Engaging & Supporting Diverse Learners: Moving from Theory to Practice

1. Engaging & Supporting Diverse Learners:Moving from Theory to Practice Dr. Bruce Taylor Director, The Center for Adolescent Literacies September 26, 2011

2. Our Agenda for Tonight • A quick review of two important concepts for teaching and learning • Metacognition • Prior knowledge • Teaching & learning tools that

3. Two Important Concepts • Metacognition. “Knowing about knowing” or knowing what to do when you encounter a challenge in learning. • Prior Knowledge. Comes out of Schema Theory and points to the importance of tapping into what we already know in learning new ideas.

4. Metacognition • Definition: “thinking about one's own mental processes” • All learners have metacognitive processes but some more than others • The good news is that metacognition can be taught using instructional strategies (cognitive strategies)

5. Metacognition in Practice Challenges we encounter What we do • Come across a new word when we read • “Don’t get it” or don’t understand after reading • Find reading difficult and disfluent (choppy, uneven, slow)

6. Schema Theory & Prior Knowledge • Schema theory states that organized knowledge is an elaborate network of abstract mental structures (networks of schemata). • That is, the brain organizes information into structures (think webs or mind maps). • New information is “plugged into” existing structures (prior knowledge).

7. Schema Network (example)

8. Think of it this way… • It’s like a rolodex card with a topic (engines, for example). On our card we have what we already know, our prior knowledge. The more we know the more connections we can make as we add new concepts (hybrid or diesel engines, for example). • This sometimes gets called “The Matthew Effect”—the rich get richer and the poor get poorer (educationally speaking).

9. Let’s try reading

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13. Putting These Into Practice A model unit on natural disasters (science): • KWL • Anticipation Guide • Say Something • Found Poetry • Vocabulary Self-Awareness Chart

14. KWL

15. Questions???