The profiles of the nine types of students
teachers will encounter in their classrooms illustrate just how important and crucial
prior knowledge can be for our students.
Students come to the classroom with varying schemas based on their life
experiences, previous schooling, background, and funds of knowledge. In my school, for example, I have taught students
how are native to the Uptown Community as well as students who have immigrated
from countries such as Guatemala, Mexico, Venezuela, Nigeria, Ghana, Myanmar,
and other countries. I have taught
students who came to second grade without any formal schooling as well as those
who attended school in another country.
This year, I have a student who spent a few months in a refugee camp
before arriving at my school at the end of first grade. Some of my students come from environments
were reading, education, going to the library, and enrichment programs are encouraged
by family members. Some of my students
come from environments were education and inquiry are not highly valued. Most of my students do not know about Lake Michigan,
even though the school (and a lot of their homes) is only a short few blocks
away from the lake. It is quite obvious
that with these differences among my students that a vast array of background
knowledge is represented in my classroom.
I recently completed coursework to become endorsed in ESL. One thing you hear throughout the ESL classes
at UIC is that the strategies used to teach English Language Learners are
essentially best practices for all learners.
While reading these chapters, I often thought of articles and texts assigned
in previous classes (text-to-text connection).
One big takeaway from my ESL coursework is the idea of additive and
subtractive views of our students and what they bring to the classroom. Additive views encourage students’ differing
backgrounds and knowledge whereas subtractive practices discourage knowledge
that students already possess. In
regards to disciplinary literacy instruction, teachers need to find ways that
welcome and encourage students’ Funds of Knowledge and background knowledge and
should incorporate this into their lessons.
In essence, educators should view this diverse knowledge as a benefit to
instruction. As educators, it is our
responsibility to ensure that we are teaching grade-level content and engaging students
with grade-level texts. It is not acceptable
for to say that the students don’t know anything and solely focus on what they
can’t do or don’t know. We need to find
ways to build upon what knowledge they currently possess and expand their schemas
to include more academic knowledge so that they can successfully access the
curriculum.
Buehl suggest frontloading a text to help students build develop the
required academic knowledge. I was
pleasantly surprised to see the Confirming to Extending Grid in Figure
4.7. Although I teach younger students,
this is a variation of a strategy that I use with my students before reading a
difficult text with students, especially nonfiction texts. To get my students thinking about they
already know about the topic, we begin with a class chart where students say
everything they know (or think they know) about the topic. As I read the text aloud, I model for them
how to check off information that has been confirmed while reading the
text. I also model how to revise our
thinking about information we thought we knew about the topic. After reading, we list any new information that
we have learned from the text. Another
strategy that I use when priming students before reading a difficult text is
brainstorming a list of questions we have about the topic, and then looking for
answers to those questions while reading.
The two above strategies essentially comprise the components of the
Confirming to Extending Grid. Again, I
know this is for second grade students, but if all primary and lower elementary
grade educators work to find ways to a) build upon students’ prior knowledge as
well as b) modeling for students how they can access these texts independently,
imagine who primed these same students will be when they reach middle and high
school and are further engaged in disciplinary literary, where modeling and
frontloading activities will continue. Although
students may still struggle with the content, they will be equipped with the
tools and confidence to complex disciplinary text.
I enjoyed reading your post because I also believe a student’s prior knowledge is very important to know while teaching. Like you, I have many students that come into my 4th grade classroom that may be knew to the United States. Finding out their background knowledge allows for me to incorporate new ideas into my classroom. My school is made up of about about 65% percent that come from a Chinese background. Education and homework is very important in their culture. However, when coming to the United Stated this culture wants their children to only learn and speak English. When meeting parents, I try to explain to them that their children should still speak their native language and just incorporate English in their everyday lives. Keeping their native language will only benefit these students as time goes on. Knowing that I may have a transfer student at any time throughout the year, I have many Chinese books in my classroom so my students that do come in not speaking any English are able to read as well. Seeing what books they select allows for me to see what they may be interested in. I also use a lot of technology and most of it can be translated into their native language which is a great benefit.
ReplyDeleteTiffini,
ReplyDeleteI agree with you that connections to prior knowledge help students to expand their schemas and learn the new content efficiently. As educators, we have to help students to establish this connection to prior knowledge and to real life as well by enriching our instruction with different learning strategies. It is not enough to use strategies, but we have to teach students literacy practices to be able not only succeed in school but to grow up as independent readers as well.
As a future chemistry teacher, one of my concern that how I would help students make connections to prior knowledge if they actually don’t have this assumed prior knowledge that is necessary to build upon it to be able to learn the new materials. How I would fill this gap of knowledge, and If I will have the necessary time to reteach this assumed knowledge and then to expand on it. This is something every teacher need to think about it and take it to consideration.
Tiffini,
ReplyDeleteI definitely agree with you and believe it is crucial that we try encouraging our students funds of knowledge and background knowledge into our lessons. This is due to the fact that I believe that if we manage to understand our students schema, we will be better equip to teach them. In particular, it is essential for us to have an understanding of the schema that our English learners bring into the classroom. Since many of our English learners come from other countries it is highly probable that they lack culture and societal knowledge from the U.S. For instance, a topic common to us such as the Civil War might be completely new to them. Thus, we can not infer that our students already know certain information. Therefore it is crucial that we try to understand the prior knowledge that our students do have in order to help them fill in certain gaps that might exist in their understanding.
