A Yearlong Professional Development Initiative Ii

By Author: endeavor
Total Articles: 3
Comment this article

Content area literacy, as defined by Draper, Smith, Hall, and Sieber (2005), includes the ability to meaningfully interact with content area words. Such specialized vocabulary, for example, protests, requires students to understand the concept represented by the word or image. Meaningful interaction with content area texts requires cognitive strategies, such as asking questions, in which the learner Replica Omega develops a cognitive approach to learning and a critical understanding of subject matter (Conley, 2008). Thus, it may be argued that successful content area literacy requires metacognition. Metacognition is the awareness and regulation of one's mental processes (Griffith & Ruan, 2005). In other words, successful content area learning requires students to be aware of their understanding of a concept and to adjust thinking to ensure learning. One of the teacher's roles in improving content area literacy is to help students use metacognitive processes to support understandings (Barton & Heidema, 2002; Posnanski, Mertzman, & Kean, 2006).

Content ...
... learning and metacognition are often carried out through interacting with text and other content experiences. Therefore, content area literacy instruction must include an understanding that students be taught to become metacognitive and active learners. Vacca and Vacca (2007) stated that when students who are active learners know what's, why's, how's, and when's of strategic reading and thinking, they are metacognitive. Because the type of text and assignments in various content areas pose different problems for the reader to solve, students must be aware of the nature of the reading task and the way to handle it. The instructional strategies and techniques used are crucial because students learn to transfer metacognitive thinking when instruction in the general strategies includes informed training and Omega Replica Watches opportunities for self-control (Brown & Campione, 1994).

This article presents lessons learned from teachers who participated in a yearlong professional development initiative initially designed to improve their knowledge and implementation of QAR and the think-aloud.