Specific Types of Knowledge Part II

Organizing Ideas pg. 315Skills and Processes pg. 324

COMMON CORE CONNECTION

9.L.3: Make effective choices for meaning or style and to comprehend more fully when reading or listening

9.L.4: Choosing flexibly from a range of strategies.

9.SL.3: Evaluate a speaker’s pint of view; reasoning and use of evidence and rhetoric, identifying fallacious reasoning or exaggerated or distorted evidence.

10.W.1.3 Write arguments to support claims.10.W.2 Write exploratory texts to examine

and convey complex ideas

“Big Ideas”This strategy helps students to put into perspective ideas and concepts to make

generalizations for writing listening and speaking.

“ Although vocabulary terms

and details are important, generalizations help students develop a broad knowledge base because they transfer more readily to different situations.”

Key Terms

Generalizations:Statements for which we can provide several examples, supporting facts, past experiences, logic and reason because they apply to many different situations. They can be valid or invalid.

Principles: Specific types of generalizations that articulate rules or relationships that apply to a number of specific situations.

“It is easy to confuse somegeneralizations with some facts.”

“Facts identify characteristics of

specific persons, places, living and nonliving things and events”

“Generalizations identify characteristics

about classes or

categories of persons, places …”

Online Generalization Game

http://www.quia.com/cm/112506.html?AP_rand=549438702

Generalization Posterhttp://images.reallygoodstuff.com/images/set_a/en_us/local/pdfs/159538.pdfTeacher Tool for Understandinghttp://www.phschool.com/curriculum_support/ss_skills_tutor/content/pop.html

Questions that help students explore generalizations• What words are phrases signal

generalization (all, none, most, many, always, often, everyone, never, sometimes, some)?

• Which sentences in this selection are like “big umbrella” statements?

• How many examples did the author provide for the statement?

• What research was included to support the statements?

• Based on the information what generalizations can be made?

• What category of people, places, living and non living things does this generalization convey?

Recommendations for Classroom Practice

• Clear up misconceptions about generalizations/principles.

Misapplication of Generalizations

• Stereotyping is generalizing that is created by inadequate or skewed information. This is an invalid generalization that entrenches inequities within the minds of both the creator and the receiver of the stereotype.

• Simple summaries that are sometimes labeled as generalizations. Generalizing goes beyond mere statements (or lists) of facts. It includes developing concepts, comparing, contrasting, and inferring to help create a general statement about the relationships among important concepts.

*Generalizations are only as reliable as the data from which they are constructed. It is very important that we provide the next generation with the tools needed to construct their own world view, or critique those views presented to them. This is a cornerstone of critical thinking.

Classroom Practice

Example:During a recession

unemployment rises and production declines.

Scenario – The entire month of July the unemployment rates dropped…so the students thinks “Oh no- recession!”

Solution: (explore alternative outcomes)

Skills and Processespg. 324

“Skills and Processes are general rules governing an overall flow of execution, rather than a set of steps that must be performed in a specific order.”

Recommendations for Classroom Practice

• Facilitate a discovery approach to skills and processes.

• Build models• Shape skills and processes• Internalize skills and processes

Facilitate the Discovery Approach to Skills and Processes

“A common misconception in education is that allowing students to discover how to perform a skill or process is always better than directly.”

Facilitate the Discovery Approach to Skills and Processes

• Balance drill-and practice with discovery

Rule of Thumb:“The more variation there is in

the steps that students can use to execute a skill or process effectively, the more amenable the skill or process is to discovery learning.”

Build Models

“When we learn a new procedure, we need someplace to start – we need a model.”

“Without an initial model, learning skill or processes can be chaotic and time consuming because it’s trial and error.”

Suggestions to Build Models

• Think Aloud – verbalize as you demonstrate the skills or processes.

• Written set of steps

Shape Skills and Processes

“You will probably figure out what works and what doesn’t work and in response, you modify your approach, adding some things and dropping others.”

“As the research recommends, student should not practice the subcomponents of a complex process in isolation. It is much more useful to practice them in the context of the entire process.”

Shaping Strategies• Help students clearly identify the

specific subcomponent they are going to practice and set criteria for evaluating their own progress

• Give students a variety of assignments over time that require them to use the targeted skill or strategy within the context of process

• Encourage students to self-assess, but also give them feedback on the targeted skill or strategy. To help students focus, avoid giving feedback on other aspects of the process.

“The importance of shaping a new skill or process cannot be exaggerated. Inattention to this aspect of learning skills and processes is the primary reason for students’ failure to effectively use them.”

Internalize Skills and Processes

“…To learn to use without much conscious thought.”

Automaticity

1. Set aside a specific time during instruction for explicit

practice of skills and processes.