I found it insightful that teaching students different self-regulating strategies improves student learning and reading. Self-regulating strategies help students organize the information they are expected to learn. These strategies are categorized by the following: Metacognitive, Cognitive, and Social/Affective.
Metacognition is defined as "the process of purposefully monitoring one's thinking." Metacognitive strategies focus on clarifying purposes for learning, applying self-questioning in order to monitor one's own comprehension, and taking corrective action if comprehension fails. Evidence supports that the use of metacognitive strategies "implies awareness, reflection, and interaction" and when they are taught explicitly, there is a noticeable improvement in reading comprehension.
Cognitive Strategies focus more on individual learning and are used by students or learners when they apply a specific technique to a learning task or when they mentally an/or physically manipulate material. The following are some examples of cognitive strategies that learners use to enhance their comprehension: previewing a story prior to reading, consciously making connections between personal experiences and what occurs in the story plot, completing a graphic organizer and taking notes during a class lecture.
Social/Affective Strategies are identified as "the social and affective influences on learning." An example of this is people interacting with each other in order to clarify an area of confusion who in doing so enhance their own learning.
Muth and Alvermann suggest that there is a continuum of strategies, which include "teacher-centered," "teacher-assisted," "peer-assisted," and "student-centered." However, many learners of English find it difficult to actively apply these strategies due to the fact that they are applying their mental energy on their language skills.
According to the article, "effective SIOP teachers scaffold English Learners by providing many opportunities for them to use a variety of learning strategies that have been found especially effective." It is believed that merely teaching strategies to students is not sufficient, but that teachers also need to advise students on how, when and why they should use such strategies, modeling them and providing appropriate scaffolding as students practice these strategies.
The following are examples of approaches used by effective SIOP strategies: mnemonics, "SQP2RS," "GIST," rehearsal strategies, graphic organizers, comprehension strategies, directed reading-thinking activity, and "CALLA."
Verbal scaffolding techniques include: paraphrasing, using "think-alouds," reinforcing contextual definitions, providing correct pronunciation by repeating students' responses, slowing speech, increasing pauses, and speaking in phrases.
TASK: Consider the many different learning strategies listed and described and choose one that you believe would be valuable to use in your classroom. Explain why and give a specific explanation of how you would apply/teach that strategy to your students.
The SIOP model gives many good learning strategies. It’s hard for me to just pick one strategy that I believe would be valuable to use in my classroom because I find all of these learning strategies to be valuable. Each one of my students will learn differently and each student will have their own learning style. Teaching a mixture of different learning strategies will be very beneficial to my students because then the students are able to explore different learning strategies and find the ones that best suit them.
ReplyDeleteI would teach metacognitive, cognitive, and social/affective strategies to my students. Research has found that using metacognitive strategies explicitly has improved reading comprehension. Metacognitive strategies “implies awareness, reflection, and interaction, and strategies are used in an integrated, interrelated, and recursive manner.” (Echevarria, Vogt, and Short pg. 96) Metacognitive strategies are strategies that are used within a student; they are more mental strategies. “Cognitive strategies are directly related to individual learning tasks and are used by learners when they mentally and/or physically manipulate material, or when they apply specific technique to a learning task.’ (Echevarria, Vogt, and Short pg. 96) Cognitive strategies include: previewing a story prior to reading, establishing a purpose for reading, consciously making connections between personal experiences and what is happening in a story, taking notes during a lecture, completing a graphic organizer, and creating a semantic map. I find all of these strategies important for students to learn. Mixing metacognitive with cognitive strategies enables students to use strategies that are both metal and physical. However, students all need to be taught strategies that will help them learn through others. Social/Affective strategies consists of: students interacting with one another to clarify confusing points, getting into small groups for discussion, and using groups to problem solve. Social/Affective strategies is more of a resource for students to use because it teaches them how to interact with other students in finding the help them need to solve or understand a concept being taught.
I would teach these strategies very explicitly to my students. ESL students are not only learning the English language but also content material that may be confusing for them. In the reading it says, “…it is imperative that all teachers provide English learners with sufficient scaffolding…” (Echevarria, Vogt, and Short pg. 113) Scaffolding these strategies and guiding the students in how to use them will be the best way for the students to successfully use them when learning content material.
I believe very strongly in cognitive strategies. I understand that they are hard to develop at a young age, but I believe teachers should always try to give their students the tools they need to figure things out for themselves. Although not always the "fun" option, trying to get (older) students to look at language as more of a science can help them observe the language and its patterns outside of the classroom.
ReplyDeleteToday in class we worked on a mini-lesson activity and the group I was in created a cognitive strategy. We decided to develop a tool for when students run into words they don't know. We called it "Break It Down" and it would involve separating large or compound words down into smaller parts. From these parts, students should look for things they know, maybe a root word or some prefix they already know. For example, a student is reading a text and stumbles upon "unreliable." The student could try to break that word up into different parts based on words they know. Let's assume they know the prefix un- and the word "reliable." If they can think of the two different parts and their meanings, they can probably guess what the word means when the parts are put together.
