Introduction
Academic vocabulary is a subject that has intrigued me for a long time. In the fall when I was at the middle school, there were deficiencies among the students in language areas that were overcome in many different ways. At this high school, I see some of the same issues arise. My initial thought was to take what I had learned from working at the middle school and simply apply it at the high school level. While not a bad starting place, this was not the best approach to take. In my early lesson planning it became clear to me that I could not rely completely on the tools I had picked up in the middle school. I needed to expound upon them and bring them forward to the high school level. I also needed to take into consideration my audience, the group of kids I am working with. I cannot just assume what worked for one group will work for another. To quote Heather Lattimer, "treating the students equally is not treating them the same." I need to consider the needs of the group in front of me and make my lessons respond to those needs.
My high school is an alternative, or continuation, school. This means that the students here, for whatever reason, were not able to succeed in a normal setting. Per my observations while they work, my students are capable of performing the operations but do not necessarily understand the questions as phrased on worksheets, tests, and in the textbook. I am currently working with a second semester Geometry class of about twenty kids. They can describe how to solve a problem so that we understand what they are telling us, but don't always use the proper academic terms that we would like them to use. I want to help them learn better techniques for developing and deciphering the academic vocabulary in future classes as well as my class. My basic premise is that front loading the academic vocabulary when introducing a new section and directly addressing the vocabulary along with the algorithmic skills is better than the traditional model of teaching the vocabulary after conceptual knowledge and algorithmic knowledge.
When I did my needs based assessments, I noticed that a lot of students were asking me very similar questions along the lines of "what is this asking me to do?" when given tests or worksheets with word problems or sets of problems with a common prompt, such as "solve the expression." This, along with their performance, indicated an area of need around academic vocabulary. I examined several prominent theorists including Marzano and Eisencraft to figure out what direction to go in. I settled on testing Marzano vs Eisencraft in phase 1. Marzano championed several systems of his own invention that were procedural and vocabulary forward. Eisencraft, on the other hand, is a major proponent of Activity before Concept, Concept before Vocabulary. I plan on comparing the two theorists and synthesizing a series of lessons. My intention is to, at least in phase 1, compare these two theorists' ideas and see which helps my students maximize their achievement.
These kids came to this school from myriad other schools and for myriad reasons. One common theme is academic performance. Many of them come to this school due to learning deficits or differences. Per IEP documents I have read at the school, there are many language processing difficulties. The population of this school is highly Latino and many reclassified English proficient speakers. The language struggles stem from English being their nonnative language. In addition, because of that barrier, performance in traditional settings has been impacted. These students have been pushed down and marginalized by the system; because they did not fhe tidy mold of the typical student. These students exhibit learned stereotypes about, among other things, their socioeconomic status which create self fulfilling prophecy. Some of these stereotypes manifest in their tough exteriors; they try to portray The other major stereotype I encounter is that they don't want to think; they don't believe they are smart enough to do the harder problems and they don't want to put in the effort.
My needs based assessment was mostly observational as my time to do it was rather short. In conducting my needs based assessment, I observed student-student interactions and student-teacher interactions. I observed that when the students would come up against vocabulary they did not remember or wording the did not immediately understand, they asked for help. Once prompted, they could solve the problems. I also noticed that in talking to each other, vocabulary came up rarely, and when it did, it wasn't always used correctly. In talking to my cooperating teacher about these observations and about academic vocabulary in general, she said that academic vocabulary is one area of weakness for her and that it would be good to figure out better ways to teach it to the students.
My primary research question is: What role does academic vocabulary play in students' ability to interpret test questions and word problems?
My subquestion is: 1) Is there a disconnect between academic vocabulary understanding and algorithmic knowledge?
My high school is an alternative, or continuation, school. This means that the students here, for whatever reason, were not able to succeed in a normal setting. Per my observations while they work, my students are capable of performing the operations but do not necessarily understand the questions as phrased on worksheets, tests, and in the textbook. I am currently working with a second semester Geometry class of about twenty kids. They can describe how to solve a problem so that we understand what they are telling us, but don't always use the proper academic terms that we would like them to use. I want to help them learn better techniques for developing and deciphering the academic vocabulary in future classes as well as my class. My basic premise is that front loading the academic vocabulary when introducing a new section and directly addressing the vocabulary along with the algorithmic skills is better than the traditional model of teaching the vocabulary after conceptual knowledge and algorithmic knowledge.
When I did my needs based assessments, I noticed that a lot of students were asking me very similar questions along the lines of "what is this asking me to do?" when given tests or worksheets with word problems or sets of problems with a common prompt, such as "solve the expression." This, along with their performance, indicated an area of need around academic vocabulary. I examined several prominent theorists including Marzano and Eisencraft to figure out what direction to go in. I settled on testing Marzano vs Eisencraft in phase 1. Marzano championed several systems of his own invention that were procedural and vocabulary forward. Eisencraft, on the other hand, is a major proponent of Activity before Concept, Concept before Vocabulary. I plan on comparing the two theorists and synthesizing a series of lessons. My intention is to, at least in phase 1, compare these two theorists' ideas and see which helps my students maximize their achievement.
These kids came to this school from myriad other schools and for myriad reasons. One common theme is academic performance. Many of them come to this school due to learning deficits or differences. Per IEP documents I have read at the school, there are many language processing difficulties. The population of this school is highly Latino and many reclassified English proficient speakers. The language struggles stem from English being their nonnative language. In addition, because of that barrier, performance in traditional settings has been impacted. These students have been pushed down and marginalized by the system; because they did not fhe tidy mold of the typical student. These students exhibit learned stereotypes about, among other things, their socioeconomic status which create self fulfilling prophecy. Some of these stereotypes manifest in their tough exteriors; they try to portray The other major stereotype I encounter is that they don't want to think; they don't believe they are smart enough to do the harder problems and they don't want to put in the effort.
My needs based assessment was mostly observational as my time to do it was rather short. In conducting my needs based assessment, I observed student-student interactions and student-teacher interactions. I observed that when the students would come up against vocabulary they did not remember or wording the did not immediately understand, they asked for help. Once prompted, they could solve the problems. I also noticed that in talking to each other, vocabulary came up rarely, and when it did, it wasn't always used correctly. In talking to my cooperating teacher about these observations and about academic vocabulary in general, she said that academic vocabulary is one area of weakness for her and that it would be good to figure out better ways to teach it to the students.
My primary research question is: What role does academic vocabulary play in students' ability to interpret test questions and word problems?
My subquestion is: 1) Is there a disconnect between academic vocabulary understanding and algorithmic knowledge?