Now that you have observed typical student responses…
What did your classroom data show you about the use of targeted academic nouns at your school or in your district?
Were you able to observe the use of the targeted nouns from the objective to the teacher questions to the student answers? Or did the use of the targeted academic nouns disappear as the lesson progressed?
Findings From Our Research
Based on our work with thousands of teachers in classrooms doing this same task, here is what you likely observed:
Teachers frequently formulate questions that do not directly utilize and require the use of the targeted academic nouns.
Students are allowed to use less-academic versions of the target nouns, i.e., “problem” instead of “equation”, “steps” instead of “system”, or “place” instead of “setting”.
Teachers often accept answers as correct even though the answer is not a complete sentence and the nouns from the objective are not utilized.
Students receive mixed messages about the importance of academic specificity when crafting responses. You may have heard something like the following.
It’s OK to just give a short answer.
As long as I understand what you meant, we’ll worry about the correct words and structures later.
Just give us the gist so that we know what you are thinking.
We can see clearly from this exchange that the target nouns are skillfully used by both the teacher and her students. A steady diet of this type of instruction sets students up for success when confronting typical test requirements.
Click below for a simple way your teachers can immediately improve their ability to use this important linguistic element in their daily instruction.