During my lessons, the students were mainly supposed to focus on visualizing, thinking of ideas that were different from other students’ ideas, and learning information from nonfiction text. I think that a lot of the students had a hard time visualizing. When I asked them to picture “tooth traditions” in their heads, and think about what the different traditions would look like without the picture, about half of the students became anxious and told me they did not know how to do that. After this happened I read a passage for them and explained out loud what I was thinking to help me visualize what was happening. A lot of them still wanted to see the pictures and told me they could not do this, but then when we were retelling our favorite traditions a lot of them were using hand gestures and movements to retell just like I had used.
Another idea that caused students to struggle during my lesson was recalling information that was different than something someone else had already mentioned. This happens a lot in my classroom, students often repeat what someone else has already said or their work ends up looking like the picture/story I modeled for them. I thought this was a very important part of the lesson because the students need so much practice with it every day. Most of the students did a good job giving original answers, however some students repeated which caused the students who understood the task to get annoyed.
I learned a lot about how my students interpret nonfiction based on the pictures. In the book where I was having students visualize, they had a lot of trouble recalling facts without teacher prompts. In nonfiction books where there are pictures with the information, the students remembered much more information and they were able to tell me information that I had not read from the text.
If I were to teach the same lesson again, I would have the students practice visualizing something easy before we moved into the nonfiction text. I might have them visualize their room or something they were more familiar with before we moved on to new information. Many of them were so upset I would not show them the pictures that they were unable to concentrate on what I was saying and the lesson was lost on those students.
Laura-
ReplyDeleteI found it very interesting to not only read how your lessons went during GLT but also what content your learners are learning right now. Being in kindergarten, I liked reading your blog to find out the kinds of things my learners will need to be able to do next year. In regards to the visualization, I was suprised that your learners had that much trouble with visualization. I have my first lesson on visualization with my learners next week, so I am curious to see how it will go now, whether it will be a concept that comes easy for them or not. I was wondering if this was the first time your learners have really learned about visualization. I was also wondering how you went about picking the tooth tradition story. You mentioned that you think if you had chosen an easier text, you think your learners might have been more successful with their visualizations, so I was just curious as to why you chose that book. I was also curious what you meant by hand gestures. I was intrigued when you said that your learners used hand gestures to recall their favorite trandition. You mentioned that you modeled the recalling using hand gestures, and so I was just curious as to the type of hand gestures you used.
In respect to different responses, I was curious in what context the learners had to respond. I was wondering if it was in regard to a story you had read or in an open-ended discussion, etc. I was also wondering what types of questions you asked them, whether they were open-ended or closed-ended. I find that in my class, learners also often repeat the same answers, even if I say that I am looking for a friend who has a different answer. I think that the reason it is so hard is because once learners have formulated a response in their head, it is hard for them to then think of a different response, once they have formulated one in their own head.
Lastly, I thought it was interesting how your learners were able to visualize and recall more fact with a non-fiction text over a fiction text. To me, I find that though learners are often much more interested in non-fiction text, they have a harder time recalling or visualizing what I am reading, when I read a non-fiction text over a fiction text. Therefore, I thought it very interesting that your learners were the opposite. I was wondering if you had any inclining as to why that is. Does it seem like your learners really like non-fiction? Furthermore, I was curious as to why you showed the pictures for the non-fiction text and not the fiction. Do you think that that might have aided them in their visualizing?