Chapter 12 Reflection: What is the potential difference between an "activity" and a "sense making activity"? Why is it important to make sure you're differentiating a sense making activity rather than just an activity?
An activity is something students will make or do on a high level,and causes the stuthink using an essential skill or information in order to understand an essential idea or principle or answer an essential question. A sense making activity is interesting to the student. It calls on the student to use a key skill to understand a key idea. A differentiated sense making activity matches a student's level of understanding or skill to the complexity of the task. It also involves student interest or giving the student choices about different aspects of a topic. In other words, it encourages students to make sense of an idea in a preferred way of learning.
An activity sounds to me as choosing just an activity to "fill in the blank." A sense making activity is that one that makes sense, and have certain degree of relevance. It is important to differentiate the sense making activity according to the student's readiness, interest, and learning style; consequently because that activity is the one most students will fill comfortable with, they will be more engaged and they will benefit the most from.
An "Activity" sounds like doing something for the sake of just doing busy work. A "Sense making activity" sounds to me like a well planned activity that has meaning and purpose. That it is aligned based on student data and level of learning. You need to do more or all of your activities using the latter one...why because it is the right way and the best way to grow and teach these kids to learn. You will zoom them in instead of zoning them out.
Just having an activity is just what it sounds like, a teacher standing in front of a class. A sense making activity is an activity that is planned and will keep the students interested. The students will want to work and will be willing to complete the assignments. The students will be eager to learn and would want to keep going. Teachers have to keep in mind the importance of students’ interest. When students feel that a teacher is just standing in front of them and saying blah, blah, blah the students are in their own little world. At that point the teacher is just doing an activity. When students are moving around and working hard, the teacher has created sense making activity, because the students understand the material being taught. I always say put yourself in the students’ shows when planning your lesson.
The potential difference between an “activity” and a “sense making” is that the sense making activity makes sense to all the learners. They can clearly comprehend the purpose and outcome of the activity. As a teacher, it makes me totally satisfied when the students can verbally and in writing that they comprehend the objective of the lesson. It is extremely important that I carefully planned each lesson, differentiated activities, and extended lessons that make sense to the students. My job is to modify my lesson if it is not making sense to the students. The focus skill will remain the same, yet various approaches will be implemented. Patreece Perry-Pelt
The difference between and activity and sense making activity is the activity is busy work. The sense making activity is accurate and most effective. The activites that are selected for differentiated instruction should be based on suggested instructional activites, testimonials, or tried and truth practices. Each activity should be matched with a deficiency or weakness so that effective solutions are accomplished and will help with increasing a students progrees. We don't want to miss the mark by giving to students non-relateable activities, we want to meet them were they are and this mean give them the precise prescription to get better. Karen Smith
An activity is just a task you assign to all your students to work on a certain skill or to help them understand the content you are teaching. A Sense-making activity is a task that is interesting to every student, encourages them to think at a higher level, and prompts them to use an essential skill to understand key ideas. A sense-making activity includes differentiated instruction, scaffolding, answering an essential question, etc. Claudia Ocampo
I believe that the difference between an “activity” and a “sense making activity “is the degree of purpose and importance. All activities in school have purpose and importance. However, some are of higher levels than others. I believe “sense making activities” are more purposeful and important than a regular activities because it involves higher order thinking and problem solving skills. Whereas a regular activity may require lower level cognitive skills to complete. Susan
According to Tomlinson, an activity is something students will make using an essential skill(s) and essential information, or do in order to understand an essential idea/principle or answer an essential question. Sense making activities help students process and “own” ideas and information in ways that work best for them, usually in a range of modes at varied degrees of sophistication, time span, or teacher/peer support. A good sense making activity can effectively help a student understand an essential idea, principle, or answer an essential question (How to Differentiate Instruction in Mixed-Ability Classrooms. Pg .80).
An activity is something students make or do using essential skills and essential information. The activity helps them understand an essential idea/principle or answer an essential question. The actitivity can range in degrees of difficulty, sophistication and time span depending on the individual learner. A sense making idea means the process or opportunity for learners to process the content or ideas and skills introduced. The student needs time to analyze, apply, question, or solve a problem using the material at hand in order to make sense of it. This process is critical because if it doesn't make sense they won't "get it".
A sense making activity should be designed to assist students in moving from levels of their comprehension to levels of complexity. This process will occur because the student will have already acquired Key Skills, and ideas to make a smooth transition. A sense making activity should be interesting. Differentiated Instruction should provide more than one way to make sense of essential points. A reliable sense making activity is designed with readiness, and specific learning modalities. Differentiating according to students’ needs means allows students to explore, and investigate types of knowledge. Select a style of learning that matches a student’s profile. Students can explore or investigate in different ways. Exploring can be done creatively, according to student’s needs. Some students are kinesthetic leaners, while others are spatial. Verbal skills or profiles meet the styles of some learners, and not others. Time frames may address creature students working alone instead of groups. A structure must be flexible and used according to diverse needs. Barbara Harris
Basically " Sense making activity" is a sense making activity. It's an activity that is designerd to help the student make sense of the underlying principles. This type of activity is one that has been processed and made sense to and by the student. I feel that is the biggest difference between each other (the activity and making sense activity.)
In my opinion an activity where students spend more than 10 minutes to decipher is one that is ineffective.
A making sense activity builds on what the student already knows and is designed to move the student from his or her current point of understanding to one a bit more complex. That is how I feel students truly learn and retain...by building.
Lastly when we differentiate, we must always keep in mind student interest, building from lower level to higher level mode of thinking and always keep in mind key skills and key ideas.
Sense making activities should always be created and not limited to multiple intelligences, interest groups, graphic organizers, complex instruction, concept attainment and independent study.
An activity can be just about anything. It can have purpose and even meaning but is it rigorous and does it have depth. A sense -making activity makes me think more critically and on many different levels, there is no quick easy answer. I t might require more scaffolding, more differentiation, and maybe even more personal attention. Some students are able to easily grasp a concept and move on to the next level however other students need to feel comfortable if it takes longer to get the concept. Those that can get it more easily can be provided with choice activities that challenge them while still keeping them interested and engaged. Zina Berman
An Activity is any type of activity given by a teacher to keep the students busy. These are neither purposeful nor meaningful assignments. Students today are very low we cannot afford to assign busy work to our students. Sense making activity on the other hand help student process and own ideas and information in ways that work best for them. Sense-making activities are activities that are based on data and teacher use student’s data to drive instruction through DI. It is important to make sure you are differentiating a sense making activity rather than just an activity because the sense-making activities help students process and retain the information.
The potential difference between an “activity” and a “sense making activity” is that the latter is an effective activity designed to help the student to progress from his/her current level of understanding to a more complex level of understanding. An activity is “using essential skills and information in order to understand the idea/principle or answer a question”. However, a sense making activity adds to those factors the “range of modes at varied degrees and uses varied amounts of teacher or peer support”. The use of these strategies helps the teacher to reach out to individual students and match the activities or process to their needs. Sense-making strategies help students to “own” the ideas and information instead of losing them or being confused. Maria Santiago-Parreno
An activity is student will make or do, using an essential skill and essential information which they have been introduced. When students encounter new ideas, information or skills which they need time to input through their own filters of meaning. Sense making activity any effective activity essentially sense making progress ,designed to help student progress from current point of understanding to more complex level of understanding . Students process and make sense of ideas and information most easily when their classroom activities are interesting and call students to think on a high level.
As the text stated that in the language of school, that process is often spoken of an activity, and that it is wisest to use the term “sense-making activity “just to remind ourselves that an activity, achievers maximum power as a vehicle for learning only when it is squarely focused on a portion of something essential that students need to know. A good activity uses essential skills and answer essential questions, but a good differentiated activity will require students to make a range of modes at different times and degrees and at different times, with peer and teacher support. A sense making activity is not just an activity to be requires for a grade, but to make sense of an activity will engage students. An opportunity that addresses students’ interest should be provided. A profile of the students’ interest should be the first criteria los a sense making component. High level thinking should be another component. Students will move from the known to the unknown levels of instructions using key skills. Diversity is considered in measuring effectiveness also. The students should provide many ways to make sense of learning. Exploring matches a students’ modality that is kinesthetically inclined. Expressing students’ abilities maybe done spatially or verbally. Some students may be creative, but prefer working alone. A sense making activity will allow students to be more flexible, and creative at using logs, and learning contents. Literature circles or learning contracts can be adapted to; student’s needs, and learning styles. Carolyn Collins
• An activity calls for a specific task to be completed at a certain time by students. However, a sense making activity is very well differentiated. It is “designed to help a student progress from a current point of understanding to a more complex level of understanding. Those sense-making activities are interesting to students and call for students to use higher level thinking. They also cause the students to use key skill to understand key ideas.
The potential difference between an activity and a “sense making activity” is just as it sounds, the opportunity for learners to process the content or ideas and skills to which they have been introduced. This processing or sense-making is an essential component of instruction, because, without it, students either lose the ideas or confuse them. In the language of school, process is often spoken of as an activity. It’s probably wisest to use the term “sense-making activity” to remind ourselves that an activity achieves maximum power as a vehicle for learning only when it is squarely focused on a portion of something essential that students need to know, understand, and be able to do as a result of a particular study. Any effective activity is essentially a sense-making process, designed to help a student process from a current point of understanding. It is important make sure you’re differentiating a sense making activity rather than just an activity because sense making activities or strategies help students process and “own” ideas and information.
The difference between an activity and a sense making activity is that an activity is busy work and not much planning goes into it, whereas, a sense making activity is interesting to the student and well planned. It’s important to differentiate a sense making activity so students can use their skill level to complete their assignments. Pamela Robinson
An activity is potentially just "busy work" that teachers give students just to pass the time during class. There is no actual learning goal to be accomplished by the students nor is there any reinforcement of previous instruction.
A "sense making activity" is one that is a process and/or an opportunity for learners to process the content or ideas and skills to which they have been introduced. In other words, a sense making activity has a clear learning goal for students and/or it is an activity that reinforces something that was taught in class recently.
It is important to make sure that I am differentiating a sense making activity rather than just an activity because instructional time is very precious and there is no time to waste on "bust work." Each moment of class is valuable and there need to be clear learning goals established as well as essential reinforcement of ideas, skills, concepts and benchmarks.
An effective sense-making activity requires the student to process and own the concept. It forces the student into an active role. An “activity”, by contrast, can be completed successfully in a mechanical or automatic fashion, wherein the students simply go through the motions. This type of activity is closer to busy wo, because it does not require engagement. An activity can be un-engaging by virtue of being too advanced or too easy.
A sense-making activity which is short and focses on one key understandings and skills. Should help students rethink ,use and extend what they have learned over a long period of time.Welldesign assigments can be highly motivating.
Chapt 12 Unless an activity is owned by the student, sense-making cannot achieve maximum power. Students need to process and make sense of ideas and skills that have already been introduced.
A sense-making activity helps a student progress to a more complex level of learning and understanding. If students are not given the time for this processing they may lose the ideas or become confused. This is a time for them to use the knowledge they have and take it to a greater understanding.
A sense-making activity is an activity that achieves maximum power as a vehicle for learning somehting essential that students need to know. On the other hand, an activity is used when students understand the concept being taught.