Although this strategy certainly doesn't work in all situations, it does get students to think about language in a way that builds core understanding. The English language has many words that are built by "adding" things together, so having an understanding of that pattern can be very useful for students.
I would use the technique of previewing a story or reading passage before the class read it. I think that it helps with comprehension if the student knows the structure of the reading and knows what to expect. They can connect examples and details to the main argument, understand an author's anecdotes and how they tie into the main point of a passage, and understand why the author drew a conclusion.
ReplyDeleteTo begin, I would teach students to recognize introductions and conclusions by giving examples of common words. They would then practice by looking at many introductions and conclusions, identifying them, and writing how they identified them. I would use the same technique to teach them how to recognize when an author is giving examples or making an argument. I would then give them a partial outline of a passage, and have them fill in the main points of information, such as the author's stance, arguments, and conclusion.
I would then have them outline a passage on their own, and make sure that they do it before every reading assignment, in less and less explicit detail. This way, the strategy of previewing reading passages before they read the entire thing will become a habit.
Elena Dunckel, Section 002
This is a difficult question because only choosing one strategy would hinder your student's ability to succeed. Since saturating your students with multiple strategies and resources is the best way to learn, they would lack overall progress. If I had to pick just one though out of metacognitive, cognitive, and social/affective strategies, I would choose cognitive strategies. I think this one in particular is the most important because it is explicitly how the learner learns. How a student learns depends vitally on the tools and resources you give your students. The article reinforces the importance because “cognitive strategies are directly related to individual learning tasks and are used by learners when they mentally and/or physically manipulate material, or when they apply a specific technique to a learning task.” A specific way I would apply this would be to point out significant points that the students should seek out in readings and state the purpose/objective of the reading. Another way would be to discuss the reading and hopefully connect to their lives and explain how it pertains to my own to establish commonality. I would also like the students to take notes during the lectures to refer back to later.
ReplyDeleteSQP2RS is a method I happen to like because I learned it my sophomore year in high school and think it works. I really like how students are predicting and skimming over material as a class which is community based. Then each student reads on their own while thinking about their own predictions and class stated questions. After reading and it is time to respond each student can be evaluated on what they were able to pick up or were confused about/missed. I really like that it is group based and involves writing and oral participation. To make sure everyone understood the text the teacher would summarize and clarify with a class discussion. This strategy hits all essential language forms- speaking, writing, reading, and listening.
Although I think all of the strategies discussed are important, I believe that the cognative strategies would be ones I would focus on in my classroom. I think it is important for students to gain the ability to think things through and problem solve for themselves because they won't always have a teacher around. Cognative skills can be used both in school and in life. Specifically I think being able to connect something in a story to your personal life is an important skill. It helps to better understand the story and generates interest by connecting it to themselves personally. Other cognative skills, such as previewing a story before you read, are also important. The ability to problem solve for yourself is a priceless one.
ReplyDeleteAs a teacher, I would think the verbal scaffolding techniques would be very important. It is difficult to teach your students any of these strategies without the scaffolding techniques.
I feel that the social strategy would be valuable in the classroom. One reason is it promots independence. It allows the students to interact with one another and learn at the same time. Also the student that is explaining it is showing that they understand the concept enough to teach it and remember it will enough to answer questions. Finally i think it is also important because students are working on different areas of learning as they use their oral skills and listening skills to answer their question.
ReplyDeleteOne way of applying this to the classroom is to have the student split up. Each group learns something new and then has to pair up and teach it to another person. This way they have the responsibility of teaching someone so they will actually learn the material, they will work on their skills while they do the activity, and they will be able to help one another. Also when they are in their smaller groups they can help one another learn the material and discuss ways to teach the other group. This way everyone learns and get to practice important skills.
Alice Wilcox - 002
ReplyDeleteI agree with what everyone else seems to be saying; it is hard to pick just one strategy because they all are important. I think to have effective learners it is very important to introduce them to multiple strategies so they are able to use what is best for them. Just as importantly, students need to be given a lot of chances to practice putting these strategies to use. It seems like cognitive strategies would be very useful. My teachers introduced some of these strategies to me, and they have helped me throughout my education. I liked the “Squeepers” strategy that was discussed in the article. It goes through multiple steps that can help in breaking down and understand a text. It is beneficial to have activities before (like Survey, Question and Predict) and after (like Respond and Summarize) the reading. This way there are multiple opportunities and gain new information or just reinforce what was learned. If I were doing this in a classroom, I would first do it as a whole class and explain how to look at the title/ subtitles to get gain an understanding about the piece, and when it is appropriate to use the strategy. After going over a few texts as a class, I would have them follow the steps in smaller groups so they do it more independently. After some practice in groups, I would want them to try it individually, but still have the opportunity to ask questions if they needed help. I think this strategy can help the students gain a better understanding of the topic and the main ideas.
