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Building Academic Identity Overview
Building Academic Identity Overview
In order to ensure my students have the skill sets they need to tackle the work we are going to encounter during a unit I must first work to build their universal skill sets that they will require to be successful in my classroom. An example would include note taking skills practice, concept organizational strategies, and explaining the components of a letter for activism projects. As my kids build their "skillset toolkit", they are unknowingly building their confidence levels for the activities to come and increasing their likelihood to master the content that will be aligned with each instructional strategy. Students are "learning how to learn"
Cornell Notes
Cornell Notes
The notes are designed to ask essential questions about the lesson, provide key details about the content, and allow for a student to summarize what and how they have learned content in the lesson. Each student is given a highlighter as we move through the initial slides and they highlight according to what is on the board. By giving students notes that are already filled in instead of a fill in the blank format we are able to move quicker through this section of class to get to activities and skills assessment. This tool is used in a number of different ways that include increased literacy
Another way that I use the summary section of their Cornell notes is to give the students anywhere from 5-8 minutes to read over the notes without any content introduction. From there they are given three minutes to "chunk" their notes or explain in their own words what the notes are about and connect it to what we learned in a previous lesson. By doing this before any content is introduced I am about to check the retention of previous lessons, gauge any additional prior knowledge they may have, and familiarize students with new content in the lesson with little guidance. Additionally, this form of note taking is preparation for high school as they move beyond my classroom.
Cornell notes are a great way to provide a detailed summaries of the day's objective that students must interact with and use a a reference for later lesson assessments. This is an example of Cornell notes from a notebook in which the student has highlighted important terms and used the bottom section to "chunk" or summarize the notes at a predetermined point in the lesson.
Literacy in Science
Literacy in Science
Many of the assessments we use, or daily activities students encounter require them to read, write, and express themselves in complete sentences. I use a variety of strategies in my classroom such as letter writing in our energy advocacy lesson, Text Tuesdays in which activities are based around a longer text, and presentations that require students to properly cite the sources of their information. These types of strategies create a cross curricular system of accountability for my students and build the connections they have from my content to their other core classes where they skills are also necessary. By building literacy in my classroom I am encouraging cross curricular collaboration, encouraging students to increase their comprehension of course materials, and apply what they have learned outside of my classroom in a scientific setting.
This is a slide that requires students to use our developed annotating format during testing. By using this format they are able to better analyze questions and make more selective answer choices.
Organizational Strategies/Interactive Notebooks
Organizational Strategies/Interactive Notebooks
In order to become well rounded 21st Century learners, my students need to practice organizing their thoughts and resources so they are easily communicated and accessed. Students in my classroom have daily routines and responsibilities that make them prepared to interact with content in science in addition to being useful in all of the classes.
Interactive notebooks are not just a place for my students to take notes, they a resources for everything we have learned in the classroom. Our notebooks have a table of contents for easily access to standards, graphic organizers, student designed illustrations, and daily assignments. The notebooks are a tool of accountability because they must use the skills I have taught them to stay organized for our notebook checks and they contain a lot of important completed work.
This is an example of an interactive notebook used by a student in my classroom. They are laid out in a format that makes it a great reference tool for students as they are studying or applying what they have learned in a daily lesson.
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