When and where did I find this word: I found this word last night (Sat. Nov. 19th) when I was reviewing the article I chose for my classmates to read this week for my reciprocal teaching project. The article is called, "Writing to learn across the curriculum: Tools for comprehension in content area classes." (2006) by Kathy J. Knipper and Timothy J. Duggan. The word appears in the small paragraph about ABC lists on page 468.
What this word means: This word in context means that students gain the understanding of the concepts they are learning and internalize the meanings and/or connections they have made with them. According to www.dictionary.com, the word conceptualize means to form into a concept or make a concept of.
Level of familiarity: I have certainly heard this term used in the latter half of my educational career. I think I started to hear this term in high school. Teachers would often tell us that we needed to conceptualize the information they were giving us. The funny thing is that I don't think any one of them actually told us what that term meant. It wasn't until I started the education program at Florida Institute of Technology that I heard the term again and had to gain an actual understanding of its meaning.
Is this a word I want to know well?: I think this is a great word to know. Learning concepts is the way people can build knowledge onto old and existing knowledge to form new ideas and new connections so they can become more intelligent and communicate appropriately with their surrounding environment/society as to contribute towards a greater cause. Learning to conceptualize knowledge is extremely beneficial for everyone. That's how new ideas are born.
Is this a word I want others to know well?: I think others should definitely learn this term and use it, know it. This term goes hand in hand with becoming 'literate" and even obtaining a quality education. This term can be used by not only people in the education field but certainly by people everywhere all of the time. Everyone is conceptualizing information at one point or another throughout their day, whether it be formal or informal.
When and where did I find this word: I found this word reading the article I handed out to my classmates for our reciprocal teaching project, "Writing to learn across the Curriculum: Tools for comprehension in content area classes." (2006) written by Kathy J. Knipper and Timothy J. Duggan I read the article and encountered the term last weekend (November 12-13th) so I could prepare for the delivery of my project to my peers. The term Microtheme came up and I used another source to try and make sense of the word (or strategy in this case) and I found myself still fuzzy about what it is.
What this word means: A Microtheme is where students are asked to write about key ideas/concepts from a reading assignment, demonstration, experiment or lecture they received but recalling those ideas/concepts in their own words. Apparently these are also called "summaries" and written on index cards for easy teacher feedback.
Level of familiarity: I am sure at some point in my educational career I have encountered some type of activity similar to this in which it might have been called a Microtheme but I cannot directly recall any specific event where I know I have heard this term before. I actually feel that I am not that familiar with this term. Is this a word I want to know well? I definitely feel this is a term I want to know well because it is technically a strategy that I might want to incorporate into my classroom learning experience for the future.
Is this a word I want others to know well?: I think it is always a good idea for teachers to brush up on terms they might not know or know well at least but also strategies that might be beneficial to their classroom. I think the more strategies a teacher has to draw from the richer an experience they can give their students in terms of a good wholesome quality education.
When and where did I find this word: I found this word as I was reading Chapter 10 in the Content-Area Writing Book written by Harvey Daniels, Steven Zemelman, and Nancy Steineke. I have been trying to catch up on school work today (November 19th, 2011) so this post should have already been published. The term analytical caught my attention because we talk about it so often yet I don't usually stop to think about it when it's in print. For some reason while I was reading, I felt I needed a better understanding of this term. The text was talking about assessing a student's analytical thinking.
What this word means: The term analyze (to me) means to critically look, think, or work with. The text wants to know about a student's analytical thought processes so I would assume the gist of the word is similar to that of critically thinking about something. According to www.dictionary.com, analytical means pertaining to or proceeding by analysis. Analysis is defined as the separating of any material or abstract entity into its constituent elements.
Familiarity: I would say I am fairly familiar with this word yet my general understanding of the term is/was skewed. I looked at the term as having to do with critically thinking about, and while you still do that it really means to break down into its elemental parts to look and think about them individually.
Is this a word I want to know well? With the amount of times I have seen and heard this term used in the education field, I would definitely say that I want to know this word well. It is a word that I should be using more often within the contexts of my conversations in classrooms. Breaking down processes in the education field seems to be a beneficial way in teaching students to learn material and concepts they should know/acquire.
Is this a word I want others to know well?: I think that others in the education field should certainly know this word well since it involves the thinking process of his/her students. If we are not familiar with the terms that are being used in our daily classrooms, educational settings then I think we are held back as educators delivering our greatest potential.
