used and to bolster their writing abilities.