I promise I’m not as Hamilton obsessed as it may seem based on my blog posts thus far, but when the term “revolution” was mentioned, the lyrics came to mind. “You want a revolution, I want a revelation…”
Class went on and I could not get Renee Elise Goldsberry out of my head, so rather than become frustrated by the revolving tune, I began to analyze what those lyrics meant and relate them to what we were doing. You asked for the definition of revolution and I had a revelation…vocabulary instruction can be effective!
Last week, I mentioned my complicated relationship with social studies mainly due to my inability to retain important information, mostly vocab. I can’t help but wonder how different I would feel had my teachers adopted any of the practices we discussed in class.
While not all worked for everyone as evident during “you say, I say, and so,” the common theme between most of the examples we either read about or discussed, was that each encouraged students to make a personal connection to the terms/material. As I mentioned in class, when a student is able to connect to the content in a personal way, they are more likely to remember. The key, in my opinion, is to find what makes your students click, what motivates them, and then direct your instruction/choose your vocab instruction model based on them. How does one do that?…By making the teacher/student relationship a priority. Sure, front-loading information is crucial, but I also believe that it should be strategic to be as effective as possible…am I off in this thinking?
As I sit here, writing this blog/reflection…whatever it ends up being by the time I click “publish,” I have so many questions and feelings. I had good relationships with most of my teachers, but still lacked the ability to retain vocab. So were they onto something, but lacked the time to make the lessons more effective? They weren’t up against tests, but was there something else standing in their way? Was there any research supporting more effective vocabulary instruction models at the time?
Revelation: Vocabulary instruction can be effective
…but what is the best way to maximize its effectiveness and what stands in the way of doing so?
I hope this makes sense to whomever reads the 377 words above. If it doesn’t then know that I’m still trying to wrap my head around the disconnect between the instruction I received and the instruction I’ve being trained to provide.