Activity is when a student needs to know a particular lesson in order to move on to the next level. Sense making activity is when a student understands a material and is now able to show the activity themselves and express how they understood the material. Students must be able to provide the proper information clearly make sense of the "sense making activity". This is important because it gives the teacher a clear understanding that the students understood the material and can practically explain how to do an activity.
Any effective activty is essentially a sense-making process, designed to help a student progress from current point of understanding to a more complex level of understanding.
Any effective activty is essentially a sense-making process, designed to help a student progress from current point of understanding to a more complex level of understanding. Tony Casas Chapter 12
Chap.12-I have always heard from my teaching mentors...avoid giving students "busy work" or just giving out "ditto worksheets"! The reality is busy work leads to no learning at all, that's the bottom line! In a Differentiated Classroom, having effective activity that make sense for the student to "learn and grasp" what you are teaching is your ultimate goal! Even "anchor activities" should have a targeted teaching goal and tiered to meet your different learner needs.
It is important to make a sense making activity rather than just an activity because students need to make sense of the material on their own. If it is just an activity on material they already know they are not using the process or common sense to understand what they need to know. I really like the idea of sense making activity because students will not actually be putting this information to work until they make sense of it on their own.
A "sense making activity" helps process and deepen the understanding of a concept, while an activity is more about doing something. I can best explain this in thinking of the following examples relating to learning vocabulary: 1. Students copy definitions from a dictionary (activity) 2.Students use a concept map to define, write sentences using the vocabulary, giving examples and non-examples and illustrating their understanding of the vocabulary (sense-making activity).
There are many times in which teachers feel that they don't have time to "differentiate" and therefore any worksheet will do. However, giving students any worksheet will only hinder their learning as all they are doing is robotic work that doesn't lead to actual "learning." Again, careful planning is of the essence. Once a routine is established, and there is knowledge about all the students, it should become a lot easier to find work that is relevant to each student.
An activity is going through the motions, completing the steps, following a procedure. Some students may do the activity but not learn from the activity. Differentiating an activity would not add to the teaching and learning process. It would just be doing another motion, completing another set of steps, or following another type of procedure. However, an activity where students have to engage in a thought process, make connections, and apply what they are learning to a task, performance, or product is the type of sensemaking activity that can be differentiated. Sensemaking is the construction of knowledge. Students make meaning, or make sense, of what they are learning, therefore, teachers can adjust instruction to get students to make sense of an idea by using a learning process that appropriate to the learner, or construct knowledge based on their learning preferences, or perform a task that demonstrates their individual understanding of the topic, idea, or lesson learned.
I mentioned an example of a Differentiated Instruction activity in my very first blog entry that pretty much represents a simple ”activity” as opposed to a “sense making activity.” I recall stating that too many of the DI exercises that I have observed would fit into the former category. I also mentioned that I could not see how a senior Honors English class could possibly come up with a sense making activity for weaker students. The examples we get in this chapter (12)--comparing different types of animal communities or defining “everlasting”-- don’t appear to me to be sense making because I am thinking about DI with the students that I teach (high school). The exercise for Mr. Jackson’s second graders could be sense making. Even Mrs. Millers’ sixth grade students, I assume, have to do a lot more with a novel than simply get examples that represent a key idea that the author might want the readers to focus on. Both these exercises appear to be “sense making.” However, for the students I teach, such exercises would be busy work. My students would have to write at least one essay about any novel that they read, and the essay would have to take the author’s ideas or definitions into consideration. The vocabulary exercises in the text also strike me as being a busy work type of activity. And again, I would have to say that I find vocabulary exercises that I have observed for juniors and seniors to be busy work. These higher grade students should be working on critical analysis. They should be analyzing the author’s strategies and perhaps making real world or personal experience connections. Any differentiation that replaces this might be cheating the weaker students, as perhaps they have been cheated in their earlier grades. My position has been and continues to be skeptical as to how students in the upper grades would benefit from DI. When I worked with weaker students in college or eleventh or twelfth grade, they would usually have to do extra work, not different work, because the objectives of the courses could not be compromised. In second and even sixth grade, perhaps the objective is strictly fact or information acquisition, so how students manage to retain the information could be irrelevant. In courses that are geared toward skill development, sense making activities might be more difficult to tailor. They would have to show that the students can think analytically, and that type of exercise does not easily accommodate skill level differentiation.
A sense making activity should be interesting, require thinking, and shows that a student has processed the information. The student was able to make sense of the idea by being able to demonstrate what they learned from the lesson.
T. Junious The difference between an "activity" and a "sense making activity" is that an "activity" is just something that you do with the students. Something that you as the teacher have decided to do because you know that your students need to learn the concept, the novel, etc. But a "sense making activity" is the activity that the students buy into. They make the activity their own. the student recognizes the importance of learning or doing the activity. They can visualize how the activity will benefit them. I see the "sense making activity" as something that the students can take ownership of. i think this is really important to do in differentiating instruction with struggling learners especially. Because of their learning deficiencies some things have to be taught in repitition and if the activity could be a "sense making activity" then the student will hopefully be willing to go through the entire process until thay have actually mastered the concept.
“An effective activity is essentially a sense-making process, designed to help a student progress from a current point of understanding to a more complex level of understanding.” An activity that is interesting to the students, call for students to think at a higher level, and cause students to use key skills to understand key ideas are apt to make sense and engage the learner. It is important to create sense making activities that differentiate because students need to do work that varies in levels of sophistication and time span for completion. Also, students must use an essential skill and access information with varying degrees of teacher assistance.
An activity could be just any activity, probably a busy work activity. "A sense making activity" is an activity with a purpose, and has meaning to the learner. This type of activity requires differentiation according to the type of learner a you have in the classroom.
An Activity is something that students do when instructed by their Teacher to complete. Students will complete a task by utilizing their basic skills and answer the necessary question to receive a grade. On the other hand, a sense making activity requires higher order thinking and forces students to seek other avenues to complete a task. Differentiating a sense making help students to take ownership and challenge them go beyond their comfort zone. The sense making activity gives opportunity for students to show off their different talents when working in a group. Each student has a responsibility to complete their part base on their specific abilities. SMA make students accountable for their responsibilities on presenting quality work for a share grade.
An “activity “ to me is just like to do something to have fun, to review what you have learned through experience , or to impress the content by hands-on. You don’t have to prepare the activities ahead of time and do it randomly. A “sense making activity” is the one you have to plan, prepare ahead of time to differentiate the students and make sure each one of them can meet their need through the activity. So the students can clearly comprehend the purpose and outcome of the activity. A good sense making activity can effectively help a student understand an essential idea, principle, or answer an essential question. Through a good sense of activity, the students will be encouraged and grasp the content they are learning.
Sense making Activity is an activity which is connected to a purpose in mind. It is based on expectations (assumption) about a further step. In other words, it is the activity teachers use to affect positively the learning process, it is an activity connected to impact current decision and actions on future outcomes. So Sense Making Activity is an approach to differentiate instruction. Activity is an approach, a procedure, etc. which is connected to a purpose in mind, but a general purpose. An activity contributes to one or more types of early childhood development and will help prepare your child for future learning By Mr. De La Paz
Chapter 12 reflection- The potential difference between an"activity" and a "sense making activity" is that a sense making activity is and activity that endorses students making sense of content, ideas and skills so that it becomes "theirs". Students need tome to run new ideas, information and skills through their own filters of meaning. Without this opportuntiy students will wither lose the ideas or confuse them. Students process and make sense of ideas and information most easily when their classroom activites are: interesting, require the students to think at a high level, and cause students to use key skills to understand key ideas and concepts. As teachers providing students with good differentiated activities, we need to offer students more than one way to make sense of what is important. We must remember that is is the quality and focus of what students do that is most important. Sense making activities are most effective when the response matches student learning needs. Sense making strategies help students process and "own" ideas and information in ways that work best for them.
An activity is anything that you give the students to complete regardless of whether they understand or not. A sense making activity targets each students' needs. For example, when dealing with verbs there are some students who grasp it easily and so you might have them move to different tenses while others still need to practice the present tense rules.
Chapter 12 Reflection: What is the potential difference between an "activity" and a "sense making activity"? Why is it important to make sure you're differentiating a sense making activity rather than just an activity?" Sense Making Activity" are classroom activities that are interesting to the students, call on the students to think at a higher level, cause the students to use a key skill or skills to understand a key idea or ideas. "Good Differentiated Activity" are matching the complexity of a task to a student's current level of understanding and skill, involves giving students choices about the different topic in which to specialize or help them link a personal interest to a sense making goal, encouraging the students to make sense of an idea in a preferred way of learning. In order to support differentiated process is to tier assignments or parallel tasks at various levels of difficulty.Finally, there are different ways of delivering information examples are as follows: multiple intelligences, interest groups, varied graphic organizers, complex instruction, concept attainment, and independent study. But at the end it is still the quality of the skills that predominately affects the students understanding of the material/s presented to them.
Chapter 12 Student‘s interest, ideas and information are the main ingredients to sense making activities. This is important because in the differentiating process if we focus on the essential areas that the student needs to know, understand and able to do, results in achievable levels of learning. The teacher maintains the interest and at the same time challenges the students while allowing them to use and master concepts according to their readiness and learning profiles.
I think an activity refers to something that a student or a group of student have done. An activity is something that is given to the student to complete, it does not matter whether the student understands it or not. A sense making activity is an activity, that makes sense, it takes into consideration the student's ideas and their interest. It is important to differentiate the sense making activity according to the student's readiness, interest, and learning style, I think that students will b comfortable and will be engaged and it will be meaningful to them.
Chapter 12/Reflection/ Differentiating Process To me the potential difference that exists between an activity and a sense making activity is the fact in the later one the student is able to manage, comprehend and apply the learned skill with great enthusiasm and he or she is able to reproduce or apply the skills at different degree of complexity with varied amount of support from both peers and teachers .However,an activity that itself does not often lead to such level of complexity it is just a regular assignment that a student will complete at the end of a given chapter or unit.
The difference between an "activity" and a "sense making activity" is that an "activity" does not take in consideration the student's interest, ideas and information which is the purpose of a "sense making activity". The teacher needs to keep in mind what the student needs to know or achieve by the time they complete the assignenment but also giving the student an activity that matches their learning needs.
Basicall, the difference is that in a classroom where differentiation is in place we are expected to take into account students interests and readiness. That is to say, we need to aim at engage the students at a high level, and we need to develop a skill on them which causes that they understand a key idea. According to the author of the book on differentiation, sense making activities refer to those ones in which the students process their own ideas and information that work for them.
Chapter 12-According to the reading, an activity is an opportunity for students to process the content or ideas and skills to which they have been introduced. For example, if you’re teaching Main Idea and how to identify it, giving an activity to a student who has already mastered identifying Main Idea isn’t meaningful, because they have already processed and made sense of the concept. A sense-making activity is an activity that’s designed to help a student make sense of the underlying principles. I will use the same example (Identifying Main Idea), if the student is unsure or need clarification, giving them a sense making activity wouldn’t be meaningful. They would best benefit from working on an activity that allows them the opportunity to go through the process of analyzing the information to understand the skill. I think that’s its necessary to differentiate throughout your lesson. If you are introducing new material, it would be appropriate to start with an activity. If you see where students have a clear understanding of the material, then you can incorporate a sense-making activity that is designed to build on what the student already knows, which in turn will move the student from his or her current level of understanding to a more complex level of understanding. When differentiating, we must create meaningful activities that are full of rigor, interesting to the students, cause the students to think at a higher level, and cause the student to use key skills to understand key ideas.
