Regina CO#1

Regina Sosinski - CO#1

July 5, 2017, 11:00 - 11:50 am

Reading 3A, Olivia James

 

Teacher Presentation: Building schema

Instructor began class by going over previous class discussion on building schema--prior knowledge (using images, vocabulary, reading articles, asking questions)--before reading the book: Island of the Blue Dolphins. The instructor reviewed what the students had learned so far about the book's main characters, setting, etc., and wrote them on the whiteboard as they were discussed. Next, she had the students form pairs to discuss and practice building schema on an article about budgeting and how to budget. She talked about "building vocabulary as you go," and asked the students to read the article (a copy of which was in their workbook), with instructions to use a highlighter to mark any words they did not know. Afterwards, they could look up those words to see if their meanings gave more sense to a particular sentence and the article as a whole. This activity took up the remainder of the class.

 

Materials: Students used notebooks, and laptops/smart phones for reference/learning vocabulary.

 

Student Participation: There wasn't much student participation in the first activity, aside from some verbal confirmation in response to the recap of the characters/setting in the book. They participated with each other in pairs as they discussed their prior knowledge about budgeting, and they worked individually to read the article and look up new vocabulary.

 

Feedback Provided: I didn't observe much in the way of feedback, including the last exercise, which lasted until the class ended.

 

Lessons on teaching I learned: "Schema" was a new word to me, so I was learning about the process of building schema as it was being reviewed with the class. I felt it would have been beneficial to go over the budgeting article together as a class--after the pair activity to build schema, and after reading the article itself--to assess comprehension and answer any questions. I would also encourage writing any new vocabulary on the whiteboard for further review and discussion.