Author: Irene Chang

I really like the idea of news program. I have done this in social studies classes during high school several times, but never in Home Economics. We can bring in news stories on food and nutrition. This will make it a more engaging way to bring current events into the classroom and it will allow the students to actually interact with the content and make it relevant to them and the class. There is so much that students can learn from this activity. There is role playing involved – another one of Zwiers’ suggestions, students can get really creative by dressing up, using props, making backdrops, designing the set, and also practice making a video if they wish, or perform it live. If a news story is too difficult, students can also do a cooking segment. Both will help students practice speaking. Students will also have to be aware of how the use of language and reporting will differ between these two even though they can both be on the same topic eg.how are you going to talk about potatoes in a cooking show vs. a news report?

The expert panel is also another great discussion activity suggested by Zwiers to encourage use of academic language. In a family studies class for example, we could be looking at a topic such as life course development and have a panel of experts talk about the different needs of family members depending on where they are in the life course (eg. child, adolescent, adult etc.)

I also really like Pro-Con. It is important to be able to think about both sides of a question. We could look at a product, an issue, or even a lifestyle. I remember in Planning 10 learning about decision making and in family studies as well during my undergrad. Pro-Con is an activity that can definitely be used during this lesson. It will also encourage students to revisit other topics covered related to consumption such as values, attitudes, and lifestyles.

One activity that Zwiers suggests in the text is called “Take a side”. In “Take a side”, the room is divided up into two sides and students would go stand on the side that they feel best represents their take on an issue. There is also a “middle”, but from what I understand from the text, because the room is a continuum, students will be on a side even though they gravitate more towards the centre. Students will then have to discuss with those around them why they chose to stand where they are and then find someone standing on the other side to discuss. I can see how this activity can be used in home-ec when discussing issues in foods, textiles, and family studies. They can be scenario questions or on a specific topic we are covering such as consumption. There are often no easy answers to many of these questions because of how complex they are and students may find themselves moving around the room as their views shift as we explore the topic and depending on what aspect we are focusing. I have also played a similar game in day camp where there is a line on the floor and students have to take a side. This game was played as an icebreaker though and the questions were meant to help leaders and kids get to know each other. Questions asked were usually quite easy to answer eg. if you could only own one, would you choose the radio or the tv? or would you rather got to a party or go to a museum? Like the games we played with Graham, the students are speaking through their body language while they are playing the game and through their choices as well.

One discussion activity not mentioned in the textbook is “philosopher’s cafe”. I really enjoyed this activity in another class. We were numbered off into small groups of 4 and the discussion leader of each group was provided with a list of many questions. Because the discussion is supposed to be informal, we didn’t have to answer the questions in order, or any of the questions provided if we had a question of our own that we wanted to discuss. We had the choice of staying inside the classroom or going somewhere else. One person in each group took notes on what we discussed and each group shared one comment from their discussion when we all came back into the class. The purpose of the activity is to try to encourage conversation and I think the informal setting made it a little more comfortable. I would like to do a version of this in the classroom…there will have to be a few changes though. For example, students may have to stay in the classroom and may need a bit of guidance as they are participating in the activity. Questions in the home-ec class can be things like what foods do you enjoy eating? Who do you usually eat with? Where does our food come from?

This is a chart of stages and terms that I have made up that are used in Home Economics. Unlike in Scientific Inquiry, not all stages are present in every situation. Some stages can be skipped, such as when making a no-bake dessert, there may not be anything under the pre-preparation stage or the cooking stage. Stages can also go back and forth. For example, when using fresh herbs, one may have to cut, then measure, then mix. A more detailed chart can be made for baking and cooking. A stage such as cutting may apply more to cooking than to baking (although sometimes there is cutting involved in baking as well, such as when making apple pie for example). Another stage such as Shaping would have also been added to a more detailed baking chart as well. This chart may be very general, but I think categorizing these terms may be helpful when teaching them to our students instead of presenting them in random order on a worksheet. Terms will show up in a similar order when going through a recipe, and as students become more familiar with where they can typically expect to see these terms on a recipe, it will also help them in spotting information that may not be clearly written out in the directions section. For example, not all baking recipes clearly spell out “Preheat oven to 350F” in the first step. I have come across recipes where this information is written at the very end of the recipe as “Bake in a 350F oven”. Having an idea of the different stages will also be very helpful when cooking without a recipe or when creating one’s very own.

I really liked how this article provided many examples of teaching strategies that can be used when learning new words. My own experience of learning vocabulary that I remember were either finding definitions for words that my teacher or myself had picked out from a novel we were studying. It was quite a challenge especially when faced with a word with multiple meanings and not knowing which one to choose. I would often just choose the first definition provided in the dictionary and write in the “correct” definition if my choice happened to be incorrect when the terms were reviewed the next morning in class. Lehr et al. mention that it is important for teachers to focus on “tier two” (11) vocabulary with multiple meanings rather than “tier three” (11) vocabulary that are very rarely used or “tier one” (11) vocabulary that are very common that most students will already be familiar with. Thinking back, I wish my teachers reviewed some of the other common uses of a word we were studying instead of only focusing on the particular definition they were looking for. Going over the relationship between context and how meanings of the word changes accordingly may have been helpful. While the dictionary is a helpful source when it comes to learning new words, other learning strategies should be used as well (Lehr et al.). I remember having to look up many words while learning English, but hardly understanding any of the words even after having written down definitions.

Another part of this article that I found to be really interesting was the discussion of how beneficial a teacher reading aloud can be for the development of students’ vocabularies (Lehr et al.). I wonder how this compares to silent reading when it comes to the development of vocabulary. I know I have found myself unknowingly skipping words that I did not know while reading silently and then being very surprised the next day when there was a pop quiz on definitions of words that were in the assigned chapter that I had skipped while reading. Would a student be more likely to notice a new word when listening to a story that was being read aloud word for word rather than silent reading where many words can be read at the same time? Another benefit of listening to a story being read aloud may also be learning how words are pronounced. Perhaps a student’s reading ability is important too when looking into how much a student will benefit from various types of reading. Lehr et al. reported that when students can read by themselves, the amount of time they spend reading will predict the number of words they know.

Reading the first chapter has really encouraged me to think about teaching and the home economics classroom. I agree with Zwiers (2008) that when teaching it is important to take into consideration the diverse backgrounds that students come from. Recipes used in the home-ec classroom will often contain cooking terms that students may not be familiar with and that many cookbooks today have replaced with directions instead. Cooking terms used often describe an important technique that is necessary to know if someone were to be successful in making the product. It is then very important that the term is clearly demonstrated and defined for the students before expecting them to use the terms and to know what to do during a lab when they see it on their recipe. The cooking term ‘fold’ for example may be a confusing one as it has a meaning outside of cooking (for example, folding a piece of paper). However, in cooking it means to use a rubber spatula to combine ingredients by gently lifting from bottom to top so that air bubbles are preserved. If a student making a foam cake such as an angel food cake did not use the technique, their angel food cake will likely not have the texture or the appearance of one where the technique of folding was used. I know for myself, I was not familiar with most of the cooking terms before I started taking foods classes in high school. Even though I cooked a lot at home, most of the cooking terms that I knew were all in Chinese and the foods that I made at home with my family were different too. This chapter has definitely given me a lot to consider when teaching. It has really got me thinking about language used in recipes, how recipes can be written (eg. in paragraphs, in sentences etc. ) and which form may be more accessible to students, and to be more aware of what I may be omitting and what needs to be included when providing instructions and when communicating with students.