Tiffini, I too was reminded of previous information covered in ESL classes while reading this week. I also share your value of incorporating students' prior knowledge into the curriculum and lessons. I think it is important to present information that may seem foreign to students as information that can be relatable. As a teacher, it is our job to mend that bridge for students to make a more comprehensible understanding. I find in my teaching I'm always trying to relate information to students' prior knowledge. For example, while teaching coordinate pairs and the y & x axis, I'd demonstrate this concept by drawing a map of the first floor of our school building. I would then have students plot the classrooms or "points" in the correct places on the map. All of a sudden, a foreign concept became concrete for the students because they all were able to apply their knowledge of our school building to that of a mathematical grid. I believe incorporating the students' prior knowledge and current knowledge to the curriculum allows them to strengthen their comprehension of the material.
ReplyDeleteTifinni,
ReplyDeleteI agree with you that it is essential we build on what children already know instead of attempting to suppress it. Who are we to say what is relevant and what is not relevant in the realm of knowledge? Having diverse backgrounds of knowledge in a classroom is a blessing. It exposes students to different perspectives and shows them that there is not one way to learn.
Tiffini:
ReplyDeleteYour discussion on prior knowledge is very powerful, especially given the diversity of students and their various backgrounds you have in your classroom. As a teacher, accessing that prior knowledge is not only useful for the individual student to begin to understand a lesson, but also serves as a useful teaching tool to other students if you have individual students share that particular prior knowledge with the other class—thus serving as teachers themselves in a certain capacity. Students also seem more open to not only listening to other students and their personal experiences, but are also more likely to remember things that other students say.
Your elaboration of your ESL endorsement work was a nice inclusion in your blog, since you brought up a good point about not only what ESL have learned, but that such teachers are a valuable tool for departments to tap into to get new ideas, strategies, and models to share with other non-ESL/ELL teachers to begin re-thinking literacy approaches in their classrooms, given their training that other teachers may not have gone through. It bears reflecting how many schools have valuable human resources that oftentimes go unnoticed or underutilized, especially when it comes to professional development workshops during institute days.
Finally, your points about frontloading strategies are excellent. When I read Buehl/Chapter Four, I was surprised to learn that I was using a variation of frontloading for years without realizing it. Since my students come from at least ten different feeder schools, I had to make the assumption that: 1) they may not have been taught anything critical in world history (so many have complained they had substitutes for the entire year and all they say were movies); 2) they may have forgotten what they have learned (i.e. working memory); 3) they may have trouble accessing or recalling salient information about a topic we are about to learn. Therefore, I try to make no assumptions that they already know or understand the material and prep them before a text reading, following the Buehl idea of “we will talk about it, read about it in-depth, then talk about it some more.” Later, I would refer back to the topic again and again, make new thematic connections to future lessons/topics, and develop a good, useful schema for my students to understand the topic and its context in the unit.
Tiffini,
ReplyDeleteI really appreciate how you wove in your personal experiences into your blog post. It is so important to understand that the student we will have come from a plethora of backgrounds, and too often is this forgotten about.
With this in mind, the strategy of front-loading information could in some cases be suitable and in other ineffective. On one hand, front-loading information could be an efficient way to see just how much information students understand, and what needs work. On the other hand, this trajectory could discourage kids when they are faced with work that seems complete incomprehensible. I think the way you propose gathering information on what kids already know and then modeling the necessary tools so that they are equip themselves, is the most effective way in furthering their knowledge and overall understanding.
Building off prior schemas and creating new schemas is extremely important just like you outlined. Also, i liked the example you illustrated with having the students write down what they already know about the topic. In mathematics one of the huge issues students face is seeing each successive topic as disjoint from the previous topic. This is a major issue with the students conceptual undersranding of the mathematics. In this situation the student is building new schemas for each new topic. I feel then it is the teachers responsibility to build the bridges between schemas to support the students investigation into the mathematics.
ReplyDeleteHey Tifinni,
ReplyDeleteI really enjoyed reading your post. I agree with your point, it is very important to acknowledge and welcome the students' different backgrounds of knowledge so that they can relate to the material or if they don't, have an urge to want to learn more. However, I have seen some of my teachers try to accomplish this in their classes and I've seen this work really well as much as I've seen it fail. For example, in my case there was a teacher who tried to relate their material or preface it by sharing a way we relate to it from our childhoods and when I shared, the teacher made a rash judgement, thinking he knew where I was from. The problem was, when he asked me if this was from when I lived in Saudi Arabia, I was offended because first, I was born and raised here and second, my parents aren't even from there, they're from Pakistan. So yes, it is very important to include students' background views but also very important to not be too personal, in case something offensive comes out or it ends up not even letting the students relate to the text.
Uriel Rosales
ReplyDeleteI agree that it's very important to get an idea of what students already understand about a topic before beginning a lesson on that topic. Otherwise, the risk of repeating already instilled information is taken. I am familiar with the idea of having a couple or few guiding questions but I have never heard of actually checking them off or writing the answers for them as you are going through the text. Graphic organizers of just a separate sheet to write down the answers for those question can heavily cement that knowledge and ensure that the students are more prepared to have questions not on paper but more importantly in their minds while analyzing the more complex texts that they will study in high school and college. Having the students understand what they know and do not know will help connect the bridge between their minds, lives, and texts.