Graphic Organizers

Use graphic organizers to introduce important information, to solicit prior knowledge from students, and to make predictions.

The graphic organizer allows students to inform their teacher what they know, what they want to know, and what they learned. This was the only constructivism observed in the class. Due to time constraints, the teacher does not have enough time to go more in depth with the students with the concepts to evoke more meaningful learning. The students in this class could benefit from more class discussions to elicit a better understanding of the subject matter. The worksheets that the students work with have very little relevance in their lives, which only adds frustration to the learning process. With time being the main reason that there is a lack of constructivism, the teacher could look into alternative approaches. One approach that might work well in this classroom is problem-based learning. The students are inquisitive and innovative. Classroom distractions would be lowered, and the students would be actively engaged in their learning.

Many of their learning needs are similar to those of other children and young people learning in our schools. However, these learners also have distinct and different needs from other learners by virtue of the fact that they are learning in and through another language, and that they come from cultural backgrounds and communities with different understandings and expectations of education, language and learning”. (NALDIC, 1999).

Selecting materials relevant to ELL’s experience or culture; strategically using students’ first languages to make the content delivered in a second language more comprehensible teaching word learning strategies that build on first language knowledge such as using cognates; and frequently using partner talk to give low-English-proficient students more opportunities to talk with more English-proficient

Lennie Small is a stable, but physically strong man who is George’s partner and is his constant and trustworthy companion. He has a habit for soft things, considering the fact that he is a big person and that he enjoys little, soft items in which that some of these can lead to trouble for him.

Numerous studies confirm the benefits of using graphic organizers in the classroom in terms of helping students develop and process information. The mere fact this is a method that has been backed by such a strong body of evidence has imbued me with confidence that this intervention will yield positive results. Graphic organizers are a way to help students "grapple with core ideas of the content and develop sophisticated relational understandings of it" (Ellis 2004). They help students to process information as opposed to memorizing and stressing facts (Ellis 2004), which is what history, is predominantly concerned with. Too often when we teach children in our particular content areas we take a Scholar Academic

Students are thus learning through the representation in options for language, mathematical expressions and symbols, with strategies to Clarify vocabulary and symbols, syntax and structure, promoting understanding across languages, illustrating through multiple media, decoding text, mathematical notation and symbols. Furthermore, representation provides options for comprehension, activate or supply background knowledge, highlights patterns, critical features, big ideas and relationships, guide information processing, visualization and manipulation, maximize transfer and generalization. ( National Center on Universal Design for Learning, 2014)

Foreign languages help students compete to be accepted into top schools. Many colleges require a foreign language for admission, but more than that it teaches students important study skills needed to be accepted to and excel in college. The memory is like a muscle, the more you exercise it, the stronger it becomes. Learning a foreign language exercises the memory, thus making it easier to remember facts from other classes. Students who study a foreign language also find their English improves. By learning a language, students learn English grammar, sentence construction and parts of speech, helping them excel in English and other classes that require writing.

Sometimes you might need a translators in order to communicate with students from different countries. It gets very difficult when the parents of children I work with do not have a solid base of English since they are not able to help their children with homework at home. To overcome this problem, at times I have morning tutoring, where I work together with students on their homework instead of sending it home. This is very challenging, for example this year I am working with a second grade student who is Romanian. His mother does not have a solid base of English and the student himself is neither fluent in Romanian nor English languages. So, I believe overcoming language barriers is one of the challenging aspects of working with diverse

A KWL chart will be used to focus on the topic, and to build on background knowledge. Information will be added by the student throughout the lesson.

Students will enter class and their first activity will ask students to create an annotated flow map of events from the 1950s and 1960s that review student knowledge. There are different levels to this activity in order to enable success of students no matter whether they are advanced, average, or struggling learners. Students will be placed in flexible categories and given their assignment (Beam, 2009). The assignment on the surface will look the same; however, when students begin working, advanced learners will come up with the review concepts on their own, average students will have a list of topics to put in order and annotate, and students who are struggling will use option boxes to put review items in the correct boxes with annotations (Beam, 2009). Once students complete their version of the flow map, they

This tactic is effective because not only are the students getting used to the language, but, they are not being forced to speak English regularly. They can speak whatever language they like around their friends or family, but when it comes down to business, they better know how to use the English language.

Linguistic instructional methods, such as reading and listening, activate the left side of the brain, while non-linguistic methods, which incorporate the senses and movement, activate the left side. As a result, engaging both sides of the student’s brain in the learning process, through a balanced plan of instruction, is important. Such an approach is also believed to improve a student’s ability to remember and apply that information in the future. In order to facilitate this, the teacher must include the use of non-linguistic representations or cues in their lessons to make challenging content comprehensible. Such elements as visual aids - like graphic organizers, pictures, illustrations or images; hands-on experiences including the use of manipulatives or physical models that students can touch, move and create; physical or kinesthetic techniques using movement including gestures such as hand movements to illustrate concepts; and demonstrations, modeling

Students will work in groups to read about and research the rainforest during a habitat unit. They will read a magazine article that teaches about the animals and characteristics of the rainforest. The article will also discuss the deconstruction of the rainforest and why these rainforests are important to take care of. Students will read each section of the article and highlight the key words that they believe are important to each section. Students will then record these key words on their main idea graphic organizer which they will go back to after reading the whole article. After reading the whole article the students will use the highlighted key words and the text to develop a main idea statement to record. Students will then record three important facts from each section and record these on sticky notes. Students will transfer these sticky notes onto their group’s main idea graphic organizer where these will serve as the supporting details. The group’s graphic organizer will serve as a scaffold for the four squares foldable each student will make. This four square foldable will eventually be used by students to help guide them throughout their expository writing piece on

The two non-linguistic representations that I use in my classroom are graphic organizers and kinesthetic activities. Graphic organizers are a way that I can show students how to organize their thoughts. One way that I use graphic organizers in my classroom is for personal narratives-writing about small moments. We use a doughnut graphic organizer. The hole is used to identify the small moment and the doughnut itself is used to identify details about their moment. I have found using this graphic organizer to be beneficial during writer’s workshop because it helps the students see how big a small moment really is. It also helps students stay engaged and allows them to have a visual aid when writing their story. I desire to continue to use graphic