Content Area Centers....with embedded ELA practice!

While at Teachers College back in February, I learned about content area centers for middle schoolers and fell in love with the idea. For those of you who have been teaching primary grades, centers are not new for you. But when my learning happened the examples I was provided all had to do with middle school and to be honest, the task cards were a bit overwhelming, so I starting thinking through how I would tweak them for elementary, and here is the resulting post :) 

 What if instead of cracking open social studies textbooks or jumping into science experiments from our FOSS or EIE kits, we had a day or two set aside for centers? K-8 teachers, I want to challenge you to think about some of these compelling reasons to engage in this type of teaching for the purpose of increasing your student's learning. 

Centers are: An opportunity for students to engage with content in a variety of the ways, many "access points", Requires deep thinking about content, rather than "sit and get, Students learn from conversation with one another, defending opinions, justifying thinking  with text evidence, Allows for differentiation in task, support, and thinking, Great chance to generate and answer "big questions", Lends to  thoughtful CCSS connections, Builds independence and ownership of learning, Here are some ideas for centers that could become part of your instruction regardless of the center;

Here is the link to the google doc that has both these task cards and a sheet that describes what CCSS Anchor Standards each supports in a PDF :)

Of course students need to know what your expectations are for the centers, and that does take time. Once students know what the expectations are for the photograph center however it doesn't matter if the photos are of the civil rights movement, science content, or even a math diagram, they know what to do. 

Observe, Think, Question

OBSERVE...THINK...QUESTION

I'm going to share one of my all-time favorite inquiry-based teaching strategies today. I loved it so much in fact, that I incorporated prompts for it permanently in my classroom. The strategy is called Observe, Think, Question. If you would have walked into my classroom you would have quickly seen a large Eye (observe), a Brain (think), and a questions mark (questions) hanging from the ceiling.
This strategy can be used in any content area using only a photograph, text, or even a video clip. It very simple, and once your students learn it, they can participate pretty seamlessly at any point in your day, in any subject area.
FIRST: the teacher displays an artifact, text, photograph or video clip and the students write (either on a pre-made graphic organizer or a notebook page they have chosen) about what they notice. It takes some practice, but they get good at just "stating the obvious." This stage of the strategy anchors them in the reality without letting them jump ahead to application or prediction. For example, if I displayed this book cover to my students

They might write observations like:

* I see that it is a boy

* I notice he has only one eye

* I notice that there is no nose or mouth

NEXT: The students can verbally share, or record on their paper thoughts they have, and predictions. For the above book cover they may say:

* I think this boy must be the main character

* I think his eye is important

* I think he might wonder a lot because of the title Wonder

LASTLY: Students ask questions about the artifact, text, photo or video clip. I usually have them record their questions first and then pair up to share and generate a few more. 

By the end of the exercise, you can imagine that a lot of interest, background knowledge and predicting has been done. It is a helpful strategy that I found replaced KWL charts in my classroom very quickly. Revisiting the OTQ work after learning has occurred allows for reflection as well. Think about how you might do this....

display a map with no title or legend in geography....

show a video clip like this without sound in your biology class....

Try it out and let us know what you think!

Questioning Texts

A great example of how teaching students to question texts fosters deeper comprehension

Jeff Wilhelm talks about Inquiry in the Secondary Classroom

The 4 Questions for students

I've just begun reading Formative Assessment in Practice: A process of inquiry and action by Margaret Heritage and in the first 10 pages I can see connections to our work here! When I stumbled onto this quote:
"As the lesson develops, students use the learning goal and success criteria to reflect on their own learning, to evaluate their learning progresses and to think about where they need to go next."
I immediately thought of the 4 questions that guide our PLC work. And then I thought, what a great idea for a classroom poster or bulletin board, the 4 questions every student should be able to answer:

What am I supposed to know/be able to do?

How will I know when I know it?

What will I do if I don't know it?

What will I do next when I do know it?

Consider the power of teaching your students to reflect, plan and respond to their own learning!

Teach so it matters...

In his book Engaging Readers & Writers With Inquiry Jeff Wilhelm states that one of the first actions steps to take towards building a culture of inquiry is to 

       

"Reconceptualize your role and that of your students as members of an inquiring community that shares a common vocabulary and set of conceptual tools and strategic practices to solve open problems in a discipline."

Sounds easy, right?!? Not so much. These things are essential first steps, and because of the that I believe they deserve some discussion. As we look at the elements of common vocabulary, conceptual tools, and strategic practices, I will give you some practical thoughts about how to try and maybe even fully implement them for the benefit of your students. 

Developing a common language or vocabulary is something all educators should be aiming for. Not just for the purpose of test taking or spewing definitions, but to enrich the understanding of the content and its themes. This can be done by 

• Most importantly, this includes the conversational language you expect and use in your classroom discussions. How do expect them to agree with you, one another or a guest? What should they say if they disagree? What does a response to a question sound like? How can students have clarifying conversations when they misunderstand or disagree? When these "norms" are established and students know the boundaries and expectations for communication, they will be more likely to engage in classroom conversation and discussion than if they think you are only looking for thoughtless compliance. 
• Creating a visual support for important vocabualry words in your classroom. A bulletin board, poster or even notecards on the wall should be in a place where you and your students can access it. The purpose being that you will use them more, your students will see them more, and the meanings will be reinforced. Consider having students create illustrations or symbols to further support the vocab as their understanding develops. 

Teaching a set of conceptual tools means giving students options for how to deepen their understanding of a concept when there is a defect  As with other elements of inquiry learning, independence is built from repeated modeling and guided practice. 

• One way to do this is by presenting graphic organizers that cause students to record what they know, questions they have and provide an emphasis on connections. If students can see connections between knew knowledge and something they already understand, their conceptual understanding will be stronger. 
• If students are building knowledge through reading a text, teach them how to find key words, identify root words or note similar vocabulary.