An activity is just like it is, if it doesn't have a sense of interesting material in it. You will assign to whole groups and then they do it. But I believe that there is a lot of activity to be assigned but the main point is to teach them in order to learn it .In the other hand, a sense making activity is an activity that is planned and will keep the students interested. You do it by levels for them to perform. The student will be eager to learn and would want to keep going. We need to keep in mind students interests’ When students are moving around they don’t get bored and they have interrelationship with their classmates .Sense making activity encourages them to think at a higher level, and prompts them to use an essential skill to understand key ideas. It also lead them to think , solve, and search, Having them as a group is a very good way to expose them with others and maybe what they didn't understand, they will because they are sharing information and working hard together, so the teacher has created sense making activity.
A sense-making activity is one where it will vary based on the individual, because it demonstrates how the learner synthesizes the information that they learn. This differs from an activity that is crafted in order to have students apply and practice key ideas from the lesson. Both are useful and need to be meaningful for the students.
An activity is one in which students are able to apply and practice the lesson at hand. In process or sense-making, a student questions, analyzes, applies, and solves problems in order for learning to take place, for new knowledge to becomes their own. A sense-making activity is an activity that is designed to help a student make sense of the underlying principles. As Thomlinson says, “It’s wisest to use the term sense-making activity to remind ourselves that an activity achieves maximum power as a vehicle for learning only when it is focused on a portion of something essential that students need to know, understand, and be able to do as a result of a particular study.”
"When students encounter new ideas, information, or skills, they need time to run the input through their own filters of meaning." During this time, teachers need to assign sense-making activities. These activities will allow students to own the information being acquired. Once they have made sense of the information and made it their own, teachers can then introduce all other types of activities.
Because of the limitation in our schedules, we often do not make time for students to process the information they are learning. We rush straight to the final product without giving students activities that will help them better understand the information. Each student takes a different amount of time making sense of new information. Once students have fully grasped the concept and only then should they move on to applying it and completing final products (regular activities).
An activity seems to be something the teacher plans without considering the learning styles, interest and abilities of the students. The lesson looks and sounds good on paper. The teacher may seldom achieve the intended outcome, thus creating a need to reteach the lesson until students gain an understanding. With sense making activity. The students needs. interest, readiness level and learning style are intertwined/layered throughout the lesson in order to provide students various ways to process and express key information .
What is the potential difference between an "activity" and a "sense making activity"? Why is it important to make sure you're differentiating a sense making activity rather than just an activity? A sense making activity is one the students really connect with. It's an activity they truly understand an internalize. It's typically planned with students' abilities, interests and learning styles in mind. An activity is one that does not connect with the students. Basically, it is taught but not learned. It is important that teachers assess students regularly so they can determine if their lessons were more like activities or sense making activities. If a teacher continues to move on with instruction without students connecting to the lesson a gap in learning will be created; thus causing students to fall behind.
It is important to make sure you're differentiating a sense making activity rather than just an activity because an activity could not make a lasting impact in the students mind yet the sense making activity would be a long lasting in the students memory also you should use kinesthetic activity that the students participate and show more interest in the lesson after when you assess after a sense activity you will have an idea whether the student retained the information and make it a long lasting learning.
Any effective activity is essentially a sense-making process, designed to help a student progress from a current point of understanding to a more complex level of understanding, and this happen when the activities are interesting to the students, call on the students to think at a higher level, and so on. Content, process, or sense-making can be differentiated in response to students readiness, interest, and learning profile. Strategies that support differentiated processing are learning logs, journals, graphic organizers, creative problem solving, cubing, among others. Sense- making strategies help students process and own ideas and information in ways that work best for them.
Chapter 12 Reflection: What is the potential difference between an "activity" and a "sense making activity"? Why is it important to make sure you're differentiating a sense making activity rather than just an activity? An activity is what it sounds like, an activity. An assignment to pass the time with for the students, while a sense making activity actually creates a difference for a student. It makes sense to differentiate a sense making activity because thats the activity that the student will actually learn a new lesson from. As I have discussed before, all students learn differently.
A potential difference between an activity and a sense making activity is that a sense making activity is an opportunity for learners to process the content and skills to which they have been introduced. It is very important that teachers make sure that we are differentiating between a sense making activity than just an activity. Students have to make sense of the content they have been introduce. the process of making sense of a content is an essential component of a DI because without it, students may lose the idea or get confused with it. A sense-making activity must achieve the maximum power as a vehicle for learning when it is interesting to the students, promotes a higher level thinking, and causes students to use a learned skill to understand it.
An activity can be any activity. The difference between an activity and a sense-making activity is that in the last one the learners have to process the content. A sense-making activity is essentially an effective activity designed to help students to progress from one point of understanding to a more complex one. A sense-making activity is: interesting to the students, calls for students to think at a higher level, and causes students to use key skills to understand a key idea.
Charter 12 : Developed more strategies more flexible and responsive sense making for Example graphic organizers- creative problems solving, learning centers, interest groups, learning contract, literature circle etc, etc. Each strategy engages the students in a different thinking or processing response sense making activities are most effective.
Every lesson has an activity. The purpose of an activity is to provide a basic foundation to build on prior knowledge. It's primary function is to serve as a starting point and doesn't delve to deeply into the subject matter. For this reason, activities work well with whole group and sense making activities are more appropriate for D.I. Sense making activities continue from where the W.G. Activity leaves off. Because of the great diversity of our students, the sense making activities are intended to be tailored to the student's individual needs and extend their understanding to meet the objective.
The difference between an "activity" and a "sense making activity" is that an "activity" can be just that - an "activity" and it may or may not make sense to the instructor or the students. Students may walk away from it "empty handed" and disconnected from the content being taught. However, a "sense making activity" ties directly into the content being taught, is explicit and an opportunity for students to process the content, ideas, filter and most importantly solve a problem that makes sense to them. Sense making activities keep students engaged, make them think higher order thoughts, answers essential questions that use a variety of learning modes to answer and understand pertain to their learning goals.
The difference between an "activity" and a "sense making activity" is that a sense making activity is all about the process of how to do something. The student must learn how to make sense of something before they can actually learn how to do it. The activity is something given to enrich the students knowledge on something after they make sense of it. It is important to differentiate a sense making activity and a regular activity is that with a sense making activity, if done properly, the students process and "own their ideas", so when they are given the activity they can properly complete it. If you give a student an activity and do not give them a sense making activity, the student may have no clue how to complete the activity. Some examples of sense making activities are learning logs, graphic organizers, literature circles, and role-playing.
The difference between an activity and a sense-making activity is: An activity is used to build skill to proficiency whereas a sense-making activity is used to take the skill from understanding with proficiency to understanding with more complexity. It is important for me to make sure that I am differentiating in a way that will be geared towards understanding with more complexity and not just giving activities that will not build but rather sustain at current level. The idea is always growth and never stagnation.
When referring to a sensemaking activity, you should focus on process. Process means sensemaking or the opportunity for learners to process the content to which they have been introduced. Sensemaking activities are most effective for students when that response matches their learning needs, as well as specified learning goals. Upon completion of reading Chapter 12, to my understanding a good activity should possess the quality of being interesting to the students, call on the students to use a key skills to understand a key idea. You want to make sure you are differentiating a sense making activity because based on the students readiness, interest, and learning profile, they need a powerful vehicles to guide their comprehension of mastery of the skill.
The potential difference between activity and sense making activity is meaningful process. I view activity as busy work. Students know when the work is just work to keep them occupied. It has no meaning to their learning. And, they will ask the teacher if this work/activity is being graded. Differentiating a sense making activity is important because it allows the student and teacher to scaffold to success. Sense making activities allows for the opportunity to process the content or the ideas and skills to which they have been introduced to. The activity needs to achieve.the maximum power as a way for learning only when when it is focused on part of what students need to know and understand.
A " sense - making " activity can be differentiated according to readiness, interest, learning profile. By offering more than 1 way to accomplish a task, students can use a range of modes at varied degrees, use essential skills w/ varied support of teacher/ peer through scaffolding. By inviting more flexible sense - making strategies ( learning logs, journals, graphic organizers, cubing, learning centers, contracts, Literature Circles, role playing, cooperative controversy) , students are engaged. In this way , they " own" ideas and information in ways that work best for them. Attention to pacing ensures that all students have adequate and purposeful work to do during the class period.
The potential difference between an "activity" and a "sense making activity" is that in an "activity" students are not making sense of it, the student is just doing it for completion and not owning it. On the other hand, "sense making activity", students process the actual content creating meaning and making it their own. It is essential for teachers to differentiate a "sense making activity" rather than an "activity" because an "activity" achieves the minimum while "sense making activity" the students progress from a current point of understanding to a more complex understanding. Sense making activities must be interesting to the students, exposes them to think at a higher level and students use a key skill to understand an idea. The teacher differentiates by providing various ways for students to make sense of the content. Therefore, it is important that we differentiate by readiness, interest and learning profile.
The potential difference between an "activity" and a "sense making activity" is that a "sense-making activity" is one that allows for the learner to process the content or ideas and skills to which they have been introduced. This process involves analyzing, applying, questioning, or solving a problem to using the material they have to make sense of something before they can make it their own. This kind of activity is supposed to take students from a current level of knowledge to a more complex level of understanding. Conversely, an "activity" is simply going through the motions without the intent of taking students from current knowledge to more complex levels of understanding. It is important to make sure you're differentiating a sense making activity rather than just an activity because it will encourage learners to think on a higher level, cause learners to access key skills to understand key concepts, and it reaches every learner at their specific level with sufficient challenge. Sense-making activities help learners process and "own" ideas and information in ways that work best for them.
This issue occurs often when I am working with teachers. Many times teachers have not mapped the content to be taught enough to see the full breadth of instruction needed, leaving gaps in understanding of how to differentiate work. This is when I see 'activities' being differentiated and little to no impact on student achievement. Once we are able to work through the content and develop a deeper understanding of the content, the teacher is able to see the breadth needed within 'sense-making' activities. When a teacher takes student differentiation needs into account with a clear understanding of the content, then we see true increases in student achievement.
An activity is a task that students complete for the sake of being in school or is part of the curriculum. It does not encompass the learners profile, interests or readiness what so ever. A sense making activity is an activity that takes students to the next level. They utilize their prior skills to process, analyze, apply, or question the problem as they are trying to make sense of a skill that has already been introduced. In this type of activity, students are ready to own the skill. It is important to have differentiated activities because they include diverse learners. Since students learn differently, they provide more than one way to complete a particular activity. They also take in consideration the learners profile, readiness, and interests.
