Читать книгу Student Learning Communities - Нэнси Фрей - Страница 18

Although clarifying purpose and modeling tasks help students to start assuming responsibility for their learning, they need guided instruction to be successful. During guided instructional events, teachers elicit student talk as a way to figure out what students know and what they still need to know. This is an opportunity for teachers to use questions, prompts, and cues to help students complete tasks.

The particulars of guided instruction should always be informed by the assessment information teachers glean from these interactions: what do students understand, not understand, or partially understand? Although guided instruction is teacher-led, this does not mean that students are not talking. They use talk to ask questions—of the teacher, of peers, and of themselves. They use language to clarify understanding, provide feedback to a partner, and reflect on their learning. This phase is a priority in a hybrid or distance learning environment, as guided instruction is best accomplished in live learning (face-to-face or synchronous). For schools utilizing a weekly calendar of some face-to-face sessions coupled with remote learning, guided instruction remains a premier pedagogical tool for forwarding learning.

Here is an example. In her discussion with a group of students struggling with the concept of photosynthesis, high school science teacher Maria Grant used a series of questions and prompts to increase understanding.

Ms. Grant: Some of you thought that plants ate soil to grow. This is a very common misconception that we should talk about further. Do you remember the video we saw about photosynthesis? What role did soil play?

Destini: Well, it wasn't about the dirt. It was about the sun and carbon dioxide.

Andrew: And how the plants make oxygen for humans.

Ms. Grant: Plants make oxygen for humans?

Andrew: Yeah. Well, I guess that they'd make oxygen even if there weren't humans.

Michael: It's called a by-product. Plants don't make oxygen for humans. They just make oxygen.

Ms. Grant: And what is left, once they've made this oxygen?

Destini: Carbon. They take in carbon dioxide and then give off oxygen, so carbon is left.

Ms. Grant: And what do you know about carbon?

You can see here how guided instruction provides an opportunity to engage students in thinking without telling them what to think. It's also an opportunity to scaffold students' understanding before asking them to complete tasks independently.