Aug

Brainstorming Vocabulary Strategies

Filed Under (Uncategorized, lesson plan) by Mr. Schrage on 10-08-2009

For the past few years this is how I have approached vocabulary with my students: At the beginning of each new unit I would give them a list of 20-25 vocabulary terms and definitions. I would briefly go over them verbally in the classroom and then give my students the rest of the period to to copy the term and definition verbatim onto 3X5 cards. They would then have a manipulative to use to help them study for the upcoming quiz. I call these days transition days because we are getting ready for the next unit.

Although there are some benefits to doing vocabulary this way I think there must be a better way. After all just because my students are copying the vocabulary down onto 3×5 cards does not mean they are really thinking about the meaning. And I also wonder how much my students use the cards as a study tool to help them learn the new material.

Recently I have been thinking about how to best teach new vocabulary for each of my social studies units as well as to give them opportunities to practice the new terms. I have also wanted to eliminate the need for 3×5 cards. I am really hoping to have a class set of Netbooks to help elliminate this need.

Some Ideas:

Note: I use a program created by the I.D.E.A.S. team of our local BOCES called Toolbox Pro (TBP). It is a course management system that allows teachers to deliver learning activities and assessments, create and manage wikis, blogs, websites and podcasts and a plethora of other things.

1. In TBP: Give the kids a timed matching quiz based on the vocabulary terms. Either make this a homework assignment or an in class activity that they must get 80% or better 3 times in a row. I make it a timed activity because it makes it difficult for the kids to look up the answers and makes it difficult to use process of elimination.

2. In TBP: Create an audio response activity. Have my students read back the term and definition word for word and include an explanation in their own words.

3. In TBP (or in VoiceThread) Let students listen to an audio recording of the terms and definitions being read. As they listen they type the term and definition. I usually read each term and definition 3 times to give students enough of an opportunity to type all the information without having to rewind the audio. In the example above I had a student do the narration.

4. In TBP create a video response activity. Again give the kids the term and definition and let them figure out a creative way to act out or teach the content – possibly have them do this in pairs. I find middle school students to be very creative and can only imagine what some of them might come up with !

5. Wordle: Have students put the definition into a Wordle and then challenge others to guess the term. Thanks to @jenwagner for this idea. This is something I hope to try with my students this year – I envision this to be a great activity to do in class with a set of laptops or netbooks. Assign each student a different term and then give them 10 minutes to create their Wordle. After the students were done they could then take turns sharing their Wordle with the rest of the class.

6. Word Walls – Have students put up the terms on a bulletin board. Let students refer to this list and encourage them to use the terms during in class writing activities. Thanks to my wife @Kelschrage for sharing this one with me. She took a workshop on this and learned that word walls are not just for elementary kids.

7. In TBP: Have students create multiple choice questions and upload them to TBP for other students to take (there is a feature that allows students to upload questions from a Microsoft Excel template). This idea came from something I tried with my students last year. I challenged them as a team to develop a 1000 question multiple choice test based on the review for our final exam. This was an experiment that worked really well. The students were excited and loved the challenge – I liked it because they were studying without feeling like they were studying.

8. Have students complete a vocabulary word map box for each term. I have done this in the past and it takes a lot of time to complete one of these. I have had good results using this strategy as a remediation technique for the terms they missed on their quiz. I first learned of vocabulary word maps from ReadingQuest.org – an awesome collection of strategies that can be used in the classroom.

9. Flyswatter game: Divide students into 2 teams. Put the terms up on the wall and have one student from each team go to the wall. The teacher reads the definition and the first student to slap the term with their flyswatter gets a point for their team. A quick search turned up this link with a more detailed explanation.

10. Vocabulary Wiki: Have the class put this together – possibly one term and definition per page. Students can embed related videos, pictures, practice quizzes, time-lines and games into the Wiki. They could even upload their own student created audio, drawings and video.

Overall I want my students to really think about the terms and their meanings and make new connections. I want my students to take charge of their own learning. I have thought about allowing my students to choose one of the above activities to help them practice and learn the new terms but wonder if it would be reasonable to manage?

I know there are tons of other ways to handle vocabulary in the classroom. I wonder if cell phones can be used some how to get students to quiz and challenge each other? What about mp3 players? Please share your ideas and resources below – I’d love to know what works for other teachers.

6 Responses to “Brainstorming Vocabulary Strategies”

Cheryl Tice Says:
August 11th, 2009 at 2:16 am
While teaching our “Summer Jazz” video conference course, I wanted to make sure the participants were understanding the terminology that we were using throughout the week. Using Etherpad.com, I generated a list of terms for the participants to define together and linked it to my course wiki.

