One of our
school wide initiatives at STEM this year was to increase student’s academic vocabulary,
(Common Core Anchor Standards #6: Acquire and use accurately a range of general academic and
domain-specific words and phrases sufficient for reading, writing, speaking,
and listening at the college and career readiness level; demonstrate independence
in gathering vocabulary knowledge when encountering an unknown term
important to comprehension or expression.)
One
instructional practice we have implemented in our K-8 classrooms was incorporating
interactive word walls in all content areas including unified arts, to increase tierhttp://learningcenter.nsta.org/files/ss1103_45.pdf 2 and tier 3
vocabulary. We have consciously made the shift from “traditional” word walls
where the word and definition was hung up with a neat and colorful picture to Interactive
words walls. Interactive word walls are “walls that teach” and are 100% student
created and directed. They allow
students to deepen their own understanding of new words by giving student’s opportunities
to apply and connect their new words in their everyday life to increase
conceptual understanding.
What makes
these word walls so effective is that they are interactive, meaning, the
creation of the word walls are embedded within the teacher’s instruction and
student learning. Students showcase their understanding of new vocabulary words
using multiple learning modalities (see attached pictures). Student’s use the interactive word walls in
many capacities such as station assignments, resources for investigations,
reviews for assessments, note-taking, writing etc.. Although this is a new
instructional practice, we have seen firsthand the power of teaching vocabulary
using interactive word walls. Our recent writing assessments have increased
significantly due to the student’s use of academic vocabulary in their writing.
Attached is
an article called Interactive Word
Walls: Transforming Content Vocabulary Instruction, by Julie Jackson. This
article has a plethora of instructional ideas, exemplars, rubrics and graphic organizers
to help guide your implementation of an interactive word wall in your classroom.
I also included several exemplar
interactive word walls from our Annie Fisher STEM classrooms for you to see!! -Wilson
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