Designing Questions

To meet the needs of a variety of learners, educators work together by discussing various learning techniques and styles that they believe can benefit the students. In the video, “Designing Purposeful ELA Instruction,” teacher gathered to discuss how exactly an educator can design their class and lesson to meet the needs of the students regardless of is they’re an English language learner (ELL) or special education learner. A notion made at the meeting was that the students can access the text or material, but it’s up to the educator to give them enough opportunities throughout the day to show that they have reached that level of understanding and mastery. A strategy that can support this concept is the use of a Socratic Seminar. A Socratic Seminar is a teaching tool that promotes discussion within the classroom, and has students question their own assumptions and listen to other points of view. In the NEA video, a social studies and English teacher co-taught a Socratic Seminar and asked guiding questions that the students could answer and support their statement with examples from the documents and novel they had previously read. This is an excellent way of giving multiple opportunities for student engagement in a low-pressure situation. Another way to successfully meet the needs of a variety of learners is to design leveled questions using key words that ELL’s can follow. Leveled questions start off broad and gradually get more specific, while key ELL words are words that convey the same question without using complex language. Designing leveled questions using key ELL words can create an active, rich, and inclusive environment that everyone can participate comfortably in.