1 Part B Final Exam 1.

How would you respond to a teacher who says, Well, If I follow the SIOP model and make sure my English learners are able to access content using these activities, techniques, and approaches, my on-level kids and native English speakers will be bored. Do you agree with this statement? No. Why/why not? The SIOP model provides teachers with a guide to planning lessons, and how to deliver instructional appropriate approaches for accessing content through using different activities. This is equally true for those students with limited English proficiency. The reason this statement is false, is because SIOP is also structured for those who do extremely well academically and those who are continually at grade level. SIOP is structured for all students, and by following objectives, also assists those with low scholastic levels, those who find reading to be hard, those who have experienced constant failure in school, those who work hard, but constantly struggle academically, and those with challenging behaviors. How can teachers with only a few English learners in their classroom organize instruction so that all students needs are met? The SIOP model has been found to be effective with all learners and is essential for English language learners. Features should be implemented consistently to provide high quality instruction for all students, through Tier 1 and Tier 2 instruction. Tier 1 is students who are not keeping up, or may need extra help through specialized material like: Small-group instruction Family involvement More intensive English language development Modification of assignments Tier 2 may need more intensive interventions to meet their learning needs. Tier 2 interventions include: Small group, classroom-based reading intervention Focused and targeted instruction delivered by the education teacher, reading specialist, or any other specialist Explicit reading instruction, which emphasizes key features, is important for English learners and other students; including developing and practicing oral language, key vocabulary, interaction, phonemic awareness, and phonics, fluency, and comprehension strategies

2 According to our text, Dr. Stephen Krashen, professor emeritus at the University of Southern California believes student learning is more successful if communication-based instruction is utilized in the same fashion students learn their first language. However, he feels when this learning environment is geared towards students learning a second language, an evidencebased system, utilizing instructional approaches, is adventitious for individual students. Krashen believes language acquisition-learning hypothesis holds infants acquire language subconsciously rather than cognitively, when learning their native language. SIOP model begins in the general education classroom; teachers use evidence-based practices which work for the individual student, and monitor each students progress. Krashens affective filter hypothesis refers to feelings, motives, needs, attitudes, and emotional states. Learners who are tense, anxious, or bored may filter out input; making it unavailable for acquisition, and will have difficulty understanding and learning. The teachers responsibility is to keep students actively engaged and motivated. SIOP focuses on finding ways to change instruction, so the learner can be successful. 2. A factual question a teacher might ask based on social studies text: who was the first president of the United States?Given the topic of the presidency, what are several additional questions you could ask that promote higher-order thinking? List three (3): a. What are three responsibilities of the president of the United States? b. Who elects the president, and when and how often is the president elected? c. How many times can a president be elected, and for how many years? The Soviet psychologist Lev Vygotsky developed the Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD) theory in the early 1900s. He theorized students who are given guidance by adults, will eventually develop these skills without the assistance of adults; which is termed scaffolding. When a student is asked questions by the teacher about what a president represents, and is guided through the cognitive process of arriving at correct solutions, the child is then able to grasp scaffold information through deep higher order thinking and analysis. Why is it important to use variety of questioning strategies with English learners? To promote critical thinking, through higher order questions, along with using a hierarchy that elicits varying levels of cognitive thought, through the use of Blooms Taxonomy of education objectives: Remember a. recognizing, b. recalling Understand a. interpreting, b. exemplifying, c. classifying, d. summarizing, e. inferring, f. comparing, g. explaining. Apply a. executing, b. implementing Analyze a. differentiating, b. organizing, c. attributing

3 Evaluate a. checking, b. critiquing Create a. generating, b. planning, c. producing 3. Compare and contrast the following two teachers approaches to teaching a lesson on nutrition. Both approaches of teaching involved the Food Plate and a list of appropriate foods to eat. Approach (a) was teacher driven. Approach (b) was student driven, and teacher guided. Which approach to teaching this content concept is most appropriate for English learners? Approach b. This teacher does not lecture, but makes content concepts clear and understandable for English learners through a variety of techniques like: maintaining a daily food diary for a week, giving students a copy of the Food Plate, explaining the Food Plates use, pairing up students for discussion, designing a nutritionally sound menu, and facilitating discussions within peer groups. How do you know? Through Benjamin Blooms classification of learning objectives and Taxonomy theory of higher order of thinking, individuals need to apply, analyze, and evaluate what you created, form what you have learned. The actual teaching techniques a teacher uses can have a greater impact on student achievement, then through just a lecture and a diagram which have no other supports. The teacher in approach (a) does not have enough supports for the students to understand the content concept, and does not have clear explanations of academic tasks, because the lesson is teacher driven. The teacher in approach (b) has plenty of supports for the students to understand the content concepts, because it is student driven; but teacher guided. Professor J. Cummins, a leading authority on bilingual education and second language acquisition, devised a model to categorize varying tasks students are required to attempt and conquer; from mundane to the cognitively complex or from context embedded to context reduced. A context-embedded task is one in which the student has access to a range of additional visual and oral cues, which in line with approach (b) where the various methods, like providing an individual, partner, or group-up activity, is utilized. A context-reduced task is one such as listening to a lecture or reading dense text, where there are no other sources of help than the language itself. This is exemplified by the teacher giving the Food Plate, a lecture, and test and is specified by example (a). The similarities and overlaps occur when each teacher gives the Food Plate of appropriate foods, the rest is a contrast. 4. How does a teacher determine whether a majority of students, including English learners, are engaged throughout the period?

