Chocolate!

Rock Cycle Experiment

Who doesn’t like chocolate? This lab is dedicated to the subject of earth science and using chocolate to show the different kinds of rocks on the earth. This is really cool for content-area literacy because it is really relatable for the kids. They will clearly be able to see the differences in the chocolate and use prior knowledge about chocolate to then make that comparison to rocks on earth and the rock cycle. It also gets the kids engaged with the content which I think is also really important for literacy. I think this would be a super fun experiment to do with students and it would be incredibly beneficial.

(Word Count: 111)

Synthesis Blog 3

     Ahhh, the dreaded textbook. As students, we all grew up hating it and immediately protested any reading assigned from it. My AP World History teacher from high school must have thought our textbook was the Bible of world history because we were assigned at least 10 pages of reading a night. By the end of the year I had read that whole textbook, but how much knowledge did I actually retain? Not much. 

     

     So what place do textbooks have in our classroom? A quote from Chapter 6 of Subjects Matter stood out to me, “If all the worrisome test scores and ranting pundits mean anything, it’s that textbook-based teaching doesn’t work” (p. 178). I agree with the text here and believe that our curriculum should not be based around the textbook, but I do think we can utilize it in strategic ways. I really loved the “Guide-o-Rama” study guide provided in the textbook. I think it is an amazing way to get students to read the text intentionally and get the main ideas from the passage that you want them to get. It is like this beautiful little map to help them decipher the text and help them learn how to be literate with textbooks. Personally, I would use this strategy in my classroom but I still would not center my teaching around the textbook. I would take ideas from the text, that I think are important and in the standards and make my own notes or powerpoint to teach the concepts. This way I can get the important vocabulary and ideas and make sure the students know them rather than just throwing them to the wolves with the textbook.

(Word Count: 283)

Visually Enhanced Learning Activities (VELAs)

The Biology Coloring Book

This is a super cool resource that one of my favorite teachers in high school used with us all of the time. This coloring book lets students learn in many different ways. On the front of the page it has a reading about whatever topic it is. For example if the page was dedicated to mitosis, it would have an article describing what happens during mitosis. Then on the other side is a picture that you are supposed to color code and it visually shows all of the processes of mitosis. This is an awesome resource for teachers to utilize with content literacy in science because it allows you to teach the material in multiple ways.

(Word Count: 116)

Synthesis Blog 2

     Reading through Chapter 11 of Subjects Matter made me think about what content-area reading was like for me growing up in school. Generally I could understand and analyze a text pretty easily in any subject but physics was always my kryptonite. It was always really hard for me to visualize what the word problems were asking in physics so I could never fully piece the problems together. When the text brought up turning the words we read into mental pictures to better understand a text, I was able to relate and think back to my 11th grade physics class. 

     A quote from the text that really resonated with me is, “All the great teachers who describe success with struggling readers focus on the essential process of developing students’ trust. In order for students to really put themselves on the line and try something new with reading, they have to trust that the teacher is there to help and be there for them without making them feel bad about their mistakes. With the goal of becoming a teacher, I need to keep in mind that I have to build my trust with each and every student so that they can fully believe that my goal is always to help them achieve everything to the best of their ability. One strategy that stood out, because it was mentioned in both the text and in class, is “think-alouds.” These are important in the classroom because generally my brain can work through a text a fairly easily and I do not even think about the cognitive processes my brain takes to analyze a text. Using a think-aloud, I can help my students think about what is going on inside of my head when I read through a text so that they can then work on thinking about a text in a similar manner. This strategy is definitely not one to forget about when I have my own classroom.

(Word Count: 327)