Painting Schemas

  The third chapter of the book, Rigor By Design Not Chance, focuses mainly on building schemas into lessons and their importance in the classrooms. Schemas can be integrated for any concept but are mainly used for language arts and math. The book relates building schemas to the Actionable Assessment Cycle by explaining how schemas can be applied to deepen the student learning process. In my last post, I discussed the importance of stage six of the Actionable Assessment Cycle, but building schemas should occur in the first five stages. 

        A stage that stuck out to me in this chapter was stage two: Embed short-cycle formative tasks into instruction. Stage two is “Opportunities to deepen conceptual understanding help students connect ideas, explain relationships, and ask questions that reflect substantive understanding” (Hess, 2023). Schemas help make this stage more impactful. The strategies that correlate with this stage include sketch notes, mind maps, painting the parts, and anchor charts. All of these schemas help students organize and retain information. These allow students to develop a process to support their learning in the future. Once they practice these, it is more likely that they will be able to retain the process and apply it to something else in the future. 

        The “paint the parts” schema impacted me when I read about it in the book, as I have benefitted from learning by color-coding my texts and notes. It is a visual way for students to understand the writing process of different concepts, such as paragraphs, arguments, opinions, or other structured writings. In my third-grade placement, the students will learn about paragraphs and how to organize them. Color coding can make this process more effective as the students can remember what comes next based on the color that should be there. For example, suppose we practice that the topic sentence is red, the body of the paragraph is yellow, and the closing sentence is green. The students can refer to the colors to know what is missing or strengthen their understanding of the process. Color coding allows students to reinforce their understanding of the schema and break down the process. 

        The article called Color Education: A Study on Methods of Influence on Memory supports the “paint your parts” schema as it discusses how implementing a color-based schema impacts students’ retention of information. The article states, “Numerous studies proved the importance of colors which may bring working memory into operation in the learning process” (Diachenko, 2022). Color is an essential part of our memory that helps us remember processes and allows us to break down our thoughts to become less overwhelmed. The article also explains, “Using color for memory stimulation could increase the capacity of coding, storage, and recognition of environmental stimuli, whereas colors and respective manipulations may influence human memory performance” (Diachenko, 2022). Color impacts memory for not just paragraph writing but also anything in the classroom. Having colors in the classroom relates to the memory stimulation students need. Actively using colors in activities to establish schemas will help students with their memory performance. 

        The article also made a vital discovery that the specific colors have different effectiveness values in student learning. The figure below shows which colors were the most effective for memory retention in student learning. 

                                                    (Diachenko, 2022)


As shown, red is the most effective color for memory retention, according to the study. This is something to consider as a teacher when color-coding different concepts. After learning this, I will ensure when creating classroom schemas within lessons or around the classroom, I will use red for the most essential part that I want my students to remember. 



References


Diachenko, I., Kalishchuk, S., Zhylin, M., Kyyko, A., & Volkova, Y. (2022). Color education: A study on methods of influence on memory. Heliyon, 8(11), e11607. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.heliyon.2022.e11607


Hess, Karin. (2023).  Rigor by Design, Not Chance: Deeper Thinking Through Actionable   Instruction and Assessment. ASCD ASSN SUPERV CURR DEV, 2023.

Comments

  1. Dr. Beth Walsh-MoormanNovember 6, 2023 at 3:13 PM

    Thanks for showing us the science behind this strategy. Interesting take on the reading.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Lucy PattisonNovember 8, 2023 at 10:09 AM

    The science behind the colors is so fascinating. As a K-12 student, I definitely benefited from using color-coded activities. I wonder why red is the most effective color for memory retention. Hess explains in the book the importance of helping students build schemas. The article you found directly supported her notion that teachers need to implement these activities in their classrooms. I wonder if these activities also engage the students. Overall, I am excited to research how to use color activities in my future math lessons.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Mr. ForsytheNovember 19, 2023 at 4:23 PM

    Hello Megan,
    In Painting Schemas, you bring up some really lovely details about how schemas can be a massive influence on the assessment cycle as well as the classroom. Your quote about opportunities, and how it helps students connect ideas, explain relationships, and ask questions really resonated with me. It is essential to lead students to these qualities so they can independently think and grow cognitively. You also provide examples with sketch notes, mind maps, and anchor charts to support student thinking. Tying that painting the parts, for example, helps you visualize your notes and understand them deeply. I kind of agree, although sometimes it seems like a lot of work. It was also interesting to see the chart you put into the discussion about the colors used in the value of student learning. I didn’t realize colors could even have an impact on student comprehension. Overall great work and great thoughts.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Creating a Fishbowl

               The book's fifth chapter, Rigor By Design Not Chance, focuses mainly on designing complex tasks and that performance-based assessments should vary. In performance-based assessments, students should apply multiple concepts and skills to the project. The students, therefore, create complex solutions. These complex performance assessments develop opportunities for students to think critically and creatively. The best way to complete these complex tasks is to work with others. On page 93, “...we can tackle much more complex, performance-based tasks when we work on them with others than if we work on them alone, especially when we’re first learning how to do those tasks” (Hess, 2023). There are many different ways to approach a complex assessment. Collaboration is an excellent way for students to understand what is being asked of them.  The chapter also discusses the importance of progression when building complex performance t...
Read more

Shaping the Academic Mindset

       The first chapter of the book, Rigor by Design Not Chance, is called Laying the Foundation for Deeper Learning . This chapter discusses the six competencies needed for deeper learning. The competencies are mastering core academic content, thinking critically and solving complex problems, working collaboratively on complex tasks, communicating effectively, learning how to learn, and developing an academic mindset. These six competencies create deeper learning for students to become “actively immersed in challenging tasks that require them to seek out and acquire new knowledge, apply what they have learned, and build on that learning to construct new knowledge” (Hess, 2023. Pg. 8).        There are three essential College- and Career-readiness (CCR) skill sets to help students become engaged learners, independent learners, and self-directed learners. These help students make connections. During the learning process, the student must act...
Read more

Student-Led Metacognition and Reflection

Image
  Chapter six of the book Rigor By Design Not Chance focuses mainly on engaging students in metacognition and reflection. Metacognition and self-reflection are vital skills students need to become independent learners. Metacognition helps monitor learning progress, while self-reflection must occur after learning. They allow students to be aware of their learning path, and students can recognize their contributions to it (Hess, 2023). The book also provides discourse and collaboration strategies that help students learn how to self-assess. One of the strategies is called the GPS-I Rule to structure productive group work. It involves group processing, positive independence, simultaneous engagement, and individual accountability (Hess, 2023). This strategy enhances students’ understanding of how to work constructively with peers. It allows students to be engaged in their learning and reflect on their understanding as it develops positive independence and individual accountabili...
Read more