4 If the students are engaged they are responding to the teachers directions and performing the activities as expected. The same observations would be made for English learners, and non English learners, within the same determination. What techniques could be used to sustain engagement throughout the period? When incorporating a variety of techniques, which engage students throughout the lesson, teachers offer students opportunities to learn, practice, and apply information and language skills. Think pair share is one activity where everyone in the class is asked by the teacher to think of an answer to questions, and respond by telling their answer to a partner, before calling on other students to share their responses with the whole class. Chunk and Chew is another activity teachers utilize. This skill causes pauses after every 10 minutes of input by the teacher, to give students time to talk with a partner, or in a small group, about what they have just learned. Podcasts are two to three minute oral summary presentations students prepare concerning a topic they have selected, or the teacher has assigned. Students rehearse, and then record it on a podcast or audio file, for use on the class computer. Jean Piaget, a Swiss philosopher, recognized the crucial role of childrens self-initiated, active involvement in learning activities. This teaching form requires the teacher and student to engage interactively, utilizing learning activities from the physical world like Think Pair Share, verses standard lecture forums of teacher to student indoctrination. These represent childrens cognitive thinking activities, which stimulates higher learning. What should the teacher do if he or she senses that students are off task? Teachers should avoid spending excessive amounts of time making announcements, passing out, and collecting papers. Students must be actively engage through instruction teaching, to prevent students from going off task. Keep students engaged at all times, is critical. If students do not know what their tasks are, they will find something else to occupy their time. Engagement, motivation, and identity are important factors in successful lessons. When students are engaged, they are involved in tasks that challenge them, and allow for individual greater confidence. Why is sustained engagement so critical to English learners academic progress? When teachers spend adequate time, and energy, instructing content, students increase their capacity to learn the material; because their mind has not wondered to other tasks. This constant focus is critical to English learners for academic progress. When students spend their time actively engaged in activities, which they strongly relate to, their cognitive focus is amplified and long-term memory, and comprehension of the material, is achieved

5 5. Think of a content concept that you might be teaching. Describe three different grouping configurations that could be used for teaching and learning this concept. a. One concept would be to organize students into smaller groups for instructional purpose. This can provide a beneficial context, contrary to where whole-class teacher-dominated instruction, does not offer the same focused coaching. Students can get together and discuss a science project; for example, and provide the steps needed to put the project together; such as the group collectively establishing various steps of building a rocket for the science experiment. b. Another step would allow students to work together in large groups, to critique or analyze material; and to create graphic representations of terms or concepts, or summarize material. Students can get together to create a graphic organizer, for example, to create the life and energy cycle of a frog. c. The third example would be assigning students to collaborate with a shoulder partner in order to peer-review, or supply their partner with suggestions, when needed. In this example, the students gain the ability to evaluate each others drawings; so in the example of the life cycle of a frog, each student would offer constructive suggestions to benefit each others project material. How would you organize the member of each group? Grouping students, with varying language proficiency levels, in one group Grouping students up by background and knowledge, within the content of their knowledge about the subject material, as in the example of frog expertise Grouping EL students together, and by language proficiency How would you monitor student learning? Utilizing teaching activities, such as; Think-Pair-Share, Chunk and Chew and Roam and Review, are excellent methods to monitor student learning. Providing adequate time for students to discuss ideas and information they learned during explicit teaching and guided instruction, and observing their discussions, is another source of monitoring. Monitoring students while they apply background knowledge and language information through grouping configurations, through walking around and assessing what is being said in student groups by individual students, provides analysis to this technique. One final approach to monitoring students would be to assess final tasks, be it written, oral, or visual.

6 What would you want students to do while working in their groups? Listening to recorded stories in centers, or on computers Reinforcing skills with computer games Creating graphic representations of vocabulary terms, concepts, and practicing word sorts Utilizing flash cards to activate prior knowledge and associate it with the new content How would the grouping configurations facilitate learning for ELLs? For particular lessons like science, students with similar abilities may be grouped together to facilitate practice of using a particular language structure. Grouping students, when studying a specific content like science students, can use specific background knowledge from a particular book about frogs, to create a poster. This activates prior knowledge and links it to new content. Another advantage for grouping English learners together is that teachers can target specific language instruction; and students are more apt to take risks in their second language. Avram Noam Chomsky is a linguist, philosopher, and innatist, who is focused on First Language Acquisition (FLA), which contends, Its all in your mind. He viewed language as a symbol system to express knowledge through interaction with the physical world; things can be observed or manipulated. He also believed everyone has a chip in their head, and if they dont use it they will lose it, referencing knowledge. Each individual student has core knowledge, and through interaction of paring or grouping, may share internal knowledge with their shoulder partner, or members of small or large groups. Which offers a postulate of knowledge that the groups end resources is greater than the individual student. However, without the individual knowledge contained in a single mind, the sum of the group would be less without this advantage. This is especially true for ELL students, as their own internal knowledge is unique to them, and an asset to any paring or group, and works in both directions.