Just yesterday I attended a district meeting regarding student performance on the provincial standardized exam. The purpose of the meeting was to create an action plan on how the district can improve student scores on these exams. (Yes I know the ugly standardized exam debate again...but it's not going away so let's deal with it). One suggestion I had was to encourage students to WRITE more often in the class and on their class formative and summative assessments. I believe this strategy would enforce a metacognitive approach identified in the article by Marlene Thier. The article provides a strategy that focuses on key words such as Describe, Formulate, Discuss, etc. These key guiding words force the students to explain themselves and (hopefully) make connections to course concepts.
As I thought more about this I remembered a literacy strategy introduced to me approx. two years ago the RAFT strategy. What is a RAFT?
- Role
- Audience
- Format
- Topic
Here is a link to a website I found outlining it in more detail.
Raft site
I thought that if I incorporated some of these activities in my science class with the combination of a blog, it would work great and would engage the students. For example, they could take the role of Robert Millikan explaining his discovery of the elementary charge to the President of the United States in a letter(??). (Just "spit balling" here). I think I could have students complete at least 1 RAFT assignment per unit (for a total of four throughout the year). Anyone have any other literacy strategies they have implemented and found success with?
Kristian
Kristian, I like your idea of connecting RAFT with blogging! I have not heard much about RAFT, but I am also brainstorming ways to incorporate blogging in my class. I have administratrion that is not too keen on allowing students to have email accounts... our school does have a blog that we can use that's part of our Gradebook and attendance program, but it's clunky, only allows text font (no pics, color, etc) and has not been very successful.
ReplyDelete.. and after they write their script, they could have Milliken "say" it by using blabberize.
ReplyDeleteI learned the RAFT strategy in a literacy class I took this fall. The strategy seems to be easily implemented in social studies and english classes, but I have never tried to use it in teaching science. I think it would be great to incorporate literacy strategies into a blog. I could also see using KWL charts on a blog as a way of students to keep records of what they know, want to know and learned through a unit.
ReplyDeletePrior to reading your blog post I had never heard of RAFT. However, in the 1990's my district utilized the basics of this technique. I was home raising my babies at the time but I was aware of the initiative.
ReplyDeleteI like the RAFT approach and I appreciate the link. I teach 7th grade and just the idea of getting my students to put their feet in someone else's shoes is valuable to their learning process. I'd love to try to use this in a blogging format. My question is... how do I do this with my 5 classes - 125 students? I would love to hear of others ideas or methods that are currently in use.