I believe that all of the strategies have their own benefit, and all are necessary components for students to have in order to succeed. Focusing on only one strategy would hinder other students who do not learn in that way. However, I do believe that cognitive strategies are important for every student, especially ESL students, because it allows them the opportunity to manipulate the language in a direct way, allowing it to become meaningful to them.
ReplyDeleteOne cognitive strategy that would be particulary useful in my classroom would be applying general rules to new situations when using the language. This would allow the students to make connections to what is being taught and learned, and to also be able to make the new material their own. After every lesson, the students could paraphrase what was taught in their own words-- but in the target language. It would be a daily activity, a journal of some sort. The students would be able to get practice using the language, but also reinforce the ideas brought up in class. It would also aid in the studying process, allowing for students to go back through their journal to quickly review the main ideas. This could be used in any classroom, whether it be Math, Science, History or English, and would target the content of the classroom as well as the language needs.
I don’t know if I could only choose one strategy for teaching in my classroom. I think I would use multiple strategies because most likely each of my students would learn better in different ways. It is important that the students feel comfortable in their learning environment and by using several of the different strategies each student could learn the material in the way that works best for them. I think cognitive strategies are great way for students to learn because it allows them to relate their personal experiences to the topics they are learning. For me, this is how I prefer to learn because when I can relate to the information I am learning it often sticks better in my memory. But at the same time it is helpful to interact within a group because you can learn what other people think and share information and exchange ideas. This is what I think social/affective strategies are also very useful. Combining the two is very beneficial because the teacher is allowing you to gather your ideas on your own and really get an idea of what you are learning and when you can share your ideas with a group you are not only teaching yourself but helping others. I would have the students in my classroom first do the assignment by themselves, and then split them up into different groups where they could share their ideas and go over the assignment together.
ReplyDeleteAfter reading the article I came to a general consensus that all of these strategies are important to teach ELL students, or just students in general. However, I think that metacognition is one of the very important ones. In my TE301 class which focused on teaching reading skills to elementary learners, we learned a lot about how important it is for students to comprehend what they are reading, whether it be directions, a novel, a passage ect. We learned that students who struggle with comprehension fall behind in reading and since reading skills are needed as a foundation for all subjects, whether it be reading a novel for language arts or reading a story problem for a math test, if you are unable to comprehend and understand what you are reading the task will be impossible. Metacognition stresses the importance of monitoring your reading and if you do not understand something, be aware of this fact and go back and read whatever it be that you are reading again. If children are taught the skills they need to monitor their reading then comprehension will become a lot easier for them. For ELL learners comprehension is probably going to be even more difficult than it would be for an English language student, and to be honest, comprehension is sometimes even difficult for myself, an English language speaking college student. Not being able to comprehend something makes everything more difficult and I believe my students would struggle with main ideas and concepts if they had trouble with comprehension. Since monitoring your reading can help increase a readers comprehension I would try and teach these skills in my classroom first and foremost at the beginning of the year or semester or whatever. That way the students will be able to recognize when they comprehend something and when they don't, and adjust their reading skills accordingly before anyone falls to far behind in class. In order to teach metacognition I would first teach the students some effective comprehension strategies, such as monitoring and then have them apply these skills while reading a variety of different texts. Afterwords I would have them either answer questions based on the text or have a group discussion based on what they just read. This would allow me to assess how effective the comprehension strategies I had just taught were as well as allow me to see what the students are struggling with so I could work with them and plan future lesson plans accordingly.
ReplyDeleteAfter reading this article I am a little confused about what metacognitive strategies are and what they look like. I do understand cognitive strategies and social/affective strategies though because I use them almost everyday in my own classes. It is hard to choose one of these strategies to use in my classroom since all three seem to work together. However, if I were to pick one I would have to choose cognitive strategies since these strategies deal a lot with how students learn to manipulate information in order to understand it better. These strategies help students teach themselves how to work through material that may at first seem difficult.
ReplyDeleteOne of the ways I would implement cognitive strategies into my classroom would be through graphic organizers. I think graphic organizers are great for ESL classrooms because they provide a visual that helps to makes sense of text or instruction. In the SIOP videos we watched in class, the history teacher used a colored map to show what places they were learning about, and the science teacher used a worksheet/table that had students fill in the class objective, vocabulary words, and notes for the class. I thought these were very helpful to the students, and I would use something similar in my classroom. The graphic organizers help students organize and visualize information more easily so they can understand the material more readily.
