Thought Four

List-Group-Label Video

This video dove right into explaining and defining this educational practice, List-Group-Label. The video explains the essence of the exercise can be broken into three steps: Brainstorms a list of related words, Group words into subcategories, and Label groupings with descriptive titles. This practice seems simple enough, therefore, I was interested to see its advantages in the classroom. The video stressed that while utilizing this strategy, it can be helpful to reference past and present readings to pull inspiration from. Overall, the video itself mentions little to no negative aspects of applying this practice at all, also mentioning its possible application across grade levels and content areas. The video showed a second-grade classroom implementing the practice and the instructor asked the students, “Why do we think about words?” Students responded mentioning future use of words, general understanding of word meaning, and aid when reading books. I thought it was interesting to see how the practice itself, along with how the teacher is running the classroom discussion, makes this a lesson very focused on student reasoning skills. The video lists a myriad of skills and advantages of incorporating List-Group-Label into your classroom, including students: Developing categorizing skills, building background knowledge, activating critical thinking, and growing vocabulary. There are a lot of buzz words in there, but it is safe to say this practice seems to be quite effective. The video even goes a step further to include ways this practice can be adapted for an inclusive situation by sorting pictures instead of words. In the second-grade classroom, the instructor used the example of creating a list of “Gardening Words”. The students then made of list of words, including soil, leaves, lettuce, tomatoes, water, sunshine, hoses, seeds, etc. The next thing the teacher did impress me as a future educator, she turned to her students and said, “As long as you can explain why they go together, they go together. …There’s no right or wrong answer here.” This not only allows students to implement their critical thinking skills, as previously mentioned but also allows students to use creativity in their responses. The students were given chart paper and told they could add more words to fit within their categories. When working independently, some students started with the descriptive titles, rather than the words themselves. The teacher intervened when necessary to guide student learning and understanding but gave them the freedom to explore the practice themselves. I enjoyed watching this little sneak-peak into educational practice and believe this a very versatile and beneficial practice to implement.

Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K731qicwYcY&feature=youtu.be&list=PLLxDwKxHx1yKC2UoFwgiUAoZyrqYiDsGB

True/False Equation, 4th Grade Video

The next video I watched also focused on student reasoning skills. Rather than diving headfirst into definitions, this video was solely in-classroom practice. The instructor’s main idea was for students to have a good explanation or reasoning behind their answer of true or false. The instructor imposed the question, “Is 80 ¸4 = (80 ¸ 2) + (80 ¸ 2)?”. The students were then asked to talk amongst themselves to explain their thoughts on whether this equation was true or false. Like the previous video, I believe the instructor's flow of instruction lends a helping hand to student's reasoning, explanation, and critical thinking skills, having them explain to each other along with the instructor to prove their response. After independent, student discussion, the instructor pulled the discussion back by asking the students who wanted to defend true and false. This instructional practice not only aids in categorized thought processes but helps with communication skills, giving each student a chance to argue their thought process. Throughout the argument, students were asked their response or thoughts about their peers’ responses and if their responses were beginning to influence their answers. This instructor, in particular, impressed me with her utilization of communication in the classroom. She mostly asked and made probing statements and questions and allowed the students to reason out their answers with her guidance. I believe this is a very successful, as well as, enjoyable way of practice, allowing students to feel comfortable having a strong, recognized voice in the classroom. This instructor also takes her explanation of reasoning a step further by not only showing the work to solve the equation but even drawing a picture, giving student names to the “portions of Skittles” being distributed from the equation. After a solid ten minutes of critical discussion and argumentative reasoning, the class came to their verdict of false, with the instructor’s closing remarks being, “Did we help you revise your thinking?”. That question stuck with me because I think it could be asked by any instructor, at the close of any class. Did we revise

Instructor drawing out equation to aid in student understanding during true or false discussion.

our way of thinking? Do you even go into a class thinking you are going to revise your thinking or expand on it? I believe that making revised thinking a clear goal of a classroom environment could aid in students thinking and how they approach learning new things, along with hearing ideas and thoughts that may oppose their own.

Link: https://tedd.org/?tedd_activity=truefalse-equations