Chapter ten in Strategies That Work by Harvey and Goudvis is very relevant to my virtual world of teaching. This chapter, “Determining Importance in Text: The Nonfiction Connection,” is so important for my students to understand since there is no direct instruction provided and they are responsible for reading the lessons, completing practice activities and submitting assignments on their own. I am a resource for my students but they ultimately need to learn how to extract the important information that will aid in their learning of the subject.
The introduction to this chapter talks about students who have “highlighting disease” and highlight everything on the page. I find my students have “printing disease” and try to turn their virtual class into a textbook by printing every page of a lesson. My
students are able to use their notes during their tests and oral exams, but I often find them without any notes or too many notes to quickly find necessary information.
Last week I had the opportunity to meet with a handful of my 6th grade Language Arts students face-to-face. I used this time to review how to extract the important information from a lesson to take effective notes and discussed many of the strategies mentioned in this chapter. I always stress to my students to use complete sentences on all assignments, so when I told them they did not have to do this while taking
notes, they were pleasantly surprised. I encouraged them to sketch pictures, use abbreviations and symbols to make their notes personal to them. We also looked for features in the lessons that signal importance such as bolded fonts, signal words, headings, and graphic organizers.
Since the objectives are clearly stated at the beginning of each lesson and this is what quizzes and my oral exams are based on, I am trying to teach my students that the objectives are the study guide for the assessment and they just need to know how to extract the important information to be successful. Harvey and Goudvis mention, ‘teaching with the end in mind,” but I find myself training my virtual students to teach themselves with the end in mind.
References
Harvey, S., & Goudvis, A. (2007). Strategies that work: Teaching comprehension
to enhance understanding. Portland, Me: Stenhouse Publishers.
The introduction to this chapter talks about students who have “highlighting disease” and highlight everything on the page. I find my students have “printing disease” and try to turn their virtual class into a textbook by printing every page of a lesson. My
students are able to use their notes during their tests and oral exams, but I often find them without any notes or too many notes to quickly find necessary information.
Last week I had the opportunity to meet with a handful of my 6th grade Language Arts students face-to-face. I used this time to review how to extract the important information from a lesson to take effective notes and discussed many of the strategies mentioned in this chapter. I always stress to my students to use complete sentences on all assignments, so when I told them they did not have to do this while taking
notes, they were pleasantly surprised. I encouraged them to sketch pictures, use abbreviations and symbols to make their notes personal to them. We also looked for features in the lessons that signal importance such as bolded fonts, signal words, headings, and graphic organizers.
Since the objectives are clearly stated at the beginning of each lesson and this is what quizzes and my oral exams are based on, I am trying to teach my students that the objectives are the study guide for the assessment and they just need to know how to extract the important information to be successful. Harvey and Goudvis mention, ‘teaching with the end in mind,” but I find myself training my virtual students to teach themselves with the end in mind.
References
Harvey, S., & Goudvis, A. (2007). Strategies that work: Teaching comprehension
to enhance understanding. Portland, Me: Stenhouse Publishers.
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