SCIENCE SAMPLER
Student responses:
Elaborate: Discussion and writing notes
Student directions:
How do lenses help us magnify?
• Use The Microscope Reading as evidence.
• Draw pictures if needed.
Student responses:
Evaluate: science journal entry
Directions: Write a journal entry that answers this question:
How does a microscope work?
Student responses:
References
Llewellyn, D. 2002. Inquire within, implementing inquiry-based
science standards. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press Inc.
Struble, J. Using graphic organizers as formative assessment.
Science Scope 30 (5): 69–71.
Swartz, S.L., A.F. Klein, and R.E. Shook. 2001. Interactive writing and interactive editing: Making connections between
writing and reading. San Diego: Dominie, Press, Inc.
Unrau, N. 2004. Content area reading and writing: Fostering
literacies in middle and high school cultures. Upper Saddle
River, NJ: Pearson Education.
Resources
Author’s Website—www.stephsnature.com
Houghton Mifflin, graphic organizers—www.eduplace.com/
graphicorganizer
Technology Publishing Company, teacher workbooks, graphic
organizer series, science organizers volume 1—www.teachnology.com/gold/sciorg.html
Tools for writing and reading, Greece central school
district—www.greece.k12.ny.us/instruction/ela/612/Tools/Index.htm
Stephanie Erickson ([email protected])
is a teacher at Washington Technology Magnet Middle
School in St. Paul, Minnesota.
Using direct instruction
to teach content
vocabulary
Do you ever find yourself lying awake in the early morning
hours of the day wondering, “How can I effectively teach
my students the curriculum so that they are able to
succeed and gain confidence in their skills?” We have all
been there a night or two, pondering how to best improve
our teaching skills so that students in our classrooms
learn the material and learn it well.
The magnitude of vocabulary students need to know in the
middle school science curriculum is vast and can be daunting.
Many of the words related to the science curriculum are
extremely specialized and many students enter the classroom
with only a very loose understanding of a majority of the
words. As educators, it is our job to efficiently and effectively
teach students so that they are not only able to apply the new
vocabulary to that year’s curriculum, but to store it in their
memory for future use in high school and college. Often
times we have our students look up vocabulary words for
a unit of study in the glossary of their textbook and record
the definitions in their notes, either as a class warm up or
homework assignment. Or we may provide definitions to
students to study for the next assessment. Regardless of the
method we choose, the underlying question remains: Is this
the most effective way for students to learn the specialized
vocabulary for a particular unit of study and beyond?
Problems with traditional methods of
vocabulary instruction
One traditional method of vocabulary instruction is to have
students copy definitions from the glossary or pages of their
textbook. This technique, however, has three problems. First,
in many textbooks the definitions located in the glossary do
not always have a direct link to the topic being taught—they
are either too broad or too narrow. Second, many students
who copy definitions from their textbook’s glossary do so
absentmindedly, merely copying symbols on a page, rather
than reading the definition for understanding and committing
it to memory. These students do not benefit academically
from the exercise besides receiving a good grade on a
homework assignment. Third, if students navigate through
the text to find the definitions of assigned words, their context
clues may not be sharp enough to elicit comprehensive
definitions, resulting in incomplete or incorrect definitions.
S e p t e m b e r 2007
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SCIENCE SAMPLER
FIGURE 1
Essential vocabulary
Word
Definition
1. periodic table
A table of the elements, arranged by atomic number, that shows
patterns in their properties.
2. chemical symbol
An abbreviation for the element’s name. It contains one or two letters.
Some elements have not yet been named and are assigned threeletter symbols.
3. atomic number
The number of protons in the nucleus of an atom.
4. atomic mass
The average mass of the atoms of an element.
5. isotope
An element that has a different number of neutrons than another atom
of the same element.
6. ion
An atom or group of atoms that has a positive or negative electric charge.
Directions
1.Complete the vocabulary by providing examples or facts.
2.Fold over the Visual column to line up with the
vocabulary words.
3.Draw/find visuals for each vocabulary word.
4.Use to self-test.
Reverse side—this column will be on the left side of the
back of the paper, so that when folded over it is next to
the Word column.
Visual
Knowledge connection
(examples or facts)
Despite the amount of effort these students have put into
their homework, they still have many misconceptions of the
vocabulary. For example, when completing a chemical unit
on atomic structure, students may be required to know the
word nucleus. But if asked to define this word for a vocabulary
homework assignment, students could easily record the
definition of the nucleus of a cell, rather than the nucleus of
an atom. Although middle school students must understand
the function of a cell’s nucleus, it may not be appropriate
for the unit they are studying, and students may commit to
memory the wrong definition.
New method of vocabulary instruction
One method of vocabular y instruction that works well
with students is direct instruction with the ability to
interact with the vocabulary verbally, visually, spatially,
and intrapersonally. In this method a foldable graphic
organizer created by Mindy Panzer provides students
with the required vocabular y, chunked in groups of
seven, as well as the most relevant definition for each
word as it lends itself both to the current unit of study
and to the entire course curriculum, allowing students
to interact with each concept in both linguistic and
nonlinguistic ways (Marzano 2004).