To me an “activity” is when a teacher does not plan to teach any lesson and that teacher needs to find something to give right a way to the students to complete in class. On the other hand, a “sense making activity” is purposeful and should be planned ahead for the best interest of the students. In a sense making activity, a teacher should assist it to make students move from simple to complex comprehension levels. For example, they will use concepts and principles that are related to a topic to make students understand the material being taught by using an activity. In this case, it will make sense to all students and they will be more interested in doing the activity. It is important to differentiating a sense making activity to match each student's level of understanding or skill to the complexity of the task. Also, the students will be eager to learn about the topic with interest if different choices are used toward achieving their skills or goals.
Assigning "an activity" to me is equivalent to busy work that is unplanned to occupy students without focus on a skill or an end result such as generic worksheets where they are just filling in the blanks. A "sense making activity" should be planned with a specific outcome in mind, differentiated at least according to readiness, and learning profile to achieve a specific goal and help a student to progress from their current point of understanding to a more complex level of understanding.
According to the book, “any effective activity is essentially a sense-making process, designed to help a student progress from a current point of understanding to a more complex level of understanding.” In a sense-making process, a student is able to process and make sense of the information that they have learned their own. These types of activities are most effective when the responses match the learning needs and goals of the lesson.
An activity can be assigned by the teachers for all students to complete to have students doing something. In other words "busy work". Students at grade level or above may complete the activity successfully. However, students performing below grade level may have difficulties completing the activity or may not even know how to do it. An activity can be assigned with no purpose if it is just meant to keep students busy as mentioned earlier. On the other hand, a sense making activity allows students to process and own ideas and information in ways that work best for them. For instance, Mrs. Jackson cube's activity is a great example because she differentiated the activities according to student's level (below, above, etc) and assigned specific activities for students to learn the concepts in varies ways at their levels. Differentiating a sense making activity rather than just an activity is important because a sense making activity has purpose, meaning, and it is relevant to the topic being taught and learned. A sense making activity is a way of differentiating and teaching with purpose. It is also planning with the end in mind!
A sense making activity is an activity that taps into the learners needs. It is an opportunity for students to process the content and skills to wich they have been introduced. A “ sense making activity” is an essential part of instruction because without it students are confused or lost When teachers create an “activity” just for the sake of an exercise, this assignment lacks purpose and does not focus on a portion of something essential that students need to understand and be able to do. It is important for teachers to make sure that they are differentiating a sense activity because it offers variety, more than one way to make sense of what’s important! .
What is the potential difference between an "activity" and a "sense making activity"? Why is it important to make sure you're differentiating a sense making activity rather than just an activity? The difference between activity and sense making activity is the activity work is mainly used to keep the student busy. And sense-making activity is for students to process the content or idea skills to which they have been introduced or higher order thinking. The activities that are selected for differentiating process should be matched to the student’s complexity and current level of understanding so that effective solutions are accomplished and will help with increasing a student’s progress.
It is extremely important to differentiate between the two because a simple “activity” may not be meeting the needs of the students and serving no purpose. Activities should make sense in that they address the students’ deficiencies and not simply busy or cute work to hang in the classroom. As eloquently stated in the text, “Any effective activity is essentially a sense-making process, designed to help a student progress from a current point of understanding to a more complex level of understanding.” Therefore, these activities should be designed to help students make meaningful connections using essential knowledge and skills. It was also mentioned in the text that the activities need to first be “good activities”, which is crucial if the students are truly going to progress as a result of completing the activity. It was stated in the text “Sense-making strategies help students process and “own” ideas and information in ways that work best for them”. I definitely feel that once students have a sense of ownership with whatever they are working on, they will be able to show meaningful progress academically.
The difference between a activity and a sense making activity is the activity work is mainly used to keep the student busy as for a sense-making activity is for students to process the content or idea to which they have been introduced or to higher order think. An activity can be assigned with no purpose if it is just meant to keep students busy. As for a sense making activity allows students to process ideas and information in ways that work best for them. In Mrs. Jackson cube's activity it demonstrates she differentiated the activities according to student's different levels and assigned specific activities for students to learn the concepts in varies ways at their levels. Having a differentiated sense making activity is important because a sense making activity has purpose, meaning, and it is relevant to the topic being taught and learned.
Sense making is an essential component of instruction because without it,students either lose the ideas or confuse the ideas. They are important because these sense making activities are interesting, call on them to think at a high level, cause them to use key skills to understand key ideas.Their different from just an activity in that when students make or do something, the do it in a range of modes at different degrees of sophistication. there is also a varied amount of teacher peer scaffolding and it answers an essential idea/principal or answer to an essential questions. Sens-making strategies help students process and own ideas and information in ways that work best for them. ordinary activities can me classified as busy work. These are the reasons why its important to make that difference.
Sense making is crucial when planning any activity,because is the component that make sense and provoke connections and applications of what the learner is doing,and is a key for motivation and engagement as well.We as educators always needs to look for quality rather than quantity,last one is important when is balanced and make the students be able to think and build their one interest base on the product we present to them as an activity to complete.
The main difference between an activity and a sense making activity is what you get in the process. For example: An activity, is to have students with busy work, it is a routine without allow any creative idea. The attitude of the student is completely passive. On the other hand, in sense making activity the student construct their own knowledge, he/she interact with the environment through the process, and discuss, negotiate, and develop their abilities. It is really important to make each student an active player in the learning process, to engage the students to join in doing tasks. Including problems for solving or questions for answering are important to improve thinking skills. This process involves analyzing, applying, questioning or solving problems; for this reason, it is supposed that every student goes from current level of knowledge to a more complex level of understanding. Maria Gonzalez
When students explore and investigate in different ways, they are exploring creatively, according to student’s needs. Some students are kinesthetic learners, while others are spatial. Verbal skills or profiles meet the styles of some learners, and not others. Time frames may address creature students working alone instead of groups. As per Tomlinson, an activity is something students will do in order to understand an essential idea/principle or answer essential question. Using information, or making activities to help students process and own ideas and information in ways that work best for the groups usually in a range of modes at varied degrees of complexity, duration, or teacher/peer support. A good sense making activity can effectively help a student understand an essential idea, principle, or answer an essential question. Students can explore or investigate in different ways. Exploring can be done creatively, according to student’s needs. Some students are kinesthetic learners, while others are spatial. Verbal skills or profiles meet the styles of some learners, and not others. Time frames may address creature students working alone instead of groups. A sense making activity should be interesting. Differentiated Instruction should provide more than one way to make sense of essential points. A reliable sense making activity is designed with readiness, and specific learning modalities. Vivian Marzall
There is a difference between an activity and a sense making activity in the classroom. In the classroom, an activity does not promote student engagement and learning, it is classified as busy work. A sense making activity allows students to complete activities that are interesting to them, promotes a higher level of thinking, and cause the students to use key skills in order to understand key ideas. It is important to differentiate sense making activities in the classroom because teachers are able to differentiate based on student readiness. Students in a class are not at the same level and when a teacher differentiates, they are scaffolding instruction and are provide students the opportunity to set goals for their learning. As Tomlinson states, when differentiating student learning based on their learning profiles, students are able to understand the material and present in an alternate way that meets their own needs.
There is a difference between an "activity" and a "sense making activity". When teaching, the process is equal to the sense-making. It is the opportunity for learners to process the content or ideas and skills to which they have been introduced. The process is often described as an activity. It should be described as a sense-making activity. A sense-making activity is an activity where learners focus on a portion of something essential that students need to know and understand. As teachers it is very important to make sure you're differentiating a sense making activity rather than just an activity because it will help students reach a more complex level of understandings.
An activity is basically the process by which students demonstrate their understanding of a concept. However, a “sense making activity” provides learners the opportunity to process the content or ideas and skills to which they have been introduced at a deeper level. Tomlinson says that essentially, all good activities are a part of the sense making process because it moves the student from one level of understanding to a higher, more complex level of understanding. It is important to make sure you’re differentiating a sense making activity because these types of activities are highly interesting to the student which helps them make personal connections and a sense making goal. Sense making activities that are geared towards a student’s readiness helps match the complexity of an assignment to the student’s current level.
The difference between an activity and a sense making activity is that the first one only focus on skills on an specific topic delivered in class, but the second is designed to enhance students' critical thinking, and it will also make more sense to their understanding. It will make more sense-making or processing options for students in mixed-ability classrooms. Sense-making activities allows students to work in their own pace and ensures that all students have adequate and purposeful work to do during the class period. Sense-making strategies help students process and own ideas and information in ways that work best for them.
An activity serves as a way of learning something essential that students need to learn and comprehend as a result of content being studied. (page 79) A good differentiated activity uses different ways of reaching a student at their level and pushing them to think in a more complex way with a deeper understanding. In mixed ability classrooms, some ways that are effective are choice boards, role playing, graphic organizers, cubing, and journals, just to name a few. (page 80) Sense-making strategies help students understand and process in a way that makes sense to them. Elda
An activity may not produce the level of comprehension that we desire of the students because it is not meaningful to them. A sense making activity is differentiated according to student’ readiness, correlating the difficulty of the task with the student’s skills, according to the student’s interest, that is giving the students choices so they can choose a preferred activity, and according to the students’ learning profile, taking into account the students’ preferred way of learning. A sense-making activity involves an activity that the students make or do which will assist them in giving meaning to their experience in order to gain understanding of the concept being taught.
An “activity” is basically a simple activity the requires students to use their basic skills to understand a concept and/or to answer a basic question. A “sense making activity” is designed to help students process and “own” ideas, and information in a way that works best for the student. Sense making activities are meaningful and can be differentiated by student’s readiness, interest, and learning profile. It is important to differentiated “sense making activity” because the teacher offers more than one way to make sense of what’s important.
The potential difference between an "activity" and a "sense making activity" is a sense of ownership by the student. Students require the opportunity to make sense of the material being taught in order to retain that information. An "activity" is a vehicle to help students understand key concepts. Activities for D.I may include key FCRR activities or Ready Tools for Instruction. Activities for whole group may come from such resources as CRISS strategies or graphic organizers that enable students use the essential information to show understanding of an essential skill.
It is important to make sure that I am differntiating a "sense making" activity rather than an activity because it allows for students to work with a teacher or peer, using essential information and skill. It is a differentiated process that judges student's level of understanding interest and their preferred way of learning.
Sense making activity is to process of content or ideas and skills in which they have been introduced. When students encounter information and ideas or skills , they need time to run the input and a through the own filters of meaning. Differentiate Instruction (Carol Ann Tomlinson 2nd Edition) As a teacher according to student's readiness you know what is their level of understanding and skills. Students make sense of the ideas in a preferred way of learning. I understand that the most important is to teach using different strategies to reach out the students where they process the information and make sense of it.
An activity has no benefit to the student. A lot of times, these activities are given as busy work and the students do not take it seriously. The students can tell when an activity is purposeful and helps them learn. Especially in high school. Sense making activity, activate prior knowledge and allow the students to show what they have learned. These assignments are appropriately challenging and allow the student to demonstrate mastery of the skills or concept that was taught in class. It is very important to assign students sense making activities so that they do not lose instructional time doing things that is not meaningful.
