ESOL STRATEGIES FOR SCIENCE!!! Peer Learning

Peer Learning

Next Generation Sunshine State Standards

SC.2.N.1.3

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Ask "how do you know?" in appropriate situations and attempt reasonable answers when asked the same question by others. 

Common Core Standards

CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RF.2.3 

Know and apply grade-level phonics and word analysis skills in decoding words.

ESOL Standards

8.  Select and develop appropriate ESOL content according to student levels of proficiency in listening, speaking, reading, and writing, taking into account: (1) basic interpersonal communicative skills (BICS), and (2) cognitive academic language proficiency skills (CALPS) as they apply to the ESOL curriculum.

Students need opportunities to formulate questions, discuss issues, and explain their viewpoints. So this strategy helps students to do all of those things with their peers. Students love to interact with each other, so this strategy lets them do that, while also learning by developing higher order thinking skills. The teacher needs to present topics that students are likely to have some relevant knowledge of in order to create an interesting discussion.

Peer Learning Strategies: 

1. Buzz Groups: A large group of students is subdivided into smaller groups of 4–5 students to consider the issues surrounding a problem. After about 20 minutes of discussion, one member of each sub-group presents the findings of the sub-group to the whole group.
2. Affinity Groups: Groups of 4–5 students are each assigned particular tasks to work on outside of formal contact time. At the next formal meeting with the teacher, the sub-group, or a group representative, presents the sub-group’s findings to the whole tutorial group.
3. Solution and Critic Groups: One sub-group is assigned a discussion topic for a tutorial and the other groups constitute ‘critics’ who observe, offer comments and evaluate the sub-group’s presentation.
4. ‘Teach-Write-Discuss’: At the end of a unit of instruction, students have to answer short questions and justify their answers. After working on the questions individually, students compare their answers with each other’s. A whole-class discussion subsequently examines the array of answers that still seem justifiable and the reasons for their validity.

Website Retrieved: http://www.cdtl.nus.edu.sg/success/sl37.htm