Teaching Sequencing skills to older students

Strategies in the Classroom:

Organizers/Planner/Notebook: Get your student to use weekly and monthly planners. Allot five minutes of your class to enter information into the planner and to review due dates. Use color coding to high light what comes first, second, etc.

Graphic/Visual Organizers: Remember the lifecycle of the frog in eighth standard? Do you remember the whole text or the life-cycle diagram? That’s right—the diagram helped us remember the stages and we were able to elaborate on the significant points (gills vs lungs, etc). Time lines are excellent visual aids for historical dates while lists are great for steps in experiments.



Mnemonics & Acronyms: I had fun with this one:) I remember learning the colors of the rainbow as VIBGYOR while my friends in the US used ROY G BIV. My friends contributed a slew of these
Put Eggs On My Plate Please Henry--Cenozoic (Paleocene, Eocene, Oligocene, Miocene, Pliocene, Pleistocene, Holocene)
Never Eat Soggy Wheat—North East South West (mmm we learnt the directions as NEWS but I like this better as it follows the order on the compass)
My Very Educated Mother Just Served Us Nine Pizzas--the planets. There are several variations to this apparently and with Pluto gone there will be more I'm sure.
There's A RAT in separate—no way will they forget that spelling.
King Philip Came Over For Great Soup—Kingdom Phylum Class Order Family Genus Species (lots of variations on that one)

Key Words For Writing Projects: Who, What, Where, When, How, Why…answering these questions will help the students organize their writing assignments. You can make a booklet with the key words on index cards, especially when the student first begins to use the strategy. After each question, students can flip the page to the next. With practice, they can remember the words themselves.

Understanding Implicit Information: Students with sequencing difficulties misread or misunderstand directions. The complexity of directions increases in older classes and information is implicit rather than explicit. It could be a detailed history lesson, a word problem in geometry or a tricky test taking direction.

Teach students to identify the main expectation—“What do you have to do?”

Highlight the main point(s) of the Para/problem or direction.

If there is more than one step, make sure they identify what needs to be done first, second, etc.
For those who need memory support, write these steps on post it notes or index cards or just on a piece of paper. Student can check each step after it is completed.


Track Changes: One of my favorites (my organizational skills are in the medium range—always room for improvement).

Track changes in software programs is a great visual aid while teaching students to edit their written work. Students can compare the original order of their ideas and the edited sequence.

Yes, this means we should allow our students to type or email their assignments. Teachers, you won’t have to struggle to read poor handwriting.

Prepare for the upcoming lesson: Ever wonder how those top scorers seem to know the answers to most of the questions in class? Yes, they read the lessons beforehand. Not a bad strategy, especially for those who need the extra support.

At the end of the class, let your students know your plans for the next time you meet. Ask them to look up the topic and come with some ideas…from the text book, internet or any other source. Being prepared increases their confidence and gives them a framework for understanding the new information.

Ms. S

October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month

Quite a few of us know about breast cancer first hand or know someone who has/had breast cancer. My mother in law was diagnosed with breast cancer in her early forties and lived with it for nearly twenty three years. I knew her the last two years of her life. What I do remember is that she never let her illness define her life. Two weeks before she died, she was making plans for the new year. She was good at laughing at her illness too. She said her family was very good at keeping things in perspective.

One evening I overheard my husband making fun of her…

“Mom, I already have a place set aside in heaven.”

“Why is that?”

“Tell me, which twenty-something year old goes to Europe with his mother? I did! I’ve a place reserved for me in heaven.”

She burst out laughing and recalled the details of their trip.

What does this have to do with the topic of my blog, do you wonder? It is about raising awareness, and reaching out to someone who has just been diagnosed or is fighting for their life. Hopefully everyone knows that October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month. Do make monetary contributions if you can. If that is beyond your means, no worries. There are several ways to contribute.

www.indusladies.com has a breast cancer awareness campaign-you can take the quiz or assist with other programs they offer. The site has a self examination video along with a listing of activities in the major metropolitan areas.

If you are in Dubai or any of the Emirates, nominate a deserving woman for a free mammogram on the 22nd October at BuJuman mall.

Most of all, if someone you know has breast cancer be thoughtful in how you respond. If the person wants to talk about it, please listen. If she wants to discuss or do something else, that's fine-take her lead. All it takes is a little human contact. Just don't ignore or walk away.

Ms. S

Teaching Sequencing Skills to Older Students

Sequencing skills lead to academic excellence in two critical ways-understanding academic information and independent work habits.

