Kim Petty - Instructional Design Coach
Once students have conducted research that has been scaffolded from beginning to end, it’s time to remove some of these supports for their next project. An old proverb tells us that the right word at the right time is like a custom-made piece of jewelry. Providing support for the research process through mini-lessons will be the right word at the right time. Mini-lessons are effective because they consider a student’s working memory, they provide “just-in-time” learning, and they demand that the teacher plan lessons very thoroughly and concisely. Give yourself a 5 - 15 minute time frame for each mini-lesson. Following the mini-lesson, give students a 5 minute assignment to demonstrate their understanding. Petty’s Pointer: No extraneous fluff in the mini-lesson. Present need-to-know information for that lesson’s task. Then make the lesson stick with a quick application for students to do on the spot. Chronological Order of Mini-Lessons
After each mini-lesson, display the instructional nuggets in the room for later reference (humongous post-it notes work great). With each mini-lesson, you’ll add a new poster. Making the information constantly visible fosters students’ interdependence with the lesson, not dependence on you. That frees you up to do more differentiation in small groups or 1:1 as students need it. Petty’s Pointer: For maximum effectiveness, develop the unit of mini-lessons around a light-hearted topic, something familiar to students. The lessons will flow more easily, and the connections to the learning will be concrete. I’ve listed eleven separate mini-lessons; these obviously won’t be one-a-days. You will decide before the unit how many class periods to devote to each piece of the unit. Students’ choosing a topic might take a couple of days. Reading, viewing, and listening deeply will take students much longer. Plan which days you will begin with a mini-lesson and which days you will devote to student work time. Remember, this is not a one-and-done process. Research tends to be messy, sometimes dead-ending in one direction before making a hard right toward more useful information and thinking. Your role as instructional designer will be to help students navigate the journey, which will start with the mini-lessons and continue with the personal and small group differentiation as needed. Good luck with your unit!
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Written by Kim Petty NRHS Literacy Design Coach
Today's post is PART 1. It's meant for teachers of novice researchers, struggling readers, or students new to the content. If a student has limited background knowledge as she heads into a new project requiring research, her useable material may be scant. Oh sure, she can drink from the Google fount (not unlike a firehose), but chances are, the ratio of useable content to found sources will be lop-sided toward quantity over quality. You can avoid that waste of time for your kiddos by scaffolding the process. Step 1: Build Background Knowledge. (Zoom Out) Provide 2-3 general background sources for student viewing, listening, and reading to build their knowledge foundation. Without background knowledge, there's nothing to build on. Ask students to read broadly first. The sources you provide at this point should zoom out. Additional texts (Step 4) can narrow the focus. Petty's Pointer: Actively Learn has Knowledge Sets that may be just the ticket for this step. Step 2: Make a Personal Word Wall While reading the provided general background texts, students should annotate or highlight for key concepts, phrases, and vocabulary. Provide a template (Click here) for students to post their terms into a personal word wall. Petty's Pointer: The word wall will help them kick the fanny of academic vocabulary. Academic vocabulary is often the gatekeeper for higher learning. Step 3: Provide Question Stems Before students begin their own research, they can make a list of want-to-knows using scaffolded question stems provided by you. Alternately, students can work in pairs to compare word walls and write their questions together. If you choose this route, you should pick the partners. They should be homogeneous pairings. The better the students’ questions, the more effectively they will read and learn. Step 4: Provide a Mini Library. (Zoom In) Curate a slam-dunk mini library of credible, content rich sources for your students to use. The sources you provide aren't just the basis for their research. They will be the ONLY sources kids can use. This level of scaffolding provides safety and structure. Petty's Pointer: My guess is your Media Coordinator is a research rock star! Give her your topic(s) and essential questions. She can create your curated source list or at least help you find particular items to get your list started. (Be sure to buy her a candy bar to thank her for the help.) When you provide students the vocabulary, broad familiarity with content, and a mini-library of curated sources to access, you are setting them up to succeed with their research. Look at you! You are on it! Check back in a few days for Part 2! |
AuthorMeredith Williams is the principal at NRHS. A graduate of NRHS and an community member, Mrs. Williams is invested in the success of the NRHS student population. ArchivesCategories |