They worked on assigning words to each other and used their materials and online resources to define the words. I encouraged them to check out each other’s definitions and fix them, if necessary, when they finished defining at least 2 of the words apiece. The highlighter color for each participant was also helpful. (I cleared the highlighter colors from my Etherpad before pasting the definitions on the wiki).

They were done with the activity very quickly and it was a quick check for me to see if we were effectively teaching the course… It was also nice because they would have an online resource to help them if they forgot the meaning of one of the terms.

Here’s the site if you’d like to see what they did:
http://gstjazz.wikispaces.com/Vocabulary

Another resource to try is Poll Everywhere to integrate cell phones – I bet you can find a way to use this (you’ve probably heard of this one): http://www.polleverywhere.com/

Hope this is helpful!

[Reply]
WeboWord Says:
August 11th, 2009 at 6:16 am
Dear Mr. Schrage

The vocabulary building strategies that you’ve mentioned are fabulous and it would be our pleasure to suggest an addition to the list. http://www.weboword.com – Vocabulary Visually – Simple, stick figure based illustrations to depict vocabulary. Students can be encouraged to create their own visual vocabulary and share it @ http://weboword.ning.com and be featured as a part of WeboWord itself.

Would love to know your thoughts about using WeboWord in the classroom!

Best Regards,
WeboWord

[Reply]
Jason Says:
August 11th, 2009 at 11:55 pm
I am considering doing more direct vocabulary instruction this year and I really like http://quizlet.com/. It allows you to create a list and then kids can use various quizzes and flash cards to help them remember… I really like the platform…

[Reply]
Kelly Hines Says:
August 12th, 2009 at 12:44 am
I love the ideas you’ve shared and I hope you will consider blogging about your implementation throughout the year. Here are a few things that I do…

- Word Wall: I started making mine digital by having the kids each create one card with the term, definition and illustration. I took a picture of each and make a ppt, uploaded it to SlideShare and posted on our blog. http://kellyhines.wordpress.com/2009/02/24/our-math-word-wall/

- Also, what about having kids use a Creative Commons search to find a picture that would appropriately represent the term and justify it. That would take a lot of critical thinking!

- I also found this site through Twitter this week and think it has great vocab possibilities http://www.wordsift.com/

- Here are some of the other vocabulary resources/inspiration I’ve collected over the past years (http://www.diigo.com/user/kellyhines/vocabulary)

Great job – keep up the “re-thinking”. You’re awesome!

[Reply]
Nancy Blair Says:
August 13th, 2009 at 9:37 am
A couple of good resources to explore for vocabulary instructional techniques are Marzano and Pickering’s Building Academic Vocabulary and Janet Allen’s Words, Words, Words.

Some words people only need to know in order to understand the reading, while other words are necessary to know forever. Try to focus the more time-consuming vocabulary strategies on fewer “essential” words and just do the less intensive strategies with the words only necessary for the reading.

One strategy I’ve used very effectively is a cooperative learning vocabulary introduction. I give the participants 8-10 words related to the lesson and ask them to talk about each word in their groups to determine which words people already know and can explain to the other group members and which words nobody in the group knows. EVERY group turns in an index card listing any words the group does not know. If the group believes they know all the words, they write “none” on their card. [Management strategy: I always number my groups and have them put the group number on the card. That helps me know who claims to know what and let's me target my review questions.] The talking about words time usually takes three-to-five minutes. After collecting the cards, I glance through them and discuss words that appear on several cards. I ask for examples of words that DON’T appear on cards to be sure we all have the same understanding of the word. I usually put up a list (on a slide) with all words defined so people can reaffirm they, in fact, really used the word correctly in their discussion. After reading, I ask the groups to discuss the article. Amazingly, I almost always hear them using the words from the pre-reading vocabulary list. I then ask participants to use at least two of the vocabulary words in the summaries they write (but summarizing strategies is another topic). Just yesterday, I was in a building where I used the strategy with teachers last winter. The person I was talking to remembered several of the vocabulary words from last winter. It’s amazing the results you can get when vocabulary is developed more naturally through sharing and conversation.

I’m glad to see you reflecting on your practice. Thanks for sharing with us.

[Reply]
Lucas Says:
August 14th, 2009 at 2:43 pm
This is a great list for taking vocabulary instruction to the next level. I am already thinking of adding a few of these. I think there has to be some mix of rote memorization, applied usage, and critical thought in order to effectively teach vocab.

[Reply]