One glance at high school books in any subject tells you that information is presented in large pieces of text. To understand this information, students must refer to the context-what comes before/after, what happens first, next, and last. If there is no logical sequence to the information it is difficult to connect, understand and remember the ideas/knowledge.

Here is a piece of text on classification of animals (taken from www.Indianchild.com). Can you make sense of this?

The Classification of Animals
All told, around 800,000 species have been identified in the Animal Kingdom -- most of them in the Arthropod phylum.

Yet all of them belong to the kingdom of animals. The science of classifying organisms is called taxonomy. When you think of an animal, you usually think of something like a cat, a dog, a mouse, or a tiger. Animal Kingdom can be split up into main groups, vertebrates (with a backbone) and invertebrates (without a backbone).

In fact, some scientists believe that if we were to identify all species in the tropical rain forests the ranks of Arthropoda would swell to over 10 million species! Most people do not normally think of a clam, a jellyfish, or an earthworm as an animal. In order to study living things, scientists classify each organism according to its

Kingdom
Class
Family
Phylum
Genus
Order
Species

Actually this passage reads like this:

The Classification of Animals
Animal Kingdom can be split up into main groups, vertebrates (with a backbone) and invertebrates (without a backbone). When you think of an animal, you usually think of something like a cat, a dog, a mouse, or a tiger.

All told, around 800,000 species have been identified in the Animal Kingdom -- most of them in the Arthropod phylum.

In fact, some scientists believe that if we were to identify all species in the tropical rain forests the ranks of Arthropoda would swell to over 10 million species! Most people do not normally think of a clam, a jellyfish, or an earthworm as an animal.

Yet all of them belong to the kingdom of animals. The science of classifying organisms is called taxonomy.

In order to study living things, scientists classify each organism according to its

Kingdom
Phylum
Class
Order
Family
Genus
Species

In the first part, the sentences are out of sequence and the paragraphs don't make sense. After reading it you do get the idea that the sentences are out of sequence. But look at the order of classification- if your student didn’t realize that ‘phylum’ and order are out of sequence, he or she will learn the essential part of the lesson incorrectly.

In higher classes there is a greater emphasis on independent work habits. Of course some parents continue to stand behind their children to see what needs to be done in terms of homework, test prep, etc. I don’t know of any work environments which allow parents to monitor how their child completes the job. It’s a better idea for parents to spend their time teaching children how to be functionally independent!

Ms.S

to be continued...

Pregnancy and Mental Health

A few weeks ago I met the mother of a young man-his former tutor introduced me to her. She explained that her son had some difficulties in studying and wanted me to meet him informally as she didn't want him to feel self conscious.

When I met him and his younger brother warning signs flashed in my mind-extreme withdrawal, lack of eye contact and very poor turn taking skills in his conversation, inability to engage himself or function as a full member of his household (watched TV all day except for mealtimes), had no interests or hobby, couldn't sustain his attention on anything long enough, poor sleep patterns…He was in the living room only because his mom asked they talk to me as I was new to this country. Apparently I did elicit some curiosity because they wanted to meet this woman from “America.”

I asked the boys if they could help me practice my German while I exchanged my English language skills with them (my excuse to work with them). Our goal (the parents’ and mine) is to work on their self esteem and to seek professional help.

Why do I mention this? Because when I left after our first meeting I was filled with a profound sadness. The parents had arrived in this country as refugees and the oldest was born after they arrived here. I didn’t have to ask them of their travails during the pregnancy. The effects of escaping their war torn country, transplanting themselves into a starkly different place, language, culture and climate was clearly visible in their home.

For all that they were very well mannered young men, trying their best to engage with a stranger. The mom was advocating for her children the best she knew. She identified with me because I spoke her language and was hoping that I could help find services in the community around her. The dad’s eyes opened wide in surprise when I explained that his son wasn’t idle for the sake of being idle and that there maybe an organic reason for it. But he made an effort to understand and I see it as a journey for him too.

In this context this article makes so much sense to me. How many of us think about mental health in tangent with pregnancy? Besides all the mood fluctuations which can occur during pregnancy, the Indian woman has stress related to in laws, work, money, social restrictions…the list is endless. As I write I can think of one custom which drives me insane-where the man gets a full meal and the woman (yes, even the pregnant one) gets to eat the leftovers…aaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrrgh!

">http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/03/opinion/03kristof.html?src=me&ref=general

Ms.S