At my current school, I teach two team taught classes that have a mix of both regular education and special education students. They can be some of the most challenging classes to teach because the range of ability is so vast. Scaffolding becomes key to ensuring each student can succeed.
But where do you start? Science courses have a huge bundle of academic language and vocabulary that goes with each unit. They are unavoidable words that students are expected to be able to use in conversation during activities. For many students, this is where the struggle begins. In order to effectively scaffold the content, my first task is to reinforce vocabulary.
It isn't enough for students to know the dictionary definition of a term, because more often that not it really doesn't give students a good grasp on the meaning of the word. Take the word heterozygous for example. The dictionary definition is "when a genome contains two different alleles for a gene." I'm pretty sure if my students don't know heterozygous, there is a good chance they won't understand allele or even gene. The definition is not helpful for understanding the word. Some teachers have students do vocabulary work by writing down the definitions from the glossary of a text book -- I have done this in the past -- but I find with science, there aren't any synonyms to help explain terms and the dictionary definition is usually not that helpful.
I start many biology units with vocabulary work. I like to change it up so students are doing a different sort of activity for each unit -- not the same routine each time. Some activities work better at the very beginning when they have limited knowledge of the topic, others work well for a review at the end of the unit.
Here is my short list of vocabulary activities:
- Slip Sort: I type a list of the important vocabulary words or phrases onto computer paper and cut them into individual strips. Students partner or group up and they have to arrange the words in a way that makes sense -- sort of like a free-form graphic organizer. There isn't a right answer; there isn't just one way to arrange the words. The idea is for students to talk about the words together and find connections between meanings of words. The discussion and conversation is more important than the final product.
- Graphic Organizers: I'm a fan of graphic organizers, especially after we have covered all the material. They are a great way for students to visually see how information is related. I usually provide a word bank and give some hints in the boxes. I like making them using Google Drawing because they are easy to format and the lines connecting them stay nice and neat! Two of my graphic organizers can be found in this Biochemistry Remediation pack on Teachers Pay Teachers.
- Frayer Model: The Frayer Model is something I was introduced to when I took a class on Reading Intervention Techniques. The way I use them in my courses aren't exactly the same, but sort of expand on the same idea. Each word has four boxes to fill in: Definition, Picture, Test Question, and Application/Use. These vary depending on what the word is. For example, for biochemistry, one of the boxes was about the monomer of the macromolecule or the test used for that macromolecule. They really can be modified to account for any key points they need to know. There are two examples also included in the Biochemistry Remediation pack on Teachers Pay Teachers.
- Use Them In Writing: The easiest way to reinforce vocabulary is to ensure students are using them in their written responses. For certain labs, I will include a list of words that need to be used at least once in their responses. I make some of them less obvious so they really need to think about how it is connected to the lab.
This is my short list; my most used techniques. There are so many other great ways to incorporate vocabulary and academic language into each unit.
How do you reinforce and teach vocabulary and academic language?
No comments:
Post a Comment