Strategy #7: Reciprocal Teaching Level of expertise: 5
What is the strategy?
Reciprocal Teaching is an activity that can be used before, during and after my students read a text. This strategy gives my students practice summarizing, questioning, clarifying and predicting information from an expository textbook. My students will then use these skills to instruct other classmates as well as discuss the significance of the information found within the text. Students in my class will use higher level thinking skills in order to effectively teach their fellow students of the important issues raised in the reading.
Why use this strategy?
The Reciprocal Teaching strategy is a great way for my students to take ownership of their learning. By delegating them as the “experts” in teaching the addition of decimals it ensures that they will not only know the process but be able to discuss the significance using key vocabulary terms such as “commutative property of addition.” Students must also be proficient in understanding the value of how and why each step is being performed. Once my students have a clear understanding of the content, they will analyze the information from another lens by organizing a discussion group to facilitate learning for their fellow students using the four strategies: summarizing, questioning, clarifying and predicting. This allows my students to think about metacomprehension and the value of how others learn.
How does it work?
1) My students are familiar with this strategy. I will select three students who will be the “experts” in this reciprocal teaching strategy.
2) These “expert” student-teachers will be assigned pages 11-14(Charles, Branch-Boyd, Illingworth, Mills, & Reeves, 2004): (Addition of Decimals)
3) The student-teachers will preview the text and create a worksheet to guide classmates as they read the text. The teacher will meet with the student-teachers to facilitate a plan for the reciprocal teaching project.
4) Before fellow classmates read pages 11-14 in the content area text book, the student-teachers will give a 3-5 minute overview of what students can expect to encounter as they read the text such as major ideas, vocabulary (Identity Property of Addition), and interesting facts used in the text such as “We don’t often get to add numbers to the end of equations. In the reading, we are going to learn where it is appropriate to do this.”
5) Student-teachers hand out the worksheet shown below.
6) Fellow classmates will do the assigned reading and come to class with the worksheet filled out.
7) Using the smart board student-teachers will facilitate a class discussion to clarify how to align numbers with decimals as well as go through the steps of how to compute such equations. Student-teachers will allow fellow students to manipulate numbers on the smart board to align decimal places up.
8) The worksheet serves as a central piece to guide the discussion. The student-teacher makes sure all the questions on the worksheet are answered.
9) The student-teachers summarizes the process of adding numbers with decimals and answers any of their fellow students’ questions.
Sources:
Billmeyer, R. & Barton, M.L. (1998). Teaching reading in the content areas: If not me, then who? (2nd ed.). Aurora, CO: Mid-continent Regional Educational Laboratory.
Charles, R. I., Branch-Boyd, J. C., Illingworth, M., Mills, D., Reeves, A., & Thompson, D. R. (2004). Course 2 mathematics. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Prentice Hall.
_____________________________________________________________________
Guided Worksheet:_____________________________________________________
Name_________________________ Date______________
Adding Numbers with Decimals
Before Reading Questions:
1) When adding numbers, should the equation be set up vertically or horizontally?
2) Why is it important for the numbers to be aligned so the ones are all in a row, the tens all in a row, etc?
During Reading:
Definitions:
ü Identity Property of Addition- ______________________________________________________________________________________________________
Ex)
ü Commutative Property of Addition-______________________________________________________________________________________________________
Ex)
ü Associative Property of Addition-______________________________________________________________________________________________________
Ex)
After Reading Questions
1) How do I align the equation 6.43 + 2.55?
2) Solve the above equation.
3) Why is it important to place zeros at the end of some numbers?
For example:
3.80
+2.41
4) How can the properties of addition help me add mentally?
What does it look like?
