Mnemonic Strategy Instruction in Inclusive Secondary Social Studies Classes Judith L. Fontana, Thomas Scruggs and Margo A. Mastropieri DOI: 10.1177/07419325070280060401 2007 28: 345 Remedial and Special Education
Describe what you learned about diagnostic and assessment strategies that fit your target population.
From the article that I read I learned that when dealing with ELL students mnemonic learning strategies have proved to be a successful way of encouraging student’s memory capabilities. The specific strategy employed in the article dealt with providing words and pictures during unit instruction that correlated to specifically important aspects of the student learning objective. For example when learning about the New Deal in United States History one might provide the target students, or the class as a whole with pictures of what the TVA (Tennessee Valley Authority) did, or provide students with actual graphical representations of the public works projects created by the WPA (Works Progress Administration) What I found most interesting about the article in respect to the question at hand was that when these same mnemonic strategies were employed with remedial special education students no significant learning gains were observed. The researchers chalked this result up to inconsistencies in the methods of study for the target special education students.
• Pedagogical Knowledge Question:
Describe in what way/s assessment data would determine how you planned your curriculum and lessons for the specific special needs population?
After reading the article what I found most interesting as it related to curriculum planning and assessment was that the mnemonic learning strategies employed in the study did not result in any significant percentage gains on the end of unit tests for the remedial special education students. What this says to me is that other means of differentiated instruction need to be employed when teaching this target group. Not surprisingly, the mnemonic learning strategy employed for the ELL population that was studied was successful. I say this is not surprising due to the fact that over the course of our postgraduate program we have come to learn that strategies such as these are very helpful to ELL students. Knowing this I would absolutely continue using these proven strategies for my ELL student population but will have to find another means of differentiating instruction for the special needs students.
Mnemonic Strategy Instruction in Inclusive Secondary Social Studies Classes
Judith L. Fontana, Thomas Scruggs and Margo A. Mastropieri
DOI: 10.1177/07419325070280060401
2007 28: 345 Remedial and Special Education
Links To Article:
http://rse.sagepub.com/content/28/6/345.full.pdf+html
http://rse.sagepub.com/content/28/6/345• Content Knowledge Question:
Describe what you learned about diagnostic and assessment strategies that fit your target population.
From the article that I read I learned that when dealing with ELL students mnemonic learning strategies have proved to be a successful way of encouraging student’s memory capabilities. The specific strategy employed in the article dealt with providing words and pictures during unit instruction that correlated to specifically important aspects of the student learning objective.
For example when learning about the New Deal in United States History one might provide the target students, or the class as a whole with pictures of what the TVA (Tennessee Valley Authority) did, or provide students with actual graphical representations of the public works projects created by the WPA (Works Progress Administration)
What I found most interesting about the article in respect to the question at hand was that when these same mnemonic strategies were employed with remedial special education students no significant learning gains were observed. The researchers chalked this result up to inconsistencies in the methods of study for the target special education students.
• Pedagogical Knowledge Question:
Describe in what way/s assessment data would determine how you planned your curriculum and lessons for the specific special needs population?
After reading the article what I found most interesting as it related to curriculum planning and assessment was that the mnemonic learning strategies employed in the study did not result in any significant percentage gains on the end of unit tests for the remedial special education students. What this says to me is that other means of differentiated instruction need to be employed when teaching this target group.
Not surprisingly, the mnemonic learning strategy employed for the ELL population that was studied was successful. I say this is not surprising due to the fact that over the course of our postgraduate program we have come to learn that strategies such as these are very helpful to ELL students.
Knowing this I would absolutely continue using these proven strategies for my ELL student population but will have to find another means of differentiating instruction for the special needs students.