Rationale: My partner and I chose to read articles about climate change for this activity. This article is a great example of a consequence of climate change that most people do not consider. It also can help students make connections between impacts on wildlife and impacts on humans. It pushes students to consider consequences of climate change that do not directly affect them and can be a springboard for discussion about other potential effects of climate change.
Text Frames: Cause/Effect; Use of Correlational Data
Strategy Used: B/D/A Questioning Charts (Buehl, 2014)
Below is the worksheet that I provided for my partner using the Before, During, After questioning charts from the Buehl book.
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Directions:
(B). Before reading the article, write down several general
questions that come to mind just from reading the title.
(D). While you are reading the article write down questions
that come to mind about the article’s topic. These should be questions that the
author may answer.
(A). After reading the article, write down questions that
the article may have sparked. These should be questions that the author did not
answer, but may be answered in future readings.
Finally, answer the questions from the B and D columns.
Include information that you learned in the article that you may not have asked
a direct question about.
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Before Reading (B)
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During Reading (D)
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After Reading (A)
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Question Answers:
Additional Information:
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Reflection and Analysis
I chose this strategy because it will help students practice creating their own questions regarding critical concepts. Quite often, students are given questions to answer about these topics, but are not taught how to form their own questions. Inquiry-based learning is very beneficial to students, and learning to generate questions is a big part of that (McLaughlin, 2015). In addition, inquiry is the basis of scientific discovery.
This strategy can also help students pull more from a reading. With the before-reading questions, students are anticipating what a text will be about, beginning to generate their own thoughts and ideas about the topic, and activating prior knowledge. With the during-reading questions, students are expanding on their own knowledge and thinking more deeply about the author's ideas. With the after-reading questions, students are combining their knowledge and experience with the new concepts and pushing them to find out more on the subject. Having students answer the questions that they generate can help them read the text more carefully and get more out of a reading.
My partner found one main challenge with the way this strategy was structured; it was difficult to come up with questions while reading the text. She was trying to create questions that could be answered with the information in the article. To solve this problem, I could reword my directions or tweak the expectations. My directions for this section were to come up with questions that might be answered in the text. In the book, Buehl creates another step where students categorize their questions as being completely answered by the author, somewhat answered by the author, or not answered by the author (2014). I think that if I had included this in my directions, there would not have been as much pressure to generate answerable questions. Another resolution would be to have student jot down notes or key points rather than questions in this section.
My partner noted that the before-reading questions were a good way of discovering what you don't know before reading the article. She also mentioned that the after-reading questions were initially difficult, but that she felt they were valuable to her experience. I think that this type of question will probably pose some difficulty to my students as well, which only stresses the importance of helping them develop the skill.
Overall, this seemed to be a very valuable strategy and, with some minor changes, I would definitely use it in my class.
Jennie, I really like this strategy. You make a really good point about students ability to generate their own questions. I have noticed with my Chemistry students now that they even have a hard time answering questions which are not multiple choice. It seems as though they have not been helped when learning how to break down word problems. Do you think this is something that would have been helped had they been asked to generate questions on their own more? I also like the idea of students asking questions before they start reading, but the problem Amanda and I ran into was that our title was not really mentioned in the article. You also make a good point that there are a few changes which you could make to this strategy. What do you think about using it as a partner strategy?
ReplyDeleteDani, I think that someone guiding your students when asking and answering more complex questions would probably help them become more successful at answering word problems. I know that when I was tutoring, it helped when I vocalized how I read and understood a problem. For example, I might talk them through how I first pick out the "big question" in the problem, what type of answer it is looking for, then rewrite the given information. I think that many students need to be taught the tools and skills for how to analyze a word problem before they can answer them successfully. Creating and answering their own questions would probably be the next step to helping your students.
DeleteAs for the title not being entirely related to the article, I think that with this strategy that is ok. I read Amanda's blog post about the "I wonder" questions, and I think that is very similar to my strategy. Using my strategy for your article, students would probably generate some questions about why superman can't bend this type of steel, but this can still be a good way to motivate your students. If it turns out that many of them are stuck on the superman reference even after reading the article, it could give you an opportunity to branch off with a project about how strong is superman and what other materials might he have a hard time breaking. Part of this strategy also is having questions that are not necessarily answered in the reading to push students to explore more outside of this text.
I think that it could be a great idea to pair students up, especially initially for this strategy. I would probably want them to generate most of the questions themselves, but maybe pair up or get into groups to answer the questions or think more about questions that go beyond the text.
Jennie,
ReplyDeleteI liked the way you and Abi approached this assignment. Going in "blind" made the assignment more authentic to how a student would view and complete the assignment. It also was a great way to generate directions and assignments and get some feedback on what you did. I think this approach would give a better picture of how students would feel and perform on a given assignment. This strategy, B/D/A Questioning Charts, seems like an awesome way to get students generating a variety of questions. I think it would be more natural for students to develop after questions, and this strategy helps students develop questions in areas that might be more difficult. It might also be interesting to have a reflection where they compare what they knew, or what they thought they knew before, and what they learned after reading the article.
Jennie, I echo the sentiment that you and Abi approach this assignment in a very effective way. It is valuable experience to understand what the student is experiencing. The strategy you presented for us here seems like a very effective way for students to activate prior knowledge, track comprehension during the reading, and expand outside of the activity at the conclusion. Learning to ask questions is essential to science and students (and teachers) can always practice it.
ReplyDeleteI am interested in the problems that your group had with the during-reading and after-reading questions and will keep that in mind. I had difficulty with my reading strategy and want to be able to target the steps that might trip up students to help them through it. Given that, this does seem like a relatively quick method to have students engage and check comprehension during a reading and then reflect right after. Thank you for sharing.
Jennie,
ReplyDeleteThis is very similar to the strategy I used for my reading, Making Science Connections. However, I think I actually like yours better! The up front value of this strategy is apparent, but if these charts were given out and the student kept a binder of these, I could see this being a good note taking and study strategy for the students. It gives them a solid summary that they would be able to come back to. I am wondering how this would be utilized in the class itself. Would the sheets be shared in groups?