When and where did I find this word: I found this word as I was reading Chapter 10 in the Content-Area Writing Book written by Harvey Daniels, Steven Zemelman, and Nancy Steineke. I have been trying to catch up on school work today (November 19th, 2011) so this post should have already been published. The portion of the chapter that uses this term describes a mathematical writing prompt involving a graph and when I read the term it interested me since I have heard it many times in my life.
What this word means: The term in the book uses the general definition of the term which in my own words would be to encompass, or include. According to www.dictionary.com, the term embodied means to embrace or comprise; or even to collect into. I supppose my 'gist' of the word is somewhat accurate. Level of familiarity: I usually hear this term in the context of spirituality and paranormal situations. Occasionally I hear this term used in the education field when talking about the student body and what they are to be learning. I am familiar with this word but I do not find myself using the word that often. I am not sure why. Maybe I should try it.
Is this a word I want to know well? I think this is a neat word to know. I think that it has been a beneficial term to know for me since a lot of my interests have used the term and I have needed to understand it in many contexts. I think it's a word that definitely gets used quite a bit.
Is this a word I want others to know well?: I believe that this is a word others should at least know the general meaning of because it is so commonly used within a variety of contexts.
When and where did I find this word:Today (Nov. 5th, 2011) when I was reading Chapters 4 and 6 of the Word Wise & Content Rich: Five Essential steps to teaching Academic Vocabulary written by Douglas Fisher and Nancy Frey, I found this word on the first page of Chapter 6. The chapter starts by describing a scenario with a teacher and how she was able to offer a student supplemental materials to help facilitate his vocabulary growth with a topic he is interested in. One of the terms the student learned was collusion, and
he told his teacher about the term.
What this word means: In the context of the text, the term is only offered as a vocabulary term that is of importance, but the sentence following states the student said the coach used the baseball scandal as an example of the term collusion. According to www.dictionary.com, the term collusion means a secret agreement, especially for fraudulent or treacherous purposes; conspiracy.
Level of familiarity: I am not familiar with this term. I feel as if I have seen or heard the term before, but I cannot be certain. I do know that out of the terms listed in the chapter, this one was the one I could not grasp a definition on.
Is this a word I want to know well? I do not feel this is a term I want or need to know well. I am not a fraudulent or treacherous person, nor do I intend on committing those types of acts. I think the term might be one that could occasionally appear in stories, books, and articles but in the event I do not know the word, I can use the dictionary to supplement my reading experience. I would say no, I don't care to learn this word well even though I was interested when I was reading.
Is this a word I want others to know well?: Unless others plan on using this word often, which I would hope not, then I would say no to others learning this word well also. It is not a word that should be used in everyday conversation.
When and where did I find this word: I actually used this word when talking to my husband on the phone in regards to electronic hook ups for television, internet, sources etc. He had called me to ask if we had an HDMI cord for our new television and I had no idea what that was or what it looked like. He tried to give me a description of the cord itself as I stood aimlessly in the living room of the house we are moving out of and I quickly replied, "I am not SAVVY with anything electronic." This happened shortly ago, November 4th, 2011 around 1:30pm.
What this word means: According to www.dictionary.com, the word Savvy refers to knowing or understanding something. I used the word correctly but I was quick to think about the term I used and how it just rolled off of my tongue without a second thought. That term has obviously been burned into my vocabulary repertoire but I wonder now, how is that so? Is this a word that many people use all of the time, or is this a word that I wanted to know because it intrigued me? I am curious as how this word came to be part of my everyday vocabulary.
Level of familiarity: Obviously this word is very very familiar to me. It is a word that just rolls of the tongue without having to think about. The more someone uses a word, the more that word becomes etched into their vocabulary repertoire. This makes me think: what if we ACTUALLY USE the vocabulary words we have to give our students on a daily/weekly/monthly basis. I remember learning vocabulary words in school but we never used them again after quizzes. Why do we become exposed to words that are never going to be used? This thought needs to be continued later... Is this a word I want to know well? Whether or not I want to know it well, I DO know it well. :) I cannot recall the moment I learned this word, so part of my frustration and part of my curiosity have caused the wheels to spin in my mind in regards to vocabulary acquisition. I wonder what it was that caused this word to enter into my vocabulary repertoire and when did it start becoming part of my everyday speech? How long did it take for all of this to happen? I am glad I know this word well because it gives me the opportunity to reflect back and maybe recall some important information that is practical for me in terms of literacy and vocabulary.
Is this a word I want others to know well?: I think this is a neat word. I think it is a great word to know for all students, actually all people. It is a word that I think is used quite frequently. I am not sure why others should know this word but I think that if others have an idea when/where they learned this word and how it came to be so natural in their vocabulary repertoires, it might help me to understand my curiosity with the term.