The difference between an "activity" to a "sense making" activity is the opportunity we give students to make sense of what they learned and "own" that content or skill. "An activity" is something that students just complete without really understanding or making sense of it. A "sense making" activity is a short and effective activity which focuses on one or few skills where students can advance and help progress from basic understanding to a more complex level. Examples of "activities" are something students will make using essential information or answer essential questions; a "make sense" activities are those that students will make in a range of modes, with or without teacher support, using essential or more advance skills etc. "Sense making" activities are effective when they match the students' needs and consequently help them meet their goals.
An activity is something students will make or do on a high level,and causes the stuthink using an essential skill or information in order to understand an essential idea or principle or answer an essential question. A sense making activity is interesting to the student. It calls on the student to use a key skill to understand a key idea. A differentiated sense making activity matches a student's level of understanding or skill to the complexity of the task. It also involves student interest or giving the student choices about different aspects of a topic. In other words, it encourages students to make sense of an idea in a preferred way of learning.
ReplyDeleteJack Sague
An activity sounds to me as choosing just an activity to "fill in the blank." A sense making activity is that one that makes sense, and have certain degree of relevance. It is important to differentiate the sense making activity according to the student's readiness, interest, and learning style; consequently because that activity is the one most students will fill comfortable with, they will be more engaged and they will benefit the most from.
ReplyDeleteAn "Activity" sounds like doing something for the sake of just doing busy work. A "Sense making activity" sounds
ReplyDeleteto me like a well planned activity that has meaning and purpose. That it is aligned based on student data and level of learning. You need to do more or all of your activities using the latter one...why because it is the right way and the best way to grow and teach these kids to learn. You will zoom them in instead of zoning them out.
Efrem Figueredo
Just having an activity is just what it sounds like, a teacher standing in front of a class. A sense making activity is an activity that is planned and will keep the students interested. The students will want to work and will be willing to complete the assignments. The students will be eager to learn and would want to keep going. Teachers have to keep in mind the importance of students’ interest. When students feel that a teacher is just standing in front of them and saying blah, blah, blah the students are in their own little world. At that point the teacher is just doing an activity. When students are moving around and working hard, the teacher has created sense making activity, because the students understand the material being taught. I always say put yourself in the students’ shows when planning your lesson.
ReplyDeleteMerrissa Bailey
The potential difference between an “activity” and a “sense making” is that the sense making activity makes sense to all the learners. They can clearly comprehend the purpose and outcome of the activity. As a teacher, it makes me totally satisfied when the students can verbally and in writing that they comprehend the objective of the lesson. It is extremely important that I carefully planned each lesson, differentiated activities, and extended lessons that make sense to the students. My job is to modify my lesson if it is not making sense to the students. The focus skill will remain the same, yet various approaches will be implemented.
ReplyDeletePatreece Perry-Pelt
The difference between and activity and sense making activity is the activity is busy work. The sense making activity is accurate and most effective. The activites that are selected for differentiated instruction should be based on suggested instructional activites, testimonials, or tried and truth practices. Each activity should be matched with a deficiency or weakness so that effective solutions are accomplished and will help with increasing a students progrees. We don't want to miss the mark by giving to students non-relateable activities, we want to meet them were they are and this mean give them the precise prescription to get better. Karen Smith
ReplyDeleteAn activity is just a task you assign to all your students to work on a certain skill or to help them understand the content you are teaching. A Sense-making activity is a task that is interesting to every student, encourages them to think at a higher level, and prompts them to use an essential skill to understand key ideas. A sense-making activity includes differentiated instruction, scaffolding, answering an essential question, etc.
ReplyDeleteClaudia Ocampo
I believe that the difference between an “activity” and a “sense making activity “is the degree of purpose and importance. All activities in school have purpose and importance. However, some are of higher levels than others. I believe “sense making activities” are more purposeful and important than a regular activities because it involves higher order thinking and problem solving skills. Whereas a regular activity may require lower level cognitive skills to complete.
ReplyDeleteSusan
According to Tomlinson, an activity is something students will make using an essential skill(s) and essential information, or do in order to understand an essential idea/principle or answer an essential question. Sense making activities help students process and “own” ideas and information in ways that work best for them, usually in a range of modes at varied degrees of sophistication, time span, or teacher/peer support. A good sense making activity can effectively help a student understand an essential idea, principle, or answer an essential question (How to Differentiate Instruction in Mixed-Ability Classrooms. Pg .80).
ReplyDelete-Jessica Collado
An activity is something students make or do using essential skills and essential information. The activity helps them understand an essential idea/principle or answer an essential question. The actitivity can range in degrees of difficulty, sophistication and time span depending on the individual learner. A sense making idea means the process or opportunity for learners to process the content or ideas and skills introduced. The student needs time to analyze, apply, question, or solve a problem using the material at hand in order to make sense of it. This process is critical because if it doesn't make sense they won't "get it".
ReplyDeleteA sense making activity should be designed to assist students in moving from levels of their comprehension to levels of complexity. This process will occur because the student will have already acquired Key Skills, and ideas to make a smooth transition. A sense making activity should be interesting. Differentiated Instruction should provide more than one way to make sense of essential points. A reliable sense making activity is designed with readiness, and specific learning modalities. Differentiating according to students’ needs means allows students to explore, and investigate types of knowledge. Select a style of learning that matches a student’s profile.
ReplyDeleteStudents can explore or investigate in different ways. Exploring can be done creatively, according to student’s needs. Some students are kinesthetic leaners, while others are spatial. Verbal skills or profiles meet the styles of some learners, and not others. Time frames may address creature students working alone instead of groups. A structure must be flexible and used according to diverse needs.
Barbara Harris
Basically " Sense making activity" is a sense making activity. It's an activity that is designerd to help the student make sense of the underlying principles. This type of activity is one that has been processed and made sense to and by the student.
ReplyDeleteI feel that is the biggest difference between each other (the activity and making sense activity.)
In my opinion an activity where students spend more than 10 minutes to decipher is one that is ineffective.
A making sense activity builds on what the student already knows and is designed to move the student from his or her current point of understanding to one a bit more complex. That is how I feel students truly learn and retain...by building.
Lastly when we differentiate, we must always keep in mind student interest, building from lower level to higher level mode of thinking and always keep in mind key skills and key ideas.
Sense making activities should always be created and not limited to multiple intelligences, interest groups, graphic organizers, complex instruction, concept attainment and independent study.
-Blanca Gonzalez
An activity can be just about anything. It can have purpose and even meaning but is it rigorous and does it have depth. A sense -making activity makes me think more critically and on many different levels, there is no quick easy answer. I t might require more scaffolding, more differentiation, and maybe even more personal attention. Some students are able to easily grasp a concept and move on to the next level however other students need to feel comfortable if it takes longer to get the concept. Those that can get it more easily can be provided with choice activities that challenge them while still keeping them interested and engaged.
ReplyDeleteZina Berman
An Activity is any type of activity given by a teacher to keep the students busy. These are neither purposeful nor meaningful assignments. Students today are very low we cannot afford to assign busy work to our students. Sense making activity on the other hand help student process and own ideas and information in ways that work best for them. Sense-making activities are activities that are based on data and teacher use student’s data to drive instruction through DI. It is important to make sure you are differentiating a sense making activity rather than just an activity because the sense-making activities help students process and retain the information.
ReplyDeleteThe potential difference between an “activity” and a “sense making activity” is that the latter is an effective activity designed to help the student to progress from his/her current level of understanding to a more complex level of understanding. An activity is “using essential skills and information in order to understand the idea/principle or answer a question”. However, a sense making activity adds to those factors the “range of modes at varied degrees and uses varied amounts of teacher or peer support”. The use of these strategies helps the teacher to reach out to individual students and match the activities or process to their needs. Sense-making strategies help students to “own” the ideas and information instead of losing them or being confused.
ReplyDeleteMaria Santiago-Parreno
An activity is student will make or do, using an essential skill and essential information which they have been introduced. When students encounter new ideas, information or skills which they need time to input through their own filters of meaning. Sense making activity any effective activity essentially sense making progress ,designed to help student progress from current point of understanding to more complex level of understanding . Students process and make sense of ideas and information most easily when their classroom activities are interesting and call students to think on a high level.
ReplyDeleteLarry williams the above reply
ReplyDeleteAs the text stated that in the language of school, that process is often spoken of an activity, and that it is wisest to use the term “sense-making activity “just to remind ourselves that an activity, achievers maximum power as a vehicle for learning only when it is squarely focused on a portion of something essential that students need to know. A good activity uses essential skills and answer essential questions, but a good differentiated activity will require students to make a range of modes at different times and degrees and at different times, with peer and teacher support. A sense making activity is not just an activity to be requires for a grade, but to make sense of an activity will engage students. An opportunity that addresses students’ interest should be provided. A profile of the students’ interest should be the first criteria los a sense making component. High level thinking should be another component. Students will move from the known to the unknown levels of instructions using key skills. Diversity is considered in measuring effectiveness also. The students should provide many ways to make sense of learning.
ReplyDeleteExploring matches a students’ modality that is kinesthetically inclined. Expressing students’ abilities maybe done spatially or verbally. Some students may be creative, but prefer working alone. A sense making activity will allow students to be more flexible, and creative at using logs, and learning contents. Literature circles or learning contracts can be adapted to; student’s needs, and learning styles.
Carolyn Collins
• An activity calls for a specific task to be completed at a certain time by students. However, a sense making activity is very well differentiated. It is “designed to help a student progress from a current point of understanding to a more complex level of understanding. Those sense-making activities are interesting to students and call for students to use higher level thinking. They also cause the students to use key skill to understand key ideas.
ReplyDeleteThe potential difference between an activity and a “sense making activity” is just as it sounds, the opportunity for learners to process the content or ideas and skills to which they have been introduced. This processing or sense-making is an essential component of instruction, because, without it, students either lose the ideas or confuse them. In the language of school, process is often spoken of as an activity. It’s probably wisest to use the term “sense-making activity” to remind ourselves that an activity achieves maximum power as a vehicle for learning only when it is squarely focused on a portion of something essential that students need to know, understand, and be able to do as a result of a particular study. Any effective activity is essentially a sense-making process, designed to help a student process from a current point of understanding. It is important make sure you’re differentiating a sense making activity rather than just an activity because sense making activities or strategies help students process and “own” ideas and information.
ReplyDeleteAudrey Bullock
The difference between an activity and a sense making activity is that an activity is busy work and not much planning goes into it, whereas, a sense making activity is interesting to the student and well planned. It’s important to differentiate a sense making activity so students can use their skill level to complete their assignments.
ReplyDeletePamela Robinson
An activity is potentially just "busy work" that teachers give students just to pass the time during class. There is no actual learning goal to be accomplished by the students nor is there any reinforcement of previous instruction.
ReplyDeleteA "sense making activity" is one that is a process and/or an opportunity for learners to process the content or ideas and skills to which they have been introduced. In other words, a sense making activity has a clear learning goal for students and/or it is an activity that reinforces something that was taught in class recently.
It is important to make sure that I am differentiating a sense making activity rather than just an activity because instructional time is very precious and there is no time to waste on "bust work." Each moment of class is valuable and there need to be clear learning goals established as well as essential reinforcement of ideas, skills, concepts and benchmarks.
