When you think back to the vocabulary lessons you studied in middle and high school, you probably remember sitting in your English Language Arts or Reading classroom while furiously scribbling down a definition that your teacher wrote on the board or projected on the screen. If your schools were anything like mine, you may have also had a series of Vocabulary Workshop notebooks that followed you around from grades 7 to 12 like an uninvited house guest that never leaves. I admit vocabulary lessons were never my favorite part of any unit; especially when using the notebooks, the activities always felt repetitive and had little application for real-world use. Focusing on my experiences in social studies, I do not recall participating in lessons centered on vocabulary often, if at all. In fact, I believe the closest my peers and I got to a history vocab lesson was a few bolded words from our textbook readings casually mentioned on PowerPoint slides.
Since I had never really participated in a social studies vocabulary lesson, I had not considered how I would incorporate vocabulary lessons into my own unit planning until recently. Sure, I knew I would have to describe historical terms relevant to my content and provide the opportunity for my students to practice using them in various ways, but I had not thought deeply about how I would expand my lessons beyond the typical sentence fill-ins for any bold type words on my lecture slides. However, the chance to practice designing a social studies vocabulary lesson arose quickly in my Literacy course. This week, I was challenged to create a 15-minute vocabulary lesson (featured in the video below) that related in some way to a larger 10 lesson unit plan I have and will continuously work on throughout the semester. My unit focuses on the causes of the American Revolution, and the final performance assessment includes a class-wide mock trial that mirrors the court battle that followed the Boston Massacre. In order to better prepare my students for the trial, as well as introduce some concepts that will be seen repeatedly throughout their historical studies, I chose four vocabulary words to emphasize in my lesson that I felt were the most important to cover in the given amount of time.
In creating my lesson plan, I knew I wanted to introduce the vocabulary words outside of textbook definitions and written passages. One of the running visual literacy components of my unit is Paul Revere's engraving "The Bloody Massacre Perpetrated in Kings Street in Boston," so I decided that if I selected vocabulary words featured in the visual, the words would not only help my students understand the engraving, but also support other running themes in my unit that continue throughout history. Plus, my students would have an opportunity to practice their close reading skills by analyzing the image and connecting the vocabulary to the meaning behind the visual. Once I had the vehicle by which I wanted to introduce the vocabulary words, I planned to incorporate a discussion about the close reading activity and a few slides that provided a more formal definition of each word: propaganda, bayonet, manslaughter, and sentry. Finally, I created a Kahoot! to assess student learning with vocabulary fill-ins and matching, as well as a few relevant trivia questions for fun.
When reviewing my lesson plan and teaching episode, I find that my experience most strongly aligns with the Vermont Licensure Portfolio Performance Criterion 8.1, as well as the Saint Michael's Mission Pillar for creative and integrative education. P.C. 8.1 notes that candidates for licensure should "use a variety of instructional strategies to make the discipline accessible for diverse learners," highlighting the importance of using multiple methods of instruction in order to best teach every student in my classroom based on their strengths while working to improve their weaknesses. By employing visual literacy and close reading techniques, class discussion, written definitions, and selected response assessment, I believe that I incorporated a variety of instructional strategies that offered students several ways to access, engage with, and develop their own understandings of the vocabulary words presented. The multiple instructional strategies along with my use of interactive technology closely link my lesson to the SMC Mission Pillar for Education students to become creative and integrative educators, specifically because I was able to seamlessly move between different technological opportunities in a way that allowed students to engage with my lesson directly.
From the video and feedback I received from my peers about my lesson, I have learned quite a bit about myself as a teacher in general. First and foremost, I have discovered that the time and energy I dedicate to lesson planning may not always feel like enough, but I can and should trust that my knowledge of my content area and my past teaching experiences will carry me through lessons and help me adapt along the way. I have also learned that comfort comes with practice, and I know that while I may have been nervous before my lesson, presenting is never as scary as it seems. Specifically from peer feedback, I have learned that I can effectively initiate the analysis of primary sources, and I have a fairly confident presence in front of a classroom. As far as teaching vocabulary in my content area goes, I have learned that finding interactive and engaging ways to link historical terms to a larger context is not only possible, but can be done in so many ways. In the video of my lesson above, one can see how using Kahoot! allowed my peers to test their knowledge with a game-like quiz, and they scored extremely well in the process. Clearly, the results of the Kahoot! are skewed in the sense that college students participated in an eighth-grade level lesson, but in the amount of time given I believe the results show I was able to teach the vocabulary effectively. In the future, I hope to discover new ways to develop vocabulary lessons for social studies content that involve multiple instructional strategies and engaging practice and assessment. Be on the lookout for more updates on my coming American Revolution Unit, my practice with planning lessons, and new strategies I discover for teaching social studies vocabulary!
