Unit 3 Assignment 3B

11/15/2014

Comprehending the Content

Lorand Irinyi

National University

Class: TED634-60386-1411

Instructor: Deborah Spellman Smith

Abstract
McKenna and Robinson (2014) state that, successfully guiding students as they read
assigned material requires planning (p.148). This ought to be self-evident to anyone who ever
attempted to teach any content requiring reading to students. Although students might be able to
read in general, teachers and students have better success at teaching/learning when teachers
apply true and tested methods. Although several options are available, and they allow teachers
to create a lesson that accounts for the nature of the material, student background knowledge,
and instructional objectives (McKenna and Robinson, 2014, p.148), not all options are equally
applicable to all students and every content material. I have chosen Reciprocal Teaching as the
preferred Lesson Format for facilitating students reading comprehension. Reciprocal Teaching,
as a major lesson format is relatively new, considering the long history of teaching, and is an
instructional technique in which students work in small groups and apply comprehension
strategies together to new reading selection. These strategies include predicting, clarifying,
questioning, and summarizing (McKenna and Robinson, 2014, p. 153), and these four
strategies are used by proficient readers whenever they encounter new content material
(McKenna and Robinson, 2014, p. 153). Scientific method comprises these strategies, so the
choice of this lesson format was natural.

The content material I will be teaching is Conservation of Energy. This is a larger unit
covering new concepts that connect previously presented content material and is covered by the
Science Content Standards for California Public Schools Grades Nine through Twelve, Physics,
Conservation of Energy and Momentum:

2. The laws of conservation of energy and momentum provide a way to predict and describe the
movement of objects. As a basis for understanding this concept:
a. Students know how to calculate kinetic energy using the formula E=(1/2)mv2 .
b. Students know how to calculate changes in gravitational potential energy near Earth by
using the formula (change in potential energy)=mgh (h is the change in elevation).
c. Students know how to solve problems involving conservation of energy in simple
systems, such as falling objects.
h. Student know how to solve problems involving conservation of energy in simple systems
with various sources of potential energy, such as capacitors and springs.
Final Learning Objectives/Outcomes will be:
At the end of the unit Student Will Be Able To:
1. Explain the concept and significance of Conservation of Energy in writing and/or orally
in one minute without prompt from teacher.
2. Solve problems involving conservation of energy in simple systems in two minutes with
80% accuracy.
3. In small groups design and document experiments demonstrating the concept of
Conservation of Energy in twenty minutes scoring no less than 4 out of 5 on student
created rubric.

4. Identify authentic applications of Conservation of Energy in real life context and

recognize the applications importance to their lives.

Reciprocal Teaching is a lesson format that requires student preparation by the teacher in
order to be successfully applied to content presentation and transmission. As McKenna and
Robinson (2014) warn it is important to take nothing for granted in getting students ready for
reciprocal teaching experiences (p. 154). Three major step were suggested to help make this
lesson format a successful one:
5. Instruction. This is where, I, the teacher, must explain and define to students very
carefully each of the strategies. I must assess carefully for understanding by students.
6. Modeling. Since major elements of this content unit are familiar to students, this is where
I, the teacher must illustrate how the strategies are applied (McKenna and Robinson,
2014, p. 154). This is not new to students because even before reaching this content unit
I encouraged them, as integral part of my teaching style/method, to contribute to my
examples by generating questions and predictions of their own and contributing to
summaries (McKenna and Robinson, 2014, p. 155).
7. Guided practice. This is also not new to students because I have been doing exactly what
McKenna and Robinson (2014) advise, namely, that the students are called upon in the
course of the dialogue to play an increasing role in making predictions, seeking
clarifications, asking questions, and creating summaries (p. 155). This is how I present
and teach physics to begin with.

Students are not unfamiliar with these strategies to begin with, because I use read-aloud in class
regularly and I engage them as a matter of course, and they are asked to predict and ask
questions. McKenna and Robinson (2014) state that, once students have had some experience in
applying the four strategies in guided settings, it is time to conduct a reciprocal teaching lesson
from start to finish (p.155).
I was going to do exactly what McKenna and Robinson (2014) advised, namely that students
should be assigned to groups of four to six without regard to reading proficiency (p. 156),
except, I was going to put them only in groups of no more than four, because of the assigned
roles. There is going to be one student for each role of summarizer, questioner, clarifier, and
predictor. This brings me to the initial role assignments to accommodate students in the top 1/3rd,
the middle 1/3rd and the bottom1/3rd of the class. The bottom 1/3rd student in each group would be
assigned, as first role, the role of the summarizer, since that role calls for only the summarizing
key ideas up to this point in the reading. The middle 1/3rd student would be assigned the role
questioner, a role a little more demanding. The top 1/3rd student would be assigned the role of the
predictor, the most challenging role. The role of the clarifier could be assigned to either a middle
1/3rd student or a top 1/3rd student, depending whether there would be two of either in the group.
The first rotation of roles would be such that, each student would move one role up in difficulty.
Summarizer to questioner, questioner to clarifier, clarifier to predictor, and the predictor would
get the role of the summarizer. The direction of the rotation would remain for the whole
class/unit, but the initial role assignment would be as I described, starting with the bottom 1/3rd
student in the role of the summarizer. This is important, so that the bottom 1/3rd student does not
get overwhelmed or frustrated at the outset. For the ELs I would distribute vocabulary handouts
with simplified definitions without losing content concepts. I would also annunciate the new

content vocabulary clearly during the read-aloud every time it came up in context and would
define it the first time it came up and would ask questions to assess whether the definition was
understood. Using the new academic language in context in the assigned roles would facilitate
ELs mastering vocabulary both in written and oral form. McKenna and Robinson (2014) state
that students with behavioral problems may need to be separated from one another or even
given different assignments during reciprocal teaching time (p. 156). I would take this into
careful consideration when assigning roles to students with special needs. Students with other
special needs would get roles assigned that would be within their capabilities to fulfill. Students
with visual, hearing, speech or other physical special needs would be considered on a case-bycase basis.
Once reciprocal teaching would commence, I would circulate among groups and listen for
discussions, questions to assess the progress of the lesson. I would provide answers,
clarifications as needed initially and then I would give guided questions as answers as the
reciprocal teaching would progress. I would allow groups to reach their zone of proximal
development before providing assistance to encourage deeper investigation of content material
among group members to achieve higher order thinking. I would ask students questions needing
content material understanding for answering to assess group progress. I would ask groups to
solve problems needing cooperation and multi-step solutions to assess for both group work and
skill acquisition. I would assess continuously for learning objectives, as progress of content
acquisition would warrant.
I am of the opinion that, reciprocal teaching lesson format would be conducive to teaching
the cited content material, namely Conservation of Energy.

References
McKenna, Michael C., Robinson, Richard D. (2014). Teaching through Text, Reading and
Writing in the Content Areas. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson
Science Content Standards for California Public Schools Kindergarten through Grade Twelve.
Retrieved from http://www.cde.ca.gov/be/st/ss/documents/sciencestnd.pdf

California Common Core State Standards English Language Arts and Literacy in History/Social
Studies, Science, and Technical Subjects. Retrieved from
http://www.cde.ca.gov/be/st/ss/documents/finalelaccssstandards.pdf