An effective sense-making activity requires the student to process and own the concept. It forces the student into an active role. An “activity”, by contrast, can be completed successfully in a mechanical or automatic fashion, wherein the students simply go through the motions. This type of activity is closer to busy wo, because it does not require engagement. An activity can be un-engaging by virtue of being too advanced or too easy.
ReplyDeleteA sense-making activity which is short and focses on one key understandings and skills. Should help students rethink ,use and extend what they have learned over a long period of time.Welldesign assigments can be highly motivating.
ReplyDeleteBy: Alden
Chapt 12 Unless an activity is owned by the student, sense-making cannot achieve maximum power. Students need to process and make sense of ideas and skills that have already been introduced.
ReplyDeleteA sense-making activity helps a student progress to a more complex level of learning and understanding. If students are not given the time for this processing they may lose the ideas or become confused. This is a time for them to use the knowledge they have and take it to a greater understanding.
ReplyDeleteA sense-making activity is an activity that achieves maximum power as a vehicle for learning somehting essential that students need to know. On the other hand, an activity is used when students understand the concept being taught.
ReplyDeleteActivity is when a student needs to know a particular lesson in order to move on to the next level. Sense making activity is when a student understands a material and is now able to show the activity themselves and express how they understood the material. Students must be able to provide the proper information clearly make sense of the "sense making activity". This is important because it gives the teacher a clear understanding that the students understood the material and can practically explain how to do an activity.
ReplyDeleteSense making strategy help students process and own ideas and information in ways that best works for them.
ReplyDeleteAny effective activty is essentially a sense-making process, designed to help a student progress from current point of understanding to a more complex level of understanding.
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DeleteAnonymousJune 16, 2013 at 3:08 PM
Any effective activty is essentially a sense-making process, designed to help a student progress from current point of understanding to a more complex level of understanding.
Tony Casas
Chapter 12
Chap.12-I have always heard from my teaching mentors...avoid giving students "busy work" or
ReplyDeletejust giving out "ditto worksheets"! The reality is busy work leads to no learning at all, that's the bottom line! In a Differentiated Classroom, having effective activity that make sense for the student to "learn and grasp" what you are teaching is your ultimate goal! Even "anchor activities" should have a targeted teaching goal and tiered to meet your different learner needs.
It is important to make a sense making activity rather than just an activity because students need to make sense of the material on their own. If it is just an activity on material they already know they are not using the process or common sense to understand what they need to know. I really like the idea of sense making activity because students will not actually be putting this information to work until they make sense of it on their own.
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ReplyDeleteA "sense making activity" helps process and deepen the understanding of a concept, while an activity is more about doing something. I can best explain this in thinking of the following examples relating to learning vocabulary: 1. Students copy definitions from a dictionary (activity) 2.Students use a concept map to define, write sentences using the vocabulary, giving examples and non-examples and illustrating their understanding of the vocabulary (sense-making activity).
There are many times in which teachers feel that they don't have time to "differentiate" and therefore any worksheet will do. However, giving students any worksheet will only hinder their learning as all they are doing is robotic work that doesn't lead to actual "learning."
ReplyDeleteAgain, careful planning is of the essence. Once a routine is established, and there is knowledge about all the students, it should become a lot easier to find work that is relevant to each student.
An activity is going through the motions, completing the steps, following a procedure. Some students may do the activity but not learn from the activity. Differentiating an activity would not add to the teaching and learning process. It would just be doing another motion, completing another set of steps, or following another type of procedure. However, an activity where students have to engage in a thought process, make connections, and apply what they are learning to a task, performance, or product is the type of sensemaking activity that can be differentiated. Sensemaking is the construction of knowledge. Students make meaning, or make sense, of what they are learning, therefore, teachers can adjust instruction to get students to make sense of an idea by using a learning process that appropriate to the learner, or construct knowledge based on their learning preferences, or perform a task that demonstrates their individual understanding of the topic, idea, or lesson learned.
ReplyDeleteI mentioned an example of a Differentiated Instruction activity in my very first blog entry that pretty much represents a simple ”activity” as opposed to a “sense making activity.” I recall stating that too many of the DI exercises that I have observed would fit into the former category. I also mentioned that I could not see how a senior Honors English class could possibly come up with a sense making activity for weaker students. The examples we get in this chapter (12)--comparing different types of animal communities or defining “everlasting”-- don’t appear to me to be sense making because I am thinking about DI with the students that I teach (high school). The exercise for Mr. Jackson’s second graders could be sense making. Even Mrs. Millers’ sixth grade students, I assume, have to do a lot more with a novel than simply get examples that represent a key idea that the author might want the readers to focus on. Both these exercises appear to be “sense making.” However, for the students I teach, such exercises would be busy work.
ReplyDeleteMy students would have to write at least one essay about any novel that they read, and the essay would have to take the author’s ideas or definitions into consideration. The vocabulary exercises in the text also strike me as being a busy work type of activity. And again, I would have to say that I find vocabulary exercises that I have observed for juniors and seniors to be busy work. These higher grade students should be working on critical analysis. They should be analyzing the author’s strategies and perhaps making real world or personal experience connections. Any differentiation that replaces this might be cheating the weaker students, as perhaps they have been cheated in their earlier grades. My position has been and continues to be skeptical as to how students in the upper grades would benefit from DI.
When I worked with weaker students in college or eleventh or twelfth grade, they would usually have to do extra work, not different work, because the objectives of the courses could not be compromised. In second and even sixth grade, perhaps the objective is strictly fact or information acquisition, so how students manage to retain the information could be irrelevant. In courses that are geared toward skill development, sense making activities might be more difficult to tailor. They would have to show that the students can think analytically, and that type of exercise does not easily accommodate skill level differentiation.
Tony H.
A sense making activity should be interesting, require thinking, and shows that a student has processed the information. The student was able to make sense of the idea by being able to demonstrate what they learned from the lesson.
ReplyDeleteT. Junious
ReplyDeleteThe difference between an "activity" and a "sense making activity" is that an "activity" is just something that you do with the students. Something that you as the teacher have decided to do because you know that your students need to learn the concept, the novel, etc. But a "sense making activity" is the activity that the students buy into. They make the activity their own. the student recognizes the importance of learning or doing the activity. They can visualize how the activity will benefit them. I see the "sense making activity" as something that the students can take ownership of. i think this is really important to do in differentiating instruction with struggling learners especially. Because of their learning deficiencies some things have to be taught in repitition and if the activity could be a "sense making activity" then the student will hopefully be willing to go through the entire process until thay have actually mastered the concept.
“An effective activity is essentially a sense-making process, designed to help a student progress from a current point of understanding to a more complex level of understanding.” An activity that is interesting to the students, call for students to think at a higher level, and cause students to use key skills to understand key ideas are apt to make sense and engage the learner. It is important to create sense making activities that differentiate because students need to do work that varies in levels of sophistication and time span for completion. Also, students must use an essential skill and access information with varying degrees of teacher assistance.
ReplyDeleteAn activity could be just any activity, probably a busy work activity.
ReplyDelete"A sense making activity" is an activity with a purpose, and has meaning to the learner. This type of activity requires differentiation according to the type of learner a you have in the classroom.
An Activity is something that students do when instructed by their Teacher to complete. Students will complete a task by utilizing their basic skills and answer the necessary question to receive a grade. On the other hand, a sense making activity requires higher order thinking and forces students to seek other avenues to complete a task. Differentiating a sense making help students to take ownership and challenge them go beyond their comfort zone. The sense making activity gives opportunity for students to show off their different talents when working in a group. Each student has a responsibility to complete their part base on their specific abilities. SMA make students accountable for their responsibilities on presenting quality work for a share grade.
ReplyDeleteAn “activity “ to me is just like to do something to have fun, to review what you have learned through experience , or to impress the content by hands-on. You don’t have to prepare the activities ahead of time and do it randomly.
ReplyDeleteA “sense making activity” is the one you have to plan, prepare ahead of time to differentiate the students and make sure each one of them can meet their need through the activity. So the students can clearly comprehend the purpose and outcome of the activity. A good sense making activity can effectively help a student understand an essential idea, principle, or answer an essential question. Through a good sense of activity, the students will be encouraged and grasp the content they are learning.
Sense making Activity is an activity which is connected to a purpose in mind. It is based on expectations (assumption) about a further step. In other words, it is the activity teachers use to affect positively the learning process, it is an activity connected to impact current decision and actions on future outcomes. So Sense Making Activity is an approach to differentiate instruction.
ReplyDeleteActivity is an approach, a procedure, etc. which is connected to a purpose in mind, but a general purpose. An activity contributes to one or more types of early childhood development and will help prepare your child for future learning
By Mr. De La Paz
Chapter 12 reflection-
ReplyDeleteThe potential difference between an"activity" and a "sense making activity" is that a sense making activity is and activity that endorses students making sense of content, ideas and skills so that it becomes "theirs". Students need tome to run new ideas, information and skills through their own filters of meaning. Without this opportuntiy students will wither lose the ideas or confuse them. Students process and make sense of ideas and information most easily when their classroom activites are: interesting, require the students to think at a high level, and cause students to use key skills to understand key ideas and concepts. As teachers providing students with good differentiated activities, we need to offer students more than one way to make sense of what is important. We must remember that is is the quality and focus of what students do that is most important. Sense making activities are most effective when the response matches student learning needs. Sense making strategies help students process and "own" ideas and information in ways that work best for them.
An activity is anything that you give the students to complete regardless of whether they understand or not. A sense making activity targets each students' needs. For example, when dealing with verbs there are some students who grasp it easily and so you might have them move to different tenses while others still need to practice the present tense rules.
ReplyDeleteChapter 12 Reflection: What is the potential difference between an "activity" and a "sense making activity"? Why is it important to make sure you're differentiating a sense making activity rather than just an activity?" Sense Making Activity" are classroom activities that are interesting to the students, call on the students to think at a higher level, cause the students to use a key skill or skills to understand a key idea or ideas. "Good Differentiated Activity" are matching the complexity of a task to a student's current level of understanding and skill, involves giving students choices about the different topic in which to specialize or help them link a personal interest to a sense making goal, encouraging the students to make sense of an idea in a preferred way of learning. In order to support differentiated process is to tier assignments or parallel tasks at various levels of difficulty.Finally, there are different ways of delivering information examples are as follows: multiple intelligences, interest groups, varied graphic organizers, complex instruction, concept attainment, and independent study. But at the end it is still the quality of the skills that predominately affects the students understanding of the material/s presented to them.
ReplyDeleteChapter 12
ReplyDeleteStudent‘s interest, ideas and information are the main ingredients to sense making activities. This is important because in the differentiating process if we focus on the essential areas that the student needs to know, understand and able to do, results in achievable levels of learning. The teacher maintains the interest and at the same time challenges the students while allowing them to use and master concepts according to their readiness and learning profiles.
I think an activity refers to something that a student or a group of student have done. An activity is something that is given to the student to complete, it does not matter whether the student understands it or not. A sense making activity is an activity, that makes sense, it takes into consideration the student's ideas and their interest. It is important to differentiate the sense making activity according to the student's readiness, interest, and learning style, I think that students will b comfortable and will be engaged and it will be meaningful to them.
