Disciplinary Literacy Learning Environments

1. Suggestions for Developing Academic Language in the Disciplines

1.1. Create and maintain a respectful, motivating, challenging, and supportive classroom environment.

1.2. Plan authentic student engagement in academic discourse and explain your expectations about it.

1.3. Create a common language that reflects and uses disciplinary habits of mind that promote deep learning.

1.4. Classroom talk is about issues and learning, not about individuals.

1.5. Rotate between individual responses, small-group collaborations, and whole class discussions.

1.6. Use essential questions, and ask high-level questions that promote connections among ideas/topics, etc.

1.7. Seek student feedback.

1.8. Monitor academic conversations and student behavior.

2. Disciplinary Literacy and Classroom Talk

2.1. CCSS wants students to have skills such as:

2.2. Reading: deep understanding of text, reason abstractly and quantitatively, metacognitive processes and behaviors, etc.

2.3. Speaking and Listening: initiate and participate in discussions, plan and deliver information clearly and precisely, generate and respond to questions to clarify, connect, expand, etc.

2.4. Vocabulary and Language: engage in the study of discipline-specific vocabulary, understand figurative language, etc.

3. Classroom Talk, Inquiry, and Collaboration

3.1. Collaboration is a problem-solving, a communication, and a critical thinking skill; it facilitates deeper learning.

3.2. We need to teach students how to develop discipline-specific effective communication skills.

4. Characteristics of Discipline-Specific Learning Environments

4.1. Every learning environment should be a conversational, thinking, hands-on, creative, relevant, and inviting space for students to learn.

4.2. Color, visible inspiration, technology, materials and tools for "tinkering," opportunities for students to make their thinking visible, along with high expectations, support, and respect, are all helpful environmental elements.

5. Social Studies

5.1. Social studies teachers engage students in the study of history, geography, economics, government, and civics.

5.2. Students need to learn in learning environments that help them to develop their critical thinking skills, master content, challenge ideas and assumptions, ask, discuss, and answer higher-order questions.

5.3. They also need to learn how to: draw conclusions, look at things from multiple perspectives, take a critical stance towards arguments, etc.

5.4. Students will benefit from: primary sources, visiting different learning sites, using technology, etc.

6. Social Studies--History Discourse

6.1. See Figure 8.4 for samples of accountable talk moves in history classrooms.

6.2. Identifying and evaluation the author's claims/evidence used to support them

6.3. Facts and interpretations

6.4. Construct meaning

6.5. Use questioning, historical inquiry, sourcing, etc.

7. Barriers to Collaboration in Middle and High School

7.1. Many students do not know how to effectively collaborate with others.

7.2. Teachers fear students won't actually learn or focus, and some students do not like group work and neither do parents.

7.3. Ways to make effective collaborative groups:

7.4. Set clear expectations for student behavior

7.5. Model what is expected prior to placing students in groups

7.6. Require student accountability and monitor each group

7.7. Assess and evaluate students' group work

7.8. Ask students to evaluate their own and others' performances and reflect on the group learning process.

8. Motivation, Engagement, and Student Voice

8.1. Create tasks that have the following characteristics:

8.2. Rigorous and move at a brisk pace

8.3. Do not result in right or wrong answers

8.4. Student-centered and relevant to real-world applications

8.5. Chunk lecturing

8.6. Challenging and attainable

8.7. Consider different learning styles

8.8. Incorporate media and technology

8.9. Promote learning beyond the classroom walls

8.10. Are authentic and include student input/choice, etc.

8.11. Personalization and choice in curricular and instructional tasks play an important role in student learning.

8.12. Make classrooms a positive, productive learning environment that's inclusive.

8.13. Students will flourish when teachers hold high expectations for them, convince them they can succeed, make the criteria for success clear, model the skills they will need to be successful, and provide clear, immediate, and supportive feedback.

8.14. Give students a voice in how activities are carried out, in constructing meaning, and in what they think about the learning process.

9. Celebrating Student Success

9.1. When teachers offer verbal, specific praise to students for effort instead of intelligence, students are more likely to be in a mindset of growth.

9.2. Honor rolls and recognition for students who have the biggest increase in their grade point average have been used in high schools as an effective way of recognizing academic achievement.

9.3. In secondary grades, use a variety of ways (certificate, parent notification, applause, etc.) to recognize and celebrate the final status and progress of the entire class.

9.4. Also recognize students for their progressive knowledge gain and skill relative to the learning goal.

10. What is Academic Language?

10.1. Academic language is the essence of thinking and learning.

10.2. Academic language, or academic discourse is essential for learning and success in school, and it has always been part of classroom life.

