During
D4L Barbara Place's terrific presentation to OUSD teachers and administrators on
March 13th at Preservation Park, we discussed the way in which D4L builds vocabulary through rich examples and experiences rather than relying on definitions. D4L moves from an engaging and supportive context of examples supported by visuals, and then
asks the class to gradually construct a definition based on the examples.
Teaching
new concepts by beginning with a definition is not a research-supported
practice. Rather, one should begin with examples, and the understanding of the
concept increases the more examples and non-example students are exposed to.
Barbara Place agreed that this "begin with examples" approach (which you
may remember if you have been through the institute Results: Academic
Language and Literacy Instruction, or RALLI) is the preference of
the D4L program. Look at how D4L sets up a rich context with multiple examples
and THEN asks students to begin constructing the definition of PRECARIOUS:
Big view:
Zoom in:
Notice
how students work with examples and then are asked to begin to construct the
definition as the teacher facilitates. Also notice that the definition is not
particularly precise because students will be engaged in the process refining
the definition as the program provides more rich examples and context in successive lessons.
One of the strong supports for these teacher-led class discussions is the sample sentence to support the word in a meaningful way. Notice that it is
NOT easy to provide such rich examples and sample sentences to support a
definition "on the fly," a point Barbara made in her presentation. It takes careful planning, and one
of the strong points of this program is that the supporting sentence is done for you.
Consider how closely this approach to learning vocabulary mirrors and makes
explicit the natural process we tend to go through as we learn vocabulary in
conversation around a learning activity we enjoy. For example, we might be watching a basketball
game and learning from the announcer what a certain move is called after first
watching it several times, or getting help from a friend to fix a flat tire on
a bike and gradually learning what a "tire iron" or "tire bead" is.
Another practice that is not in the program and should be avoided is asking students to say what they think a word means. It takes a lot of time, and if a student tunes out when they finally hear the correct definition, they may walk away remembering a wrong one.
CONSTRUCTIVIST VOCABULARY INSTRUCTION AND THE "CONTEXT PARADOX"
Constructivist learning allows students to reach a place of
new knowledge through a process of inquiry that is guided by the teacher. This
discovery stands in contrast to (but not in opposition to) the direct
instruction model. You might say, as I have heard Phil Tucher, OUSD Manager of
Mathematics, say:
We often teach students how to guess vocabulary words from context which is an example of students constructing the meaning of a word themselves. The "context paradox" is that this technique does not actually work very often but that in the end it is still very powerful. If you have been through the institute called Results: Academic Language and Literacy Instruction (RALLI), you may remember that research suggests that using context to guess word meaning works about 5% of the time for a single first exposure to a word. So, guessing words from context seems like a weak strategy for vocabulary learning, but if you read 1,000,000 words in a year, and 4% of the words are unknown, that makes 40,000 you might guess at. If you get 5% of these words on the first try, you have learned 2000 words from reading in a year. In addition, there are other words that you might learn after second or third exposures since they are part of an author's preferred vocabulary.
- Direct Instruction follows a gradual release model summarized best as "I [the teacher] do, we [the class] do, you [the individual student] do."
- Constructivist learning follows a flow of "you do, we do, I do" with the big idea of the learning emerging at the end of the lesson.
We often teach students how to guess vocabulary words from context which is an example of students constructing the meaning of a word themselves. The "context paradox" is that this technique does not actually work very often but that in the end it is still very powerful. If you have been through the institute called Results: Academic Language and Literacy Instruction (RALLI), you may remember that research suggests that using context to guess word meaning works about 5% of the time for a single first exposure to a word. So, guessing words from context seems like a weak strategy for vocabulary learning, but if you read 1,000,000 words in a year, and 4% of the words are unknown, that makes 40,000 you might guess at. If you get 5% of these words on the first try, you have learned 2000 words from reading in a year. In addition, there are other words that you might learn after second or third exposures since they are part of an author's preferred vocabulary.
D4L sets
up students for exploring the meaning of the word in a constructivist sort of
way in an oral context, giving them some examples, and lettin them struggle towards the definition with
teacher support. But we could also say that D4L mimics what students will be doing in their independent reading as they guess words from context.
What do you think? How have these D4L definition conversations worked for you?
