UNIT 3- LANGUAGE ACROSS THE CURRICULUM-Analyzing and Interpreting Discipline based Language - Part 2-BEd notes
Prepared by
Sabarish P
Contents
- Schema theory-Discourses in variety curricular components-texts, supplementary materials, additional resources, journals ,periodicals, newspaper, bulletins and such other items
- Interpretation of pictures, diagrams, graphs, maps, and other illustrative devices
Schema theory
Linguists, cognitive psychologists, and psycholinguists have used the concept of schema (plural: schemata) to understand the interaction of key factors affecting the comprehension process.
Simply put, schema theory states that all knowledge is organized into units. Within these units of knowledge, or schemata, is stored information.
A schema, then, is a generalized description or a conceptual system for understanding knowledge-how knowledge is represented and how it is used.
According to this theory, schemata represent knowledge about concepts: objects and the relationships they have with other objects, situations, events, sequences of events, actions, and sequences of actions.
Each new experience incorporates more information into one's schema.
Individuals have schemata for everything. Long before students come to school, they develop schemata (units of knowledge) about everything they experience.
Schemata become theories about reality and these theories not only affect the way information is interpreted, thus affecting comprehension, but also continue to change as new information is received.
Schemata can represent knowledge at all levels-from ideologies and cultural truths to knowledge about the meaning of a particular word, to knowledge about what patterns of excitations are associated with what letters of the alphabet.
Schemata represents all levels of experience, at all levels of abstraction.
Schemata is knowledge as all generic knowledge is embedded in schemata.
The importance of schema theory to reading comprehension also lies in how the reader uses schemata. This issue has not yet been resolved by research, although investigators agree that some mechanism activates just those schemata most relevant to the reader's task.
Discourses in variety curricular components-texts, Supplementary materials, Additional resources, Journals, Periodicals, Newspaper, Bulletins, and such other items
Five essential components, identified for effective curriculum implementation, include:
Content and skills to be taught and assessed through research-based curricula.
Evidence-based interventions used to teach content/skills, manage behavior, and support differentiated instructional needs.
Instructional arrangements or settings in the classroom used to implement the research-based curriculum and evidence-based interventions in order to teach and assess content/skills.
Overall classroom and instructional management, which includes addressing both academic and behavioral aspects of teaching and learning.
Evaluation of progress to assess learners’ growth toward achieving benchmarks and/or meeting supplemental needs.
As typical classroom occurrences, events, practices, mandates, and procedures are studied, nearly all of the major instructional aspects of curriculum are found to fall within one or more of these curricular components.
Effective curriculum implementation can only occur in the context of all five components, viewed and implemented in integrated ways in the classroom.
Instruction is an aspect of curriculum, and its function and importance change throughout the several types of curricula.
In the written curriculum, when the curriculum is a set of documents that guide planning, instruction is only one relatively minor aspect of the curriculum.
Retrievable documents used in planning for learning typically specify five components:
a rationale for the curriculum;
the aims, objectives, and content for achieving those objectives;
instructional methods;
learning materials and resources; and
tests or assessment methods.
The purpose of learning and teaching resources is to provide a source of learning experiences for students.
The resources should be able to facilitate interaction among students and teachers during the learning/ teaching process, as well as to help students to learn, broaden students’ learning experiences and meet different learning needs.
If used effectively, learning and teaching resources can help students to construct knowledge for themselves and develop effective learning strategies, generic skills, values and attitudes, thus laying a solid foundation for life-long learning.
Learning and teaching resources are not confined to textbooks and are available in many other forms such as reference books, workbooks, worksheets, audio-visual teaching aids, web-based learning materials, computer software packages, structured courseware delivered by electronic learning management systems, Internet and media, as well as libraries, learning communities and resources in the natural environment, etc.
Textbooks
Textbooks have a positive role to play and should provide the core elements of learning in the subjects recommended by the Curriculum Development Council.
Textbooks should also be designed to develop students’ critical and creative thinking and other generic skills through the information and activities that they provide.
Quality textbooks can assist teachers by providing a ‘one-stop’ shop for materials that will help them to plan the scope and sequence of their teaching.
Reference books and other printed materials
Teachers are encouraged to use a wide range of other learning and teaching resources, such as reference books or other printed learning materials (e.g. supplementary reading and information materials, newspapers, articles, journals, periodicals, workbooks, exercises) to allow students to explore issues of interest, stimulate enquiry, apply/ consolidate their learning or encourage them to undertake further learning.
Teachers could also make good use of authentic resources (e.g. information leaflets, pamphlets, magazines, songs, posters) that are not written for classroom purposes, but could bring real-world issues into their classrooms.
Teachers should consider factors such as availability, affordability and copyright issues before using reference materials in the classrooms.
Multimedia resources
Multimedia resources, which embrace audio-visual teaching aids, web-based materials, computer software packages, online learning platforms, etc., have the following advantages in helping students’ learning:
Flexibility, adaptability
Multi-sensory experience
Possibility of interactivity
Connectedness
Besides complementing textbooks, multimedia resources may provide opportunities for both students and teachers to gain access to up-to-date information.
For example, teachers may select materials that present different sides of controversial issues to help students to develop their critical thinking and to make informed judgements in their daily lives.
However, teachers should evaluate whether the online information is authentic, reliable and appropriate for student learning.
School libraries
School libraries and teacher-librarians play a significant and pivotal role in helping students and teachers to gain access to knowledge and information that are needed in the process of learning and teaching.
School libraries should serve as:
resource centres with ample information in a variety of formats, where teachers and students can read, learn and share;
favourable physical space equipped with traditional, technological and human resources for students to engage in enjoyable reading and learning; and
virtual environment in conducting enquiries, using information technology to navigate for information and constructing and co-constructing knowledge.
A school library should provide ready-to-use learning and teaching resources (or extended reading materials) and multimedia resources which address overall school curriculum needs.
A teacher-librarian should also
collaborate with subject teachers (in particular teachers of Liberal Studies) to facilitate the resource needs of students’ learning;
co-ordinate teachers in school-based reading programmes; and
develop students’ information skills and attitudes in using information derived from all formats and contexts appropriately and ethically.
Community resources
The use of community resources includes a combination of people, places, financial resources, websites and materials.
Teachers could also make use of public libraries, museums, educational parks and media (including newspaper and TV), as well as services provided by govnerment and non-government organisations.
Interpretation of pictures, diagrams, graphs, maps and other illustrative devices
Illustration as a teaching strategy stands for the use of the means and material for helping the students to acquire correct knowledge of the presented material by making it quite clear, interesting, intelligible or comprehensible.
The teacher needs to elucidate, explain or exemplify represented facts and phenomenon by means of certain aid material in a verbal or concreted form or both.
When a teacher makes use of word pictures, puts examples for comparisons, studies analogies, uses metaphor, explains the meaning of a thing, object or phenomenon by giving equivalent terms for associating with the previous knowledge of the students, the teacher is said to make use of verbal illustrations.
When a teacher makes use of concrete material like real objects, specimens, models, charts, pictures, graphs, maps and diagrams by making the direct appeal to the senses of his learners, the teacher is said to make use of concrete illustration.
As a teaching device, illustration covers the entire field of mental vision of the learners, stimulated by word pictures or physical material.
Prepared by
Sabarish P