Although all of these strategies are important for the classroom because students learn in many different ways, I would also agree that cognitive strategies prove to be absolutely crucial. This strategy helps students not only organize their information, but it also encourages students to find a purpose and look for information they are EXPECTED to learn. I believe this is very important when it comes to reading in the classroom. I remember previewing lessons and making connections and maps back in high school and it always helped me understand the material more. In my future classroom, when my students have a novel to read, I will encourage them to establish a purpose for their reading. If students know and understand why they are reading something, the material is always more interesting. I will also want them to make connections with the reading to everyday situations in their lives. If students can do this, they can better relate to the material. I also believe notes to be very helpful when students have to write papers. When one takes notes, there is always something to look back on and apply to a paper. Mapping characters and themes is helpful for students as well. They can make connections by relating characters and their actions. Besides just grading their papers to see if they understand the material, I would make sure to look at their maps and any other writings I had them do before the paper.
ReplyDeleteI definitely believe that a variety of strategies should be used in the classroom. Personally, I think that the social/affective strategy is great based off my past experiences. I have always been a fan of group projects and group study sessions because whether I am the person doing to the explaining or I am the person who is having trouble, it is always helpful because when I am helping someone and trying to explain something, it makes me understand the material even better. Just by explaining, you can learn things that you might not have understood prior to working together.
ReplyDeleteI think we can and have all agreed that all the strategies are important, however, I will have to agree with Samantha W. in regards to metacognitive strategies. Cognitive strategies and social/affective do not seem to be as important if one is not able to monitor one owns thinking. Cognitive strategies are very important when it comes to matching the technique with the appropriate situation, however, if you cannot matching your thinking and problem-solving strategies to particular learning situations, this cognitive strategies will be of little help. I think it is important to make sure that students grasp metacognitive strategies before trying to instruct them in the other - it seems that cognitive strategies and social/affective strategies would strongly rely on the person's ability to apply metacognitive strategies. For instance, if a person has it a mental roadblock in a particular problem, that person's ability to solve that problem would most likely depend that person's ability to apply metacognitive strategies (e.i. by taking corrective action when understanding fails).
ReplyDeleteIn order to help teach my students metacognitive strategies I would give my students riddles to solve in order to complete a task. The riddles would be challenging but not too difficult - within their means of understanding. I would then give each student a sheet of paper with questions that will help guide there thinking. What is the purpose of solving the problem? How do you have to think about the problem in order to solve it? Why do I think I should solve the problem that way? If that way is incorrect, why is it incorrect? What do I have to change about my thinking? The task would have 3 or 4 steps so that the students can get practice answering these questions, and hopefully begin to form a habit of asking themselves these questions.
I think that metacognitive strategies are extremely important and that I would try to use them in my classroom. Some students are born innately with the ability to understand and analyze the way they learn and some are not. Also when teaching a L2 student English they may use different strategies in their own language that do not work (or work as well) in the English language. It is important to teach and help students to recognize different strategies and how they can be applied to different situations. Whether the student is aware of the strategies s/he is using or not, it is important to reinforce and remind students to think about the way they learn and what strategies work best for different types of situations.
ReplyDeleteThere are several components in metacognitive strategies mentioned in the text. One component is matching thinking and problem-solving strategies to particular learning situations. (Page 96) A way that I would help students become aware of different strategies would be prompting the students as they perform a task. For example, when a beginner L2 student is reading and comes upon an English word that s/he is not sure how to pronounce, I would tell the student to sound the word out. If the student doesn't know what to do, I would model the strategy for the student by sounding the word out emphasizing the sounds of the letters, not the names of the letters, then have the student copy me. The next time we would come to an unknown pronunciation I would ask the student to sound the word out by saying the sounds of the consonants, vowels and blends. If the student then finds a third word that s/he does not recognize I would say “use a strategy to help you”. After we were done reading the passage, I would prompt the student asking how s/he was able to pronounce the words. What strategy did s/he use? Then tell the student that the next time s/he comes across a word that s/he cannot pronounce to use the strategy of sounding out the sounds of the consonants, vowels and blends in a word to help her/himself. This is one strategy a student can use to help problem-solve pronunciation of words when reading.
Another strategy that can be taught in the same manner would be 'chunking'. When reading through a passage and an unknown pronunciation appears, show the student how to chunk words. Sounding out a word would be a beginning strategy taught to beginner L2 learners and 'chunking' would be another strategy that students can use as they become a little more proficient in L2. Then after the student understands 'chunking', I would have the student read through a passage. As s/he comes across words s/he does not know how to pronounce I would have s/he explain how s/he was able to pronounce the word. Ideally the student will say “sounding out the word” or “chunking”, but perhaps the student will have to be prompted to think about how s/he is using different strategies. The end goal would be to have students understand the use of different strategies, how they can be used, and to have the students recognize when they use different strategies.
It was great to read about your disagreements and agreements in this sections. I really enjoyed your argumentations.
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