Guiding thinking
| Title | Text link | Rationale | Text frames | Strategies & Resource |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Stephen Hawking helps launch project 'Starshot' for interstellar space exploration |
Retrieved from Space.com |
The content of this article ties to my county’s curricular goals by presenting opportunities for the development of student understandings in mass, acceleration, force, weight, velocity, time and distance or displacement. Though it does not directly inform students regarding these topics it does give the objectives of our classroom credibility by showing relevance to real-world scientific endeavor. I selected the text frame of goal / action / outcome for this article as it is an expository proposing an ambitious leap in space exploration techniques that would allow humanity to reach distant star systems according to time tables more relevant to human lifespans. Those more conventional means of space travel, such as shuttles, rockets, and satellites, which rely on rocket propulsion to achieve acceleration were limited by fuel and its entailed weight. This proposed project would use directed light from Earth based source to nearly continually accelerate to previously inconceivable velocity. |
Goal / Action / Outcome |
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I chose to use a composite of tools to define my strategy to guide the reading of this article. I first used the alphabet brainstorming model Buehl defines on page seventy-three, which I have included a general purpose format of in my Supporting documentation and resources below, to frontload prior knowledge of astronomy, the space program and its explorations (2014). My brainstorming I found to be inconclusive; I teach Earth and space science as well as my more usual physics classes and so became frustrated before I even began. However, for an average high school student I could imagine this to be an engaging individual task that could then be enhanced within the classroom by encouraging a social sharing to reflect and develop type of aspect.
This background knowledge then would then be used to inform completion of an anticipation guide, which of course wasn’t able to be written prior to my reading the article and so I have only included a blank format template that can be redesigned to align with any article (Bleam et al., 2012). Anticipation guides are used to set the stage for a student’s reading, it is designed to forecast major points and get students thinking about a topic before beginning to read about it. In trying to pre-assess their prior knowledge of the content of an article or text they must activate and examine their own schema and evaluate the statements made within the guide according these presupposed truths (Buehl, 2014, p. 59). At this point, I believe I would collect my students’ guides in order to formatively assess prior knowledge by reading through their answers. This would give me a baseline for learning accomplished and also provide me insight into any common or unusual misconceptions; even my own if I were to find that they had significantly more correctly developed preconceived notions.
Having the first iteration with the guides complete, my students at this point would do as I did and read the article. I read it through, but interrupted momentarily while doing so to employ Hanify’s Thinking notes; which I can clearly see the value of in his video, which you would find linked to in my references (n.d.). I found that even for myself, this task of analyzing what I was reading engaged me in thinking about how to extend some of my noted elements into developing conversations and further explorations of the physical concepts either directly mentioned or alluded to within the text. You can see my Thinking notes in the attachment below entitled Article – as Thinking noted by L. Cunningham.
I would choose to engage my students in discussion of the article before returning their anticipation guides as I would want to help them to address any points upon which they found the text to be unclear. I believe it would be sufficient at this stage to only permit address of the double question-marks that had been noted as, though I feel it necessary to help them to clear misunderstandings before requiring that they address their previous conceptions in their anticipation guides, I also see the value of immediate reflection before the distractions of proposing new investigation and collaboratively reflecting on this inquiry. As such, after a collaborative discussion to clear up understandings for those “??” Thinking notes, students should then revisit their anticipation guide and see how they feel about their previous responses, in the light of the article’s information.
Lastly, I would bring my class back into a discussion of those things that they found to be interesting in the article and any that they might like to further develop. This conversation could provide ample opportunity to highlight the relevance of the material of our curriculum and classroom within the field of current science research and technological development as well as provide my kids a schema for further explorations in class to fit within (McLaughlin, 2015). This discussion would further clear up and support the material of the article within a student’s developing understanding, to formalize the information obtained and provide students a structured resource to which they might refer in the future I would ask them to reread the article that evening for homework and while doing so complete a Proposition / support outline to detail what we’ve learned. This dual reading is supported by Buehl who claims that “classroom strategies that encourage rereading…are a necessary step for synthesizing students’ understandings” (2014, p. 151). A general format for this outline is available below in my Supporting documentation and resources.
- Supporting documentation and resources:
- Article - as copied from source (Malik, 2016)
- Aritcle - as Thinking noted () by L. Cunningham (Malik, 2016)
- Template alphabet brainstorming guide (Buehl, 2014, p. 73)
- Template anticipation guide (Bleam, McKinney, Tempest, & Jacobsen, 2012, p. 15)
- Template proposition support outline (Buehl, 2014, p. 203)
Lance, You did a very thorough job of incorporating the various strategies you chose into classroom assignments. I really liked the alphabetical brainstorming guide. With this guide, is the expectation to fill in all the alphabet blocks with prior knowledge or just the blocks that a student finds applicable? In my classroom experience, my students would more than likely fill in every spot, not wanting any blanks, and not produce really meaningful work. I believe, however, that we work in very different environments! In order for me to use something like this, I would need to include very explicit directions for my students. What I really like about this guide is that it gives students a way to visually activate prior knowledge. Having students start with activating prior knowledge will help them connect and understand the reading better.
ReplyDeleteHaving an anticipation guide helps get students into a frame of mind to focus on the main points of the reading. You had mentioned collecting this in order to assess prior knowledge prior to students reading the article. I noticed that there is a section marked text and some of the directions require students to perform tasks while reading the article. How would you handle the completion of these sections if you collect the assignment prior to reading?
Amanda,
DeleteNo, I wouldn't block out any fields in the alphabetic brainstorming guide because I would be concerned that I might block out a "right idea" that might just be expressed in a different way. In example, "acceleration" really is just "speeding up, and/or slowing down, motion in a particular direction over time" which could be expressed more cleanly or awfully in I'd fear to count how many other ways. I would however accustom my students through written and verbal direction, with modeling that NOT every box would or even should be filled. During the conversations after brainstorming, before the anticipation guide's first iteration we would likely as a class or in small group see connections that can be developed between other's alternative phrasing and/or statements.
I did say that I was going to be collecting that anticipation guide, and that I would be reviewing it myself to evaluate prior knowledge; but I returned it after the whole class discussion of thinking noted "??"s for students to revisit that text and the associated supporting information element. This repeated reading model has, or encourages, my students to read the article through three separate times: once to thinking-note, once to corroborate text responses to the anticipation guide statements and a last, third time to collect the information for their Proposition/Support outline. Between each of these student-to-text interaction elements there is an opportunity for peer-to-peer and/ or student-to-teacher corroboration.