Key Words and Summary Writing

So how do you teach young students to write up facts without just copying from the original text? Understanding what a key word is and how we use key words is     fundamental, and something that we can explore with young learners. A great activity that does this is a Dictagloss.

1. Find the text you want them to understand. Check the text for key words and create a visual that shows some key words.

2. Show the students the visual and discuss the pictures. This hooks their interest. 

3. The students listen to you read the text and listen.

4. The students listen to you read the same text again, but this time they note down the key words.

5. Students get into pairs and share their key words. With one student as scribe, the pairs create a summary of the information they have heard using their key words.

6. Finally, students can look at the original  text and see how their versions are similar and different. 

Happy Summarising! 

what is a concept?

I attended a recent course in on concept-based teaching and learning. As current educational discussion seems to orbit around skills and topics as the principle foci of teaching, it was refreshing to shift our gaze away from these and look at concepts. One of the key inquiries was what is a topic and what is a concept?

A seemingly easy task? Not exactly. So, do you know the difference? Try these: concept or topic?

Culture

Dance

Ecosystems

Ancient Rome

Conflict

Friendship

Waste

Continents

According to Merrium Webster dictionary, a concept is "an abstract or generic idea generalized from particular instances" and a topic is "the subject of a discourse or of a section of a discourse". Looking at the list, can you spot the abstract ones? If you can, you understand the difference!

So when do you teach topics and when do you teach concepts? And what about skills? All good questions that will be explored in The Imaginarium. So for now, next time you plan work for a class, think, is this a topic or a concept or a skill? 

Adieu.

 

Welcome to the Imaginarium

The Imaginarium is a place to share, explore, and inquire into ideas. 

Essentially, it is a place, a space, to think. We hope you enjoy the experience as much as we do.