Week 3 Discussion

According to Cummins, most lessons are context-reduced and cognitively demanding.

A) Make a list of cognitively undemanding activities, such as doing something after seeing it
modeled, and a list of cognitive demanding activities, such as solving a word problem or
listening to a lecture.

Cummins suggests that teachers should not be fooled that just because a student can speak good
English, they are in the CALP stage. Teachers should strive to create lessons that are context
embedded and cognitively demanding, such as, listening to a lecture with a graphic organizer or
manipulative.

B) Discuss how you can adjust your lessons or lessons that you have already adjusted, to be both
content embedded and cognitively demanding.

Cognitively Undemanding Activities (in the math classroom):

Fill in the blank vocabulary questions where a word bank is given to pick from
Problems that follow a simple pattern with only one or two steps
Problems that can be solved using manipulatives or pictures
Copying down notes exactly as the teacher wrote them into a notebook
Using tools to measure actual objects
Cognitively Demanding Activities (in the math classroom):
Problems with variables
Solving equations
Word problems
Proofs in geometry
Taking notes with no guidance based on what you think you will need to know in the future

The two ways that I would like to adjust my lessons to be more context embedded while
still being cognitively demanding are in note-taking and teaching word problems. I have always
tried to be very logical when presenting math lesson so it would be fairly easy for my students to
follow along and take notes. After taking this class and seeing the notebook that my daughter
was required to keep for her Algebra class, though, I would like to change a little in how I
present new information. My daughter’s Algebra teacher had them copy her notes word for word
into their notebooks. She was very intentional with what she put in their notes so that the
students could look back at their notebooks and have all the information organized there. I like
the idea of explicitly telling students what to put in their notes. Especially in middle school, all
students need help deciding what is important for notes and what is not. This would be especially
hard for English learners, so I’d like to improve in this way. I also would like to use colored pens
to add clarity and visually link concepts in the notes. The goal would be that the students would
better learn the concepts from this style of notes and that they would learn the process of
effective note-taking in a math class.
Word problems are difficult for everyone, but especially if you are not completely fluent
in the language in which it is written. I have always tried to teach the math lingo that is used in
word problems, but probably not as much as I should. In the future, I will focus on teaching the
English words that imply the different operations, as well as different strategies to organize the
information given in the problem.