10.3. Academic discourse means communication of thought through words, talk, conversation, and/or a formal discussion on a topic.

10.4. For students to master the discourse of each discipline they not only need to develop and understand the vocabulary of the discipline, but they also need to interpret what they read, express themselves orally and in writing, explain and support their answers clearly and with evidence, exchange ideas during whole-group instruction, collaborate with others, and have many opportunities to learn and use academic language.

11. Academic Language in the Content Areas

11.1. Teachers can alter the discourse patterns in their classrooms by creating authentic opportunities for students to develop and practice language.

11.2. Vocabulary and comprehension in the content area is connected to concepts.

11.3. During guided instruction teachers can provide additional examples, and provide specific feedback that will hep students learn how to have academic conversations with peers in the classroom.

11.4. Academic discourse is an essential process for learning and doing in each discipline.

12. Learning through Talk and Argument

12.1. Disciplinary argumentation involves sharing, processing, and learning about ideas and is governed by shared norms of participation.

12.2. Classroom talk can take place in various ways: partner talk, in small-group and whole group discussions, and also in presentations.

12.3. Students need to learn, and practice, disciplinary communication norms and skills in the classroom.

12.4. Teachers should promote student-mediated discussion in small groups, and practice teacher-mediated discussion in whole groups.

13. Career and Technical Subjects (CTE)

13.1. CTE courses provide learning spaces where career, technology, and culture meet.

13.2. Courses: accounting, family and consumer sciences, health occupations, automotive services, culinary arts, etc.

13.3. Teachers need to model and encourage students to synthesize knowledge from different disciplines to solve problems, have high expectations for all students, use innovative and creative techniques to teach content, and use school-and problem-based learning.

14. Accountable Talk in the Disciplines

14.1. Students must be attentive, listen carefully, paraphrase and summarize as needed, ask clarifying questions, add to everyone's understanding of the topic, etc.

14.2. Being accountable to knowledge means that students will verify statements and results, explain clearly how they arrived at their conclusions, provide evidence to support their answers, and highlight relationships between prior knowledge, topics, and ideas.

14.3. Accountable talk can help develop students' content knowledge, as well as academic language and deliberate discourse, reasoning, and speaking and listening skills.

14.4. Create a learning environment where all students are expected, and entitled to contribute and everyone's contributions matter.

15. Collaborative Inquiry

15.1. It deepens students' understanding of concepts, socializes intelligence, promotes evidence-based explanations, and engages students in rich forms of scientific evidence.

15.2. Collaborative learning provides students with opportunities to express their thinking orally, to listen to others, and consider, question, and evaluate one's own thinking and that of others.

15.3. The more experiences students have in conflict resolution, and the more teachers monitor the in-class collaboration, the easier collaboration will come.

16. Cooperative Learning

16.1. It's a specific type of student-student collaboration that refers to an instructional technique that uses small, heterogeneous groups of students working together toward achieving a common goal.

16.2. Positive interdependence means students "sink or swim together." It can be achieved through common goals, division of responsibilities, etc.

16.3. See Figures 8.4 and 8.5 for two cooperative strategies. They are Think-Pare-Share and Jigsaw.

16.4. Differentiate tasks by complexity and quantity, i.e. divide them up in the group to reach a goal/do an assignment

16.5. Use heterogeneous cooperative groups to enhance individualized work, i.e. key word assessment in biology

16.6. Peer tutoring to challenge both tutors and tutees, i.e. quadratic function writing in math

16.7. Other approaches: socratic circles/seminars, research projects, enrichment activities, etc.

17. The Classroom Environment and How Students Learn

17.1. According to Australian linguist Brian Cambourne, there are seven conditions of learning: immersion, demonstration, expectations, responsibility, practice, response, application, and engagement.

17.2. These conditions of learning can happen during the same lesson and promote barrier-free learning regardless of the subject matter or student skills.

17.3. Cambourne suggested that engagement is multi-layered and involves holding a purpose, seeking understanding, self-efficacy, and taking responsibility for learning.

17.4. To create a discipline-specific learning environment, a classroom also needs to be a place where learning is encouraged and supported.

17.5. Lauren Resnick, a cognitive psychologist, viewed intelligence as a result of effort instead of aptitude. She focused on principles of effort-based learning and socialize intelligence learning principles.

17.6. They are: institute effort-based learning, set clear expectations for learning, recognize achievement, institute fair and credible evaluations, join knowledge and thinking with learning, require discipline-based talk with learning, promote and model discipline-based thinking and learning, and view learning as an apprenticeship.