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Scaffolded Vocabulary Instruction

9/16/2013

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    Last week I had the opportunity to participate in a vocabulary webinar by Maria Elena Arguelles. She proposed a simple scaffolding for introducing new vocabulary to students and I decided to use it this week, while adding a few of my own engagement strategies.

 (The photo above, taken by Paul Baron, is of flexible bamboo scaffolding - reminding me that flexibility is key in a mixed-ability classroom!)

   The word for the day, taken from Sprenger's list of critical common core verbs, was "organize." (See post from 8/29 for more info.) Here are the steps we took:


Activator:

   I searched through my prop bag looking for something and finally just dumped the contents out so students could see how unorganized it was. This grabbed their attention and helped them make connections.

  1. I introduced the word, the definition, and some synonyms.
  2. I used the word correctly in a few sentences, having students respond with thumbs up/down.
  3. I interspersed sentences that used the word incorrectly, having students respond with thumbs up/down.
  4. I provided a sentence stem for students to complete with a partner -  "I will organize ______________ so that ____________________________. We shared these as a whole group.
  5. I had students individually complete the sentence stem.
  6. On the following day, students worked individually with Educreations on the iPad to write a sentence, illustrate and record themselves. My co-teacher and I used their recordings as a formative assessment.

   I liked this structure - it was simple, straightforward and provided the support needed by many of our students. Of course, because vocabulary acquisition is an ongoing process, we will be implementing a variety of other vocabulary activities during the semester to reinforce this instruction.


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Symbaloo

7/9/2013

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One of the sessions I attended this week at #geekcamp13 was on the use of Symbaloo. Linda Horne, teacher extraordinaire and Certified Symbaloo guru, provided an idea-packed workshop on engaging ways to use Symbaloo with students of all ages. 


Symbaloo is a curation tool for visually organizing your favorite websites and documents. Instead of searching through a long list of bookmarks, Symbaloo allows you to design webmixes, using tiles,  that include images and text. You can choose to color-code the backgrounds and group items together. 

Comparing Symbaloo to Pearltrees, another curation tool, I would suggest that Symbaloo is more accessible for students who struggle. The color-coding and visual structure of Symbaloo tiles feels more organized and linear - important for students who may experience attention or organizational difficulties. 

I had the chance to play with Symbaloo and found it very intuitive, and quickly developed this Symbaloo - an iPad app teaser.


My mind is buzzing with ideas for using Symbaloo in teaching! 
  • Set up a webmix for a web quest
  • Provide access to your substitute teacher of all websites and documents they might need
  • Develop a webmix for the Common Core Standards relevant to your students
  • Gather your favorite math sites for student independent practice time
  • Students can create a webmix related to a research project
  • Show parents various resources and sites for homework help.


How are you using it?
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    Anne M. Beninghof

    Anne's mission is to improve instruction through collaboration and the sharing of creative, practical ideas for educators.

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