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Connections across Literacy and Math
Connections across Literacy and Math
One component of integrating our methods courses is the use of shared Instructional Activities (IAs) across methods courses. That is, a subset of the IAs that are used in literacy and math are shared across both courses. As we work on the same IA in different content areas, we make explicit the commonalities (e.g. What Do You Notice? offers a similar opening move across literacy and math of tapping into children's lived experiences through open questioning, then makes strategic follow-up moves to build on children's contributions) while still attending to differences (e.g. the way we work on conferring in math might be more focused on finding out more about the details of children's thinking, in contrast to the kinds of writing support worked on in literacy methods).
Using the same IA across courses helps convey the idea that teaching is cohesive. We know that incoherence leads to challenges for new teachers; we want novice teachers to see that they are developing a set of strengths and resources that they can then draw upon to meet discipline-specific learning goals.
Example: What Do You Notice?
Example: What Do You Notice?
For example, in both reading and math methods we use an IA called, What do you notice? early in our work with novices. In what do you notice, students are shown a photo (e.g. a plate of fruit kabobs, a grocery store display, cars in traffic on a local freeway) and asked to think about and share what they notice about the photo. This prompt offers a wide range of entry points into the conversation, as they are encouraged to share anything that that they notice. As one colleague of ours introduced the activity to his class, “the only rule is that there are no rules!” As students share what they notice, the teacher may follow up by asking a student to elaborate on their idea (“what kinds of fruit do you see?”), respond to a peer’s idea (“how do you think she knows the car is changing lanes?”) or invite other students to participate (“what’s something else you noticed?”).
While the structure of the IA remains consistent, the teacher can seed content-specific conversations through choosing particular photos (cupcakes in arrays; photos with movement and opportunities for narrative) and asking particular types of extension questions (“do you think there are more than 20 watermelons? Fewer than 20? Tell your partner why you think so”). Thus the same activity is used across content areas, but adapted to engage students in discipline-specific conversations and practices.
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