Meeting the Diverse Needs of all Learners in Socials Studies!Start Up September 26, 2015

Deborah Borgenstrom Teacher

Deborah.Borgenstrom@sd41.bc.ca

Learning Intentions

• I can set up a Social Studies unit that works for me and my students needs. (Assessment)

• I understand the importance of modelling writing and using mentor text to support all learners.

• I understand how to differentiate lessons to support my students learning.

Questioning Task: News Article

• Task is to read and write questions around the article

• Jobs: Reader, writer, turn taker, time keeper

• Questions get written in one color

• Transforming activity to classify questions using a color marker

Who are your diverse learners?

• Students who have different rates and styles of learning

• Students whose first language is not English

• Aboriginal learners are being recognized for their diverse needs

• Within all these groups there are diverse needs related to poverty

Inclusion

• Recognized with our current educational polices, all students are part of our regular classrooms and have the right to the same educational opportunities

So what will make a difference for our Diverse groups of students?

• #1Direct, explicit comprehension instruction, teaching students to:

• Monitors comprehension for meaning

• Uses prior knowledge

• Ask questions

• Create images in their minds to support understanding

• Determining importance within text

• Synthesizing information

#2 Effective Instructional ideas within the contentThe Gradual Release Model

#3Motivation

• Choice built in as well as ways to think about their own thinking:

• Literature and information circles

• Inquiry learning

• Teaching with multiple intelligences

• Reading and writing workshop

#4Using text-based collaboration to construct meaning

• Effective pairings and groups help student to link their learning with others

• Pose questions

• And then construct an understanding of the text and topic being studied (water unit)

#5 Strategic Teaching

• Reading and writing workshop that teaches explicit skills

• Example (summarization- key words)

• Example (Text feature search)

Task: Text feature search

• This is about teaching how to read non-fiction text

• What are the structure that help us understand non-fiction text?

• Need to know your learners so you know how to build this lesson

• Group completion

• Treasure hunt style

• Or each member finds one or two and adds to the list and everyone put in the interactive note book for an anchor chart

#6 Diverse Text

• “How can you learn from text you can’t read?” Richard Allington

• Different types of text (textbooks, articles, magazine, newspapers etc.) Time magazine, scholastics Canada,

• Thus offering choice and providing different reading levels of text to engage everyone

#7 Intense Writing

• Writing helps to clarify their thinking

• Make connections by linking their own ideas to what they are learning and reading about

• This is not rote copying or filling in the blanks after a reading (double entery journals)

The Reading and Writing Workshop Format

• Mini lesson (5-15 minutes)

• Status of the class (5 minutes)

• Conferencing (15-25 primary & 30-45 intermediates)

• Author Share (5-10 minutes)

Double entry journal can be used for many topics.

#8 Technology• Not simply as a fancy pencil but as a means of expanding

thinking

• Web pages, blogs, twittering …

• Example info circle responses on a blog or comic life to show understanding of the gods of Ancient Greece (writing out-put)

#9 Ongoing Formative Assessment

• Assessments that inform instruction

• Thinking:

• what can my student do?

• What do they still need to learn?

• What do I need to teach?

• What might I need to teach in a different way?

Assessment for Learning

Creating a Thinking Classroom That supports diverse learners.

Comprehension and Thinking

Some of the Books I read

Lessons to support writing

• Idea

• Sentence Fluency

• Organization

• Word choice

• Voice

• Conventions

• +1 Presentation

Discovered the Quick Write- news articles summary or thinking about what we are learning

• Mini lesson- brainstorming using the 5W’s and then writing as much as you can in a short time period making sure to model first

• I do

• We do

• You do

• Once taught this becomes the 10-20 minute write they do right away in the morning or coming back from another class and purpose can change as you discover other things you want them to work on.

• However, they always have the choice to write about anything they want unless you really need them to practice some form of writing.

The Writer’s Interactive Notebook!

Must haves in the notebook:

Read: My Map Book Sample Assignment

The Quiet Book

Trait Voice:

With a poem Squiggle writing

Squiggles

• Draw a line on the board

• Encourage students to transform this into a picture, talking as they do so

• Have several student's demonstrate on the board

• Students draw the same squiggle in their writer’s notebook and write in response to the squiggle

• Ideas are meant to be shared

Walk and talk time! Partner talk!

What did I want my student to do? What skills did they need to learn? Inquiry beginning with the end in Mind!

The unit planning sheet

• Assessment for me I need to know what skills my students need to learn in reading and writing

• Plo’s I can work with for this unit

• Social and science topics can I make any connections

The compare and contrast essay

Writing Workshop Skills• Questioning how to ask and

write good questions

• Note taking -2 column

• Sentence structure

• Paragraph structure

• Essay structure (compare and contrast structure)

Reading Workshop Skills• Questioning as a reading

strategy

• How to read text feature in text books (nonfiction reading)

• Analysing web-sites is this a reliable source

Parts of a sentences:

3 minute quick writes and partner evaluates /4

Mini lesson on parts of speech

Types of sentences

Found on spendadayinsecondgrade.blogspot.ca

Modelling I do note- taking

Part of a Paragraph

Mini lesson how to use the transition words of a compare and contrast essay.

Model text fromhttp://www.timeforkids.com/files/2011-07/comparecontrastsampler.pdf

Creating criteria

We do together- cooperative groups with some resource teacher support.

Final Product the Essay!

• Used writer’s workshop time

• Once notes were completed

• Went directly to computer lab so could write on the computer

• Block format

• Peer editing (2 stars and 1 wish)

• Had to hand in first and final draft

How did I differentiate for all my students?• Modelling

• Cooperative learning groups

• Mini lessons that met the needs of learners (sentences)

• Graphic organizers

• Visuals

• Partner talk

• Anchor charts to refer to

• Creating criteria with students so they new what to do

• Content – Process - Product

Enduring Understandings of Differentiation:

• Respectful learning tasks for all learners

• Collaborative, belonging learning environment

• Knowing our learners• Continuous assessment• No single formula• Clarity of goals and strategic

planning to improve achievement