In what practical ways can a media-infused presentation like the one you created help foster the development of both the disciplined and synthesizing minds?
I chose to create a Prezi that showcased reading strategies that could help benefit my 3rd grade students. In the Prezi, I took clips from Discovery Education in order to help students learn to synthesize/ practice these strategies on their own. In two of the clips, students will take what they learned from the presentation and practice each strategy on their own, synthesizing their learning with new material in the process. In other slides, I will have students do independent activities or small-group center activities to further help them synthesize their learning.
The reading strategy slide gives a brief overview of reading strategies that students can use. The Egyptian Queen Cleopatra clip highlighted at the end can be pulled up via Discovery Education. Students can take turns practicing re-reading, using context clues, and using a dictionary during the clip. I would also include supplemental readings for students to practice in small-group centers. A great book to use for this center would be: Magic Tree House series, Mummies and Pyramids (level M guided reading).
The re-reading strategy slide is a great introduction to get students to practice the re-reading strategy on their own. I will have students practice re-reading a short text on robots (to go with the Discovery Education clip). Each time we re-read the piece, we will dig deeper into the text.
For the dictionary slide, I can have students synthesize by researching abbreviations in the dictionary. As an extension activity, students can choose to create their own abbreviations for their names.
The context clue slide is a great introduction to get students accustomed to using context clues to decode unknown or unfamiliar words. I can have students watch the Discovery Education clip about Oceans and then show them short pieces of text about Oceans. Students can try to decode unknown words based on context clues in these short pieces.
I feel that this sort of practice/activities mentioned above helps students not only to synthesize, but also to develop a disciplined mind. In the process, students are learning how to perform each strategy (re-reading, context clues, using a dictionary) on their own, independently. They can successfully take what they learned in this presentation and APPLY it to other content areas. The best part about the presentation is that it is not specific, explicit instruction, rather general information that they can apply across multiple content areas. I believe that teaching students to become disciplined and able to synthesize go hand in hand. I have found through this Prezi that students can achieve both. Implementing digital media is a great way to foster the development of these two things.
*Please note, for the audio portion of the presentation, I have embedded my own voiceover for the first slide (instructional purpose).
How do you foster a disciplined mind and achieve synthesizing in your classroom?