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Source: http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51xquwoOPEL._SL500_AA300_.jpg
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Since I had never really participated in a social studies vocabulary lesson, I had not considered how I would incorporate vocabulary lessons into my own unit planning until recently. Sure, I knew I would have to describe historical terms relevant to my content and provide the opportunity for my students to practice using them in various ways, but I had not thought deeply about how I would expand my lessons beyond the typical sentence fill-ins for any bold type words on my lecture slides. However, the chance to practice designing a social studies vocabulary lesson arose quickly in my Literacy course. This week, I was challenged to create a 15-minute vocabulary lesson (featured in the video below) that related in some way to a larger 10 lesson unit plan I have and will continuously work on throughout the semester. My unit focuses on the causes of the American Revolution, and the final performance assessment includes a class-wide mock trial that mirrors the court battle that followed the Boston Massacre. In order to better prepare my students for the trial, as well as introduce some concepts that will be seen repeatedly throughout their historical studies, I chose four vocabulary words to emphasize in my lesson that I felt were the most important to cover in the given amount of time.
In creating my lesson plan, I knew I wanted to introduce the vocabulary words outside of textbook definitions and written passages. One of the running visual literacy components of my unit is Paul Revere's engraving "The Bloody Massacre Perpetrated in Kings Street in Boston," so I decided that if I selected vocabulary words featured in the visual, the words would not only help my students understand the engraving, but also support other running themes in my unit that continue throughout history. Plus, my students would have an opportunity to practice their close reading skills by analyzing the image and connecting the vocabulary to the meaning behind the visual. Once I had the vehicle by which I wanted to introduce the vocabulary words, I planned to incorporate a discussion about the close reading activity and a few slides that provided a more formal definition of each word: propaganda, bayonet, manslaughter, and sentry. Finally, I created a Kahoot! to assess student learning with vocabulary fill-ins and matching, as well as a few relevant trivia questions for fun.
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| Paul Revere's "The Bloody Massacre Perpetrated in Kings Street in Boston" |
When reviewing my lesson plan and teaching episode, I find that my experience most strongly aligns with the Vermont Licensure Portfolio Performance Criterion 8.1, as well as the Saint Michael's Mission Pillar for creative and integrative education. P.C. 8.1 notes that candidates for licensure should "use a variety of instructional strategies to make the discipline accessible for diverse learners," highlighting the importance of using multiple methods of instruction in order to best teach every student in my classroom based on their strengths while working to improve their weaknesses. By employing visual literacy and close reading techniques, class discussion, written definitions, and selected response assessment, I believe that I incorporated a variety of instructional strategies that offered students several ways to access, engage with, and develop their own understandings of the vocabulary words presented. The multiple instructional strategies along with my use of interactive technology closely link my lesson to the SMC Mission Pillar for Education students to become creative and integrative educators, specifically because I was able to seamlessly move between different technological opportunities in a way that allowed students to engage with my lesson directly.
From the video and feedback I received from my peers about my lesson, I have learned quite a bit about myself as a teacher in general. First and foremost, I have discovered that the time and energy I dedicate to lesson planning may not always feel like enough, but I can and should trust that my knowledge of my content area and my past teaching experiences will carry me through lessons and help me adapt along the way. I have also learned that comfort comes with practice, and I know that while I may have been nervous before my lesson, presenting is never as scary as it seems. Specifically from peer feedback, I have learned that I can effectively initiate the analysis of primary sources, and I have a fairly confident presence in front of a classroom. As far as teaching vocabulary in my content area goes, I have learned that finding interactive and engaging ways to link historical terms to a larger context is not only possible, but can be done in so many ways. In the video of my lesson above, one can see how using Kahoot! allowed my peers to test their knowledge with a game-like quiz, and they scored extremely well in the process. Clearly, the results of the Kahoot! are skewed in the sense that college students participated in an eighth-grade level lesson, but in the amount of time given I believe the results show I was able to teach the vocabulary effectively. In the future, I hope to discover new ways to develop vocabulary lessons for social studies content that involve multiple instructional strategies and engaging practice and assessment. Be on the lookout for more updates on my coming American Revolution Unit, my practice with planning lessons, and new strategies I discover for teaching social studies vocabulary!
Allie, this blog was awesome! I really like your opening paragraph and I also enjoyed watching you video so I knew what you were referencing in your blog. Now I wonder how you will make sure your students are engaged with your vocabulary lessons in the future, especially because in the past they were often boring and repetitive.
ReplyDeleteAllie, your killing it as usual! I really like how you not only connected the vocabulary to an image/visual but drew the vocabulary words directly from it. I also liked how you used technology like Kahoot! as well as presentation slides and seemed to transition between these programs without losing the lesson. I can't wait to see more about the American Revolution!
ReplyDeleteAllison, I continue to enjoy the personal voice in your blog! I appreciate the description of the evolution of your thinking. It is great to hear that you have shifted your thinking about the importance of vocabulary instruction as well as how to go about it.
ReplyDeleteAllie, I loved your blog! It was so in depth and it rang true to me with how I originally felt about vocabulary. I wish I could have seen your lesson in person because it seemed really interesting. You kill it, per usual!
ReplyDelete