Fact+of+the+Day-+vocabulary

Team Members/ School(s)
 * Jessica Perez, LNCS**
 * Lisa Hudson, LNCS**
 * Ana Knapp, LNCS**
 * Hernan Moncada, Windom**

Brief description of Learning Circle plan: //Each teacher will actively engage in using a fact of the day to increase student vocabulary knowledge over the remainder of the school year. Teachers will implement two of their fact days per week to vocabulary knowledge, use, and understanding.//

Plan to measure results: //We will use a rating scale to measure their beginning knowledge and ending knowledge independently among classes. Students will initially rate themselves using a 1-4 scale on knowledge of vocabulary. They will repeat the same rating scale at the end of the study to see their own growth.// Timeline: timeline plans, and data collection organization. (3/23/12) Implement initial rating scale Implement Fact of the Day (FoD) || Continue Fact of the Day implementation Meet as a team to discuss progress twice (4/13, 4/27) Discuss variations/adaptations needed || Continue Fact of the Day implementation Meet as a team to discuss progress twice (5/11, 5/25) Discuss variations/adaptations needed Visit one another's classes to view implementation || Meet to conclude research and create PowerPoint presentation for Multilingual Department use (6/1/12). ||
 * March || April || May || June ||
 * Met as a team to create vocabulary lists,

Work & Progress:
Upload: documents, photos, links, etc...

Rating scales and Fact of the Day introductions have been implemented and under-way for at least one week by 4/13/12.

__ELL class:__ Fact of the Day BINGO was a big hit and the students got really competitive, but they knew the vocabulary and had fun:) __ELL class:__ Fact of the Day Quiz 1 seemed successful. There were two students who failed and I will be verbally giving them the quiz again. They also did not pay attention during the actual FoD most days in class. 5/4/12 __ ELL class: __ Fact of the Day word association activity was done in pairs and students were very creative about how words from previous FoD and their definitions inter-mingle. There was no exact right or wrong answer for this activity, students were encouraged to see links in words and they did a great job. May 2012  __ELL class:__ Fact of the Day BINGO was eagerly awaited since the last one. Students were prepared and had fun getting the definitions matched with the words. __ ELL class: __ Fact of the Day Quiz 2 was extremely successful. Students who didn't get full points on the first quiz faired better on the second one and I believe this is due to the word association activity and crossword along with the BINGO.

__ 6th Grade Math Progress: __ Students reported a better understanding of content vocabulary on the post knowledge rating scale. Fact of Day Quiz scores improved with the focus on Tuesdays and Thursdays begin vocabulary. Also use of language objectives and close sentences in my daily messages helped focus students attention on using math vocabulary accurately. Ana Knapp reported 5/31/12.

__AVID:__

In AVID 6, 7, 8 we focused on MCA Reading Vocabulary words for our Fact of the Day. Students took a pre-test, and rated themselves on how well they knew each of the twelve words. We then learned each vocabulary word in a different way- sometimes whole group, table groups, student teaching students, etc. At the end, we took a post-test on the same twelve words, and over 90% of the students had a higher score than from the pretest. The higher score indicates that they have a better understanding of the words prior to the Fact of the Day instruction. Lisa Hudson 6/1/12.

Overall implementation of using Fact of the Day to teach vocabulary worked well when it was supported by reviews and study methods were taught through it. I think students gained a lot of knowledge for content, MCA preparation, and frequently used vocabulary in units and themes n content classrooms. We all agree that as professionals we gained new strategies of teaching vocabulary more directly and enjoyed sharing ideas with one another. We also felt students were overall more prepared for content classes after having been exposed to vocabulary through Fact of the Day.