ReplyDeleteChapter 12/Reflection/ Differentiating Process
ReplyDeleteTo me the potential difference that exists between an activity and a sense making activity is the fact in the later one the student is able to manage, comprehend and apply the learned skill with great enthusiasm and he or she is able to reproduce or apply the skills at different degree of complexity with varied amount of support from both peers and teachers .However,an activity that itself does not often lead to such level of complexity it is just a regular assignment that a student will complete at the end of a given chapter or unit.
The difference between an "activity" and a "sense making activity" is that an "activity" does not take in consideration the student's interest, ideas and information which is the purpose of a "sense making activity". The teacher needs to keep in mind what the student needs to know or achieve by the time they complete the assignenment but also giving the student an activity that matches their learning needs.
ReplyDeleteBasicall, the difference is that in a classroom where differentiation is in place we are expected to take into account students interests and readiness. That is to say, we need to aim at engage the students at a high level, and we need to develop a skill on them which causes that they understand a key idea. According to the author of the book on differentiation, sense making activities refer to those ones in which the students process their own ideas and information that work for them.
ReplyDeleteChapter 12-According to the reading, an activity is an opportunity for students to process the content or ideas and skills to which they have been introduced. For example, if you’re teaching Main Idea and how to identify it, giving an activity to a student who has already mastered identifying Main Idea isn’t meaningful, because they have already processed and made sense of the concept.
ReplyDeleteA sense-making activity is an activity that’s designed to help a student make sense of the underlying principles. I will use the same example (Identifying Main Idea), if the student is unsure or need clarification, giving them a sense making activity wouldn’t be meaningful. They would best benefit from working on an activity that allows them the opportunity to go through the process of analyzing the information to understand the skill.
I think that’s its necessary to differentiate throughout your lesson. If you are introducing new material, it would be appropriate to start with an activity. If you see where students have a clear understanding of the material, then you can incorporate a sense-making activity that is designed to build on what the student already knows, which in turn will move the student from his or her current level of understanding to a more complex level of understanding.
When differentiating, we must create meaningful activities that are full of rigor, interesting to the students, cause the students to think at a higher level, and cause the student to use key skills to understand key ideas.
An activity is just like it is, if it doesn't have a sense of interesting material in it. You will assign to whole groups and then they do it. But I believe that there is a lot of activity to be assigned but the main point is to teach them in order to learn it .In the other hand, a sense making activity is an activity that is planned and will keep the students interested. You do it by levels for them to perform. The student will be eager to learn and would want to keep going. We need to keep in mind students interests’ When students are moving around they don’t get bored and they have interrelationship with their classmates .Sense making activity encourages them to think at a higher level, and prompts them to use an essential skill to understand key ideas. It also lead them to think , solve, and search, Having them as a group is a very good way to expose them with others and maybe what they didn't understand, they will because they are sharing information and working hard together, so the teacher has created sense making activity.
ReplyDeleteA sense-making activity is one where it will vary based on the individual, because it demonstrates how the learner synthesizes the information that they learn. This differs from an activity that is crafted in order to have students apply and practice key ideas from the lesson. Both are useful and need to be meaningful for the students.
ReplyDeleteAn activity is one in which students are able to apply and practice the lesson at hand. In process or sense-making, a student questions, analyzes, applies, and solves problems in order for learning to take place, for new knowledge to becomes their own. A sense-making activity is an activity that is designed to help a student make sense of the underlying principles.
ReplyDeleteAs Thomlinson says, “It’s wisest to use the term sense-making activity to remind ourselves that an activity achieves maximum power as a vehicle for learning only when it is focused on a portion of something essential that students need to know, understand, and be able to do as a result of a particular study.”
"When students encounter new ideas, information, or skills, they need time to run the input through their own filters of meaning." During this time, teachers need to assign sense-making activities. These activities will allow students to own the information being acquired. Once they have made sense of the information and made it their own, teachers can then introduce all other types of activities.
ReplyDeleteBecause of the limitation in our schedules, we often do not make time for students to process the information they are learning. We rush straight to the final product without giving students activities that will help them better understand the information. Each student takes a different amount of time making sense of new information. Once students have fully grasped the concept and only then should they move on to applying it and completing final products (regular activities).
An activity seems to be something the teacher plans without considering the learning styles, interest and abilities of the students. The lesson looks and sounds good on paper. The teacher may seldom achieve the intended outcome, thus creating a need to reteach the lesson until students gain an understanding. With sense making activity. The students needs. interest, readiness level and learning style are intertwined/layered throughout the lesson in order to provide students various ways to process and express key information .
ReplyDeleteWhat is the potential difference between an "activity" and a "sense making activity"? Why is it important to make sure you're differentiating a sense making activity rather than just an activity?
ReplyDeleteA sense making activity is one the students really connect with. It's an activity they truly understand an internalize. It's typically planned with students' abilities, interests and learning styles in mind.
An activity is one that does not connect with the students. Basically, it is taught but not learned.
It is important that teachers assess students regularly so they can determine if their lessons were more like activities or sense making activities. If a teacher continues to move on with instruction without students connecting to the lesson a gap in learning will be created; thus causing students to fall behind.
It is important to make sure you're differentiating a sense making activity rather than just an activity because an activity could not make a lasting impact in the students mind yet the sense making activity would be a long lasting in the students memory also you should use kinesthetic activity that the students participate and show more interest in the lesson after when you assess after a sense activity you will have an idea whether the student retained the information and make it a long lasting learning.
ReplyDeleteAny effective activity is essentially a sense-making process, designed to help a student progress from a current point of understanding to a more complex level of understanding, and this happen when the activities are interesting to the students, call on the students to think at a higher level, and so on. Content, process, or sense-making can be differentiated in response to students readiness, interest, and learning profile. Strategies that support differentiated processing are learning logs, journals, graphic organizers, creative problem solving, cubing, among others. Sense- making strategies help students process and own ideas and information in ways that work best for them.
ReplyDeleteChapter 12 Reflection: What is the potential difference between an "activity" and a "sense making activity"? Why is it important to make sure you're differentiating a sense making activity rather than just an activity?
ReplyDeleteAn activity is what it sounds like, an activity. An assignment to pass the time with for the students, while a sense making activity actually creates a difference for a student. It makes sense to differentiate a sense making activity because thats the activity that the student will actually learn a new lesson from. As I have discussed before, all students learn differently.
A potential difference between an activity and a sense making activity is that a sense making activity is an opportunity for learners to process the content and skills to which they have been introduced.
ReplyDeleteIt is very important that teachers make sure that we are differentiating between a sense making activity than just an activity.
Students have to make sense of the content they have been introduce.
the process of making sense of a content is an essential component of a DI because without it, students may lose the idea or get confused with it.
A sense-making activity must achieve the maximum power as a vehicle for learning when it is interesting to the students, promotes a higher level thinking, and causes students to use a learned skill to understand it.
An activity can be any activity. The difference between an activity and a sense-making activity is that in the last one the learners have to process the content.
ReplyDeleteA sense-making activity is essentially an effective activity designed to help students to progress from one point of understanding to a more complex one.
A sense-making activity is: interesting to the students, calls for students to think at a higher level, and causes students to use key skills to understand a key idea.
Charter 12 : Developed more strategies more flexible and responsive sense making for Example graphic organizers- creative problems solving, learning centers, interest groups, learning contract, literature circle etc, etc. Each strategy engages the students in a different thinking or processing response sense making activities are most effective.
ReplyDeleteEvery lesson has an activity. The purpose of an activity is to provide a basic foundation to build on prior knowledge. It's primary function is to serve as a starting point and doesn't delve to deeply into the subject matter. For this reason, activities work well with whole group and sense making activities are more appropriate for D.I. Sense making activities continue from where the W.G. Activity leaves off. Because of the great diversity of our students, the sense making activities are intended to be tailored to the student's individual needs and extend their understanding to meet the objective.
ReplyDeleteThe difference between an "activity" and a "sense making activity" is that an "activity" can be just that - an "activity" and it may or may not make sense to the instructor or the students. Students may walk away from it "empty handed" and disconnected from the content being taught. However, a "sense making activity" ties directly into the content being taught, is explicit and an opportunity for students to process the content, ideas, filter and most importantly solve a problem that makes sense to them. Sense making activities keep students engaged, make them think higher order thoughts, answers essential questions that use a variety of learning modes to answer and understand pertain to their learning goals.
ReplyDeleteThe difference between an "activity" and a "sense making activity" is that a sense making activity is all about the process of how to do something. The student must learn how to make sense of something before they can actually learn how to do it. The activity is something given to enrich the students knowledge on something after they make sense of it. It is important to differentiate a sense making activity and a regular activity is that with a sense making activity, if done properly, the students process and "own their ideas", so when they are given the activity they can properly complete it. If you give a student an activity and do not give them a sense making activity, the student may have no clue how to complete the activity. Some examples of sense making activities are learning logs, graphic organizers, literature circles, and role-playing.
ReplyDeleteThe difference between an activity and a sense-making activity is: An activity is used to build skill to proficiency whereas a sense-making activity is used to take the skill from understanding with proficiency to understanding with more complexity. It is important for me to make sure that I am differentiating in a way that will be geared towards understanding with more complexity and not just giving activities that will not build but rather sustain at current level. The idea is always growth and never stagnation.
ReplyDeleteWhen referring to a sensemaking activity, you should focus on process. Process means sensemaking or the opportunity for learners to process the content to which they have been introduced. Sensemaking activities are most effective for students when that response matches their learning needs, as well as specified learning goals. Upon completion of reading Chapter 12, to my understanding a good activity should possess the quality of being interesting to the students, call on the students to use a key skills to understand a key idea.
ReplyDeleteYou want to make sure you are differentiating a sense making activity because based on the students readiness, interest, and learning profile, they need a powerful vehicles to guide their comprehension of mastery of the skill.
The potential difference between activity and sense making activity is meaningful process. I view activity as busy work. Students know when the work is just work to keep them occupied. It has no meaning to their learning. And, they will ask the teacher if this work/activity is being graded.
ReplyDeleteDifferentiating a sense making activity is important because it allows the student and teacher to scaffold to success. Sense making activities allows for the opportunity to process the content or the ideas and skills to which they have been introduced to. The activity needs to achieve.the maximum power as a way for learning only when when it is focused on part of what students need to know and understand.
A " sense - making " activity can be differentiated according to readiness, interest, learning profile. By offering more than 1 way to accomplish a task, students can use a range of modes at varied degrees, use essential skills w/ varied support of teacher/ peer through scaffolding. By inviting more flexible sense - making strategies ( learning logs, journals, graphic organizers, cubing, learning centers, contracts, Literature Circles, role playing, cooperative controversy) , students are engaged. In this way , they " own" ideas and information in ways that work best for them. Attention to pacing ensures that all students have adequate and purposeful work to do during the class period.
