Mind's Eye

Description

Mind’s Eye is a strategy to support student engagement with text resources that tend to be, on the surface, bland or uninteresting. Prior to the lesson, the teacher identifies 20-30 key words from the text. Then, the teacher provides four options for what the students are to do once they’ve been exposed to the identified terms.

1. They may draw a picture based on the terms.
2. They may ask a clarifying questions that came about after hearing the terms.
3. They may make a prediction about the text.
4. They may describe their feelings.

Regardless of the task they choose, students end up interacting with key vocabulary from the text prior to exposure. Students then read the text and reflect on how their initial work with the terms related to the actual text.

Why it works...

1. Readers that develop mental images as they read comprehend material at a higher rate.
2. Mental images provide students with an opportunity to dual code the material by storing it linguistically and visually in their brain. Students adept at dual coding make predictions, make inferences and retain information more effectively.

How to plan it...

1. Identify text that supports the learning goal for the lesson.
2. Extract 20 to 30 key words from the chosen text.
3. Have students choose whether they’ll be likely to draw a picture, ask a question, describe their feelings, or make a prediction based on the words after you’ve read them aloud.
4. As you read the words aloud, encourage students to visualize the words in their minds and begin identifying connections between the words and their chosen task.
5. Once the words have all been read, students will create the product they chose and share their work with groups, partners, or the whole class.
6. Provide students with the text and have them compare their product to what they’re reading.
7. Reflect as a whole class on how each student’s work relates to the actual content of the reading.

Tech integration...

Given that students have the opportunity to approach a Mind’s Eye lesson in four different ways, an effective implementation of digital resources needs to provide an opportunity for students to share their work in a collaborative space. A single Google slide show that all students can access offers this opportunity. Each student is assigned a slide. Students that draw an image can upload a picture of that image to their slide, while each of the other three task options can be entered as text.

For a more anonymous approach, create a slide deck for each students so they can create their product privately.