How is this accomplished? First, create a double-sided,
three-column graphic organizer (see Figure 1) with
approximately eight rows (one for the column headings,
and one for each vocabulary word). The three column
headings are as follows: Column one is Word; column two
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SCIENCE SAMPLER
is Definition; column three is Knowledge Connection. On
the reverse side of the paper in the upper left-hand corner
(directly backing the Knowledge Connection column)
insert a column with the heading Visual (see Figure 1). If
the unit is small create one graphic organizer and adjust
the number of rows accordingly, but try to stick to chunks
of seven words. If the list of words is longer, create two
organizers, separating the two lists of words according
to their definitions or how they relate to each other.
Using vocabulary lists of seven words or less, students
are able to interact with the words more meaningfully than
when they are overwhelmed by a large vocabulary list. A
smaller list provides an opportunity to learn each word more
sufficiently, and learning words in groups according to their
relation helps students to see connections between such
specialized vocabulary. I provide students with the first list
at the beginning of the unit and the second list a few days
later to give them the time to retain the first set of words.
FIGURE 2
Folded graphic organizer
Why has this worked?
By providing a complete definition for students in the
second column, not only am I assured that they are
learning the correct usage and meaning of the word,
but students are using their time to interact with each
word, rather than copying definitions from the glossary
of their textbook. The definitions (from textbooks and
curriculum) are in brief, student-friendly language so
students can fully understand the concept. In the third
column of the organizer, students are asked to make a
knowledge connection, which will vary depending on
students’ skill level or the words for the unit of study.
Students can be asked to provide a fact or example of each
word based on their previous knowledge; to explain how
the word applies to a lab activity they just completed; to
write a scientific sentence for each word; or to make a link
or connection to another word on the graphic organizer.
Students seem to be more responsive to this vocabulary
exercise if the type of knowledge connection that is
required is varied (Beck, McKeown, and Kucan 2002).
Finally, when students have completed their
knowledge connection they are asked to fold over
the third column, making a large flap that hides the
Definition and Knowledge Connection columns so that
only the vocabular y word can be seen on the front
side of the paper, and revealing the Visual column
on the back (Marzano 2004). Students are asked to
draw a visual reminder so that when studying their
vocabular y they are reminded of the definition of the
word and their knowledge connection. Some students
take the initiative to cut individual flaps for each word
so that they are able to study without revealing the
definitions of other words when they make a quick
peek. Other students choose to have only one flap,
and those who have poor or slow motor skills may
ask me to cut individual flaps for them.
In the end students have created not only a wonderful
vocabulary lesson, but also a great study guide! I have
students place their vocabulary foldable in their interactive
notebooks so they can study them throughout the year.
Other teachers place the organizers in their students’
portfolios or have them hole-punch the left side and insert
it into a three-ring binder.
The pitfalls
My students receive a vocabulary sheet for each of the
35 labs that are conducted throughout the academic
school year. As with any new activity, I guide students
through the first one or two vocabular y exercises to
S e p t e m b e r 2007
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SCIENCE SAMPLER
FIGURE 3
Open graphic organizer
the activity and the reason such guidelines need to be
followed. These periodic refocusing sessions do take
time, yet they have a great payoff in the end.
Assessment techniques
ensure that they not only understand how to complete
the activity, but why it is necessar y to follow all the
guidelines. After modeling the first few in class,
students should be given the opportunity to complete
a vocabular y foldable in class so they have the chance
to ask questions and you, the teacher, can check for
master y of the task. This process does take time out
of class at the beginning of the year when the class
schedule is already quite hectic.
Another pitfall to direct instruction of vocabular y is
that after extended use of this form of activity, students
can become too comfor table with the assignment
and their quality of work may decline. Conversely,
if presented with a set of vocabular y words that are
more challenging than the words given to them in the
past, students may struggle to complete the other wise
simple activity. Therefore it is necessar y to not only
constantly monitor this assignment, but to periodically
take time out of class to complete the assignment
together, reminding students of the guidelines for
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SCIENCE SCOPE
The effectiveness of direct instruction of vocabular y
can be assessed in many ways (Beck, McKeown, and
Kucan 2002). One of the first methods of assessing
students’ vocabular y acquisition is by both formally
and informally obser ving students’ responses to lab
activity questions and the usage of key concepts
during class discussion. As students become more
accustomed to this style of vocabular y acquisition
their ability to correctly use key concepts in both
written and oral explanations should not only improve,
but increase.
A second for mative assessment to test the
effectiveness of this particular vocabular y activity is
through students’ performance on written assessments,
such as vocabular y matching, multiple-choice, shortanswer or essay questions. Students who benefit
from direct vocabular y instruction should develop
better word recognition on assessments and have an
overall improvement of performance on assessment
questions from all levels of Bloom’s Taxonomy that
pertain to key concepts and ideas. Finally, students’
overall performance on summative assessments will
improve as they are able to make connections between
key concepts from multiple units of study.
References
Beck, I., M. McKeown, and L. Kucan. 2002. Bringing
words to life: Robust vocabulary instruction. New
York: Guilford Press.
Marzano, R. 2004. Building background knowledge for
academic achievement. Alexandria, VA: Association for
Supervision and Curriculum Development.
National Resource Council. National science education standards. 1996. Washington, DC: National Academy Press.
Lisa Catherine Leno ([email protected]) is a physical
science teacher at Lake Braddock Secondary School,
FCPS in Burke, Virginia and a master’s degree student
at George Mason University. Laura Dougherty is a
special education teacher at Lake Braddock Secondary School, FCPS in Burke, Virginia.