ReplyDeleteThe potential difference between an "activity" and a "sense making activity" is that in an "activity" students are not making sense of it, the student is just doing it for completion and not owning it. On the other hand, "sense making activity", students process the actual content creating meaning and making it their own. It is essential for teachers to differentiate a "sense making activity" rather than an "activity" because an "activity" achieves the minimum while "sense making activity" the students progress from a current point of understanding to a more complex understanding. Sense making activities must be interesting to the students, exposes them to think at a higher level and students use a key skill to understand an idea. The teacher differentiates by providing various ways for students to make sense of the content. Therefore, it is important that we differentiate by readiness, interest and learning profile.
ReplyDeleteThe potential difference between an "activity" and a "sense making activity" is that a "sense-making activity" is one that allows for the learner to process the content or ideas and skills to which they have been introduced. This process involves analyzing, applying, questioning, or solving a problem to using the material they have to make sense of something before they can make it their own. This kind of activity is supposed to take students from a current level of knowledge to a more complex level of understanding.
ReplyDeleteConversely, an "activity" is simply going through the motions without the intent of taking students from current knowledge to more complex levels of understanding.
It is important to make sure you're differentiating a sense making activity rather than just an activity because it will encourage learners to think on a higher level, cause learners to access key skills to understand key concepts, and it reaches every learner at their specific level with sufficient challenge. Sense-making activities help learners process and "own" ideas and information in ways that work best for them.
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ReplyDeleteThis issue occurs often when I am working with teachers. Many times teachers have not mapped the content to be taught enough to see the full breadth of instruction needed, leaving gaps in understanding of how to differentiate work. This is when I see 'activities' being differentiated and little to no impact on student achievement. Once we are able to work through the content and develop a deeper understanding of the content, the teacher is able to see the breadth needed within 'sense-making' activities. When a teacher takes student differentiation needs into account with a clear understanding of the content, then we see true increases in student achievement.
ReplyDeleteAn activity is a task that students complete for the sake of being in school or is part of the curriculum. It does not encompass the learners profile, interests or readiness what so ever.
ReplyDeleteA sense making activity is an activity that takes students to the next level. They utilize their prior skills to process, analyze, apply, or question the problem as they are trying to make sense of a skill that has already been introduced. In this type of activity, students are ready to own the skill.
It is important to have differentiated activities because they include diverse learners. Since students learn differently, they provide more than one way to complete a particular activity. They also take in consideration the learners profile, readiness, and interests.
To me an “activity” is when a teacher does not plan to teach any lesson and that teacher needs to find something to give right a way to the students to complete in class. On the other hand, a “sense making activity” is purposeful and should be planned ahead for the best interest of the students. In a sense making activity, a teacher should assist it to make students move from simple to complex comprehension levels. For example, they will use concepts and principles that are related to a topic to make students understand the material being taught by using an activity. In this case, it will make sense to all students and they will be more interested in doing the activity. It is important to differentiating a sense making activity to match each student's level of understanding or skill to the complexity of the task. Also, the students will be eager to learn about the topic with interest if different choices are used toward achieving their skills or goals.
ReplyDeleteAssigning "an activity" to me is equivalent to busy work that is unplanned to occupy students without focus on a skill or an end result such as generic worksheets where they are just filling in the blanks. A "sense making activity" should be planned with a specific outcome in mind, differentiated at least according to readiness, and learning profile to achieve a specific goal and help a student to progress from their current point of understanding to a more complex level of understanding.
ReplyDeleteAccording to the book, “any effective activity is essentially a sense-making process, designed to help a student progress from a current point of understanding to a more complex level of understanding.” In a sense-making process, a student is able to process and make sense of the information that they have learned their own. These types of activities are most effective when the responses match the learning needs and goals of the lesson.
ReplyDeleteAn activity can be assigned by the teachers for all students to complete to have students doing something. In other words "busy work". Students at grade level or above may complete the activity successfully. However, students performing below grade level may have difficulties completing the activity or may not even know how to do it. An activity can be assigned with no purpose if it is just meant to keep students busy as mentioned earlier. On the other hand, a sense making activity allows students to process and own ideas and information in ways that work best for them. For instance, Mrs. Jackson cube's activity is a great example because she differentiated the activities according to student's level (below, above, etc) and assigned specific activities for students to learn the concepts in varies ways at their levels. Differentiating a sense making activity rather than just an activity is important because a sense making activity has purpose, meaning, and it is relevant to the topic being taught and learned. A sense making activity is a way of differentiating and teaching with purpose. It is also planning with the end in mind!
ReplyDeleteA sense making activity is an activity that taps into the learners needs. It is an opportunity for students to process the content and skills to wich they have been introduced. A “ sense making activity” is an essential part of instruction because without it students are confused or lost
ReplyDeleteWhen teachers create an “activity” just for the sake of an exercise, this assignment lacks purpose and does not focus on a portion of something essential that students need to understand and be able to do.
It is important for teachers to make sure that they are differentiating a sense activity because it offers variety, more than one way to make sense of what’s important! .
What is the potential difference between an "activity" and a "sense making activity"? Why is it important to make sure you're differentiating a sense making activity rather than just an activity? The difference between activity and sense making activity is the activity work is mainly used to keep the student busy. And sense-making activity is for students to process the content or idea skills to which they have been introduced or higher order thinking. The activities that are selected for differentiating process should be matched to the student’s complexity and current level of understanding so that effective solutions are accomplished and will help with increasing a student’s progress.
ReplyDeleteIt is extremely important to differentiate between the two because a simple “activity” may not be meeting the needs of the students and serving no purpose. Activities should make sense in that they address the students’ deficiencies and not simply busy or cute work to hang in the classroom. As eloquently stated in the text, “Any effective activity is essentially a sense-making process, designed to help a student progress from a current point of understanding to a more complex level of understanding.” Therefore, these activities should be designed to help students make meaningful connections using essential knowledge and skills. It was also mentioned in the text that the activities need to first be “good activities”, which is crucial if the students are truly going to progress as a result of completing the activity. It was stated in the text “Sense-making strategies help students process and “own” ideas and information in ways that work best for them”. I definitely feel that once students have a sense of ownership with whatever they are working on, they will be able to show meaningful progress academically.
ReplyDeleteThe difference between a activity and a sense making activity is the activity work is mainly used to keep the student busy as for a sense-making activity is for students to process the content or idea to which they have been introduced or to higher order think. An activity can be assigned with no purpose if it is just meant to keep students busy. As for a sense making activity allows students to process ideas and information in ways that work best for them. In Mrs. Jackson cube's activity it demonstrates she differentiated the activities according to student's different levels and assigned specific activities for students to learn the concepts in varies ways at their levels. Having a differentiated sense making activity is important because a sense making activity has purpose, meaning, and it is relevant to the topic being taught and learned.
ReplyDeleteSense making is an essential component of instruction because without it,students either lose the ideas or confuse the ideas. They are important because these sense making activities are interesting, call on them to think at a high level, cause them to use key skills to understand key ideas.Their different from just an activity in that when students make or do something, the do it in a range of modes at different degrees of sophistication. there is also a varied amount of teacher peer scaffolding and it answers an essential idea/principal or answer to an essential questions. Sens-making strategies help students process and own ideas and information in ways that work best for them. ordinary activities can me classified as busy work. These are the reasons why its important to make that difference.
ReplyDeleteSense making is crucial when planning any activity,because is the component that make sense and provoke connections and applications of what the learner is doing,and is a key for motivation and engagement as well.We as educators always needs to look for quality rather than quantity,last one is important when is balanced and make the students be able to think and build their one interest base on the product we present to them as an activity to complete.
ReplyDeleteThe main difference between an activity and a sense making activity is what you get in the process. For example: An activity, is to have students with busy work, it is a routine without allow any creative idea. The attitude of the student is completely passive. On the other hand, in sense making activity the student construct their own knowledge, he/she interact with the environment through the process, and discuss, negotiate, and develop their abilities. It is really important to make each student an active player in the learning process, to engage the students to join in doing tasks. Including problems for solving or questions for answering are important to improve thinking skills. This process involves analyzing, applying, questioning or solving problems; for this reason, it is supposed that every student goes from current level of knowledge to a more complex level of understanding.
ReplyDeleteMaria Gonzalez
When students explore and investigate in different ways, they are exploring creatively, according to student’s needs. Some students are kinesthetic learners, while others are spatial. Verbal skills or profiles meet the styles of some learners, and not others. Time frames may address creature students working alone instead of groups. As per Tomlinson, an activity is something students will do in order to understand an essential idea/principle or answer essential question. Using information, or making activities to help students process and own ideas and information in ways that work best for the groups usually in a range of modes at varied degrees of complexity, duration, or teacher/peer support. A good sense making activity can effectively help a student understand an essential idea, principle, or answer an essential question. Students can explore or investigate in different ways. Exploring can be done creatively, according to student’s needs. Some students are kinesthetic learners, while others are spatial. Verbal skills or profiles meet the styles of some learners, and not others. Time frames may address creature students working alone instead of groups. A sense making activity should be interesting. Differentiated Instruction should provide more than one way to make sense of essential points. A reliable sense making activity is designed with readiness, and specific learning modalities.
ReplyDeleteVivian Marzall
There is a difference between an activity and a sense making activity in the classroom. In the classroom, an activity does not promote student engagement and learning, it is classified as busy work. A sense making activity allows students to complete activities that are interesting to them, promotes a higher level of thinking, and cause the students to use key skills in order to understand key ideas. It is important to differentiate sense making activities in the classroom because teachers are able to differentiate based on student readiness. Students in a class are not at the same level and when a teacher differentiates, they are scaffolding instruction and are provide students the opportunity to set goals for their learning. As Tomlinson states, when differentiating student learning based on their learning profiles, students are able to understand the material and present in an alternate way that meets their own needs.
ReplyDeleteThere is a difference between an "activity" and a "sense making activity". When teaching, the process is equal to the sense-making. It is the opportunity for learners to process the content or ideas and skills to which they have been introduced. The process is often described as an activity. It should be described as a sense-making activity. A sense-making activity is an activity where learners focus on a portion of something essential that students need to know and understand. As teachers it is very important to make sure you're differentiating a sense making activity rather than just an activity because it will help students reach a more complex level of understandings.
ReplyDeleteAn activity is basically the process by which students demonstrate their understanding of a concept. However, a “sense making activity” provides learners the opportunity to process the content or ideas and skills to which they have been introduced at a deeper level. Tomlinson says that essentially, all good activities are a part of the sense making process because it moves the student from one level of understanding to a higher, more complex level of understanding. It is important to make sure you’re differentiating a sense making activity because these types of activities are highly interesting to the student which helps them make personal connections and a sense making goal. Sense making activities that are geared towards a student’s readiness helps match the complexity of an assignment to the student’s current level.
ReplyDeleteThe difference between an activity and a sense making activity is that the first one only focus on skills on an specific topic delivered in class, but the second is designed to enhance students' critical thinking, and it will also make more sense to their understanding. It will make more sense-making or processing options for students in mixed-ability classrooms. Sense-making activities allows students to work in their own pace and ensures that all students have adequate and purposeful work to do during the class period. Sense-making strategies help students process and own ideas and information in ways that work best for them.
ReplyDeleteAn activity serves as a way of learning something essential that students need to learn and comprehend as a result of content being studied. (page 79) A good differentiated activity uses different ways of reaching a student at their level and pushing them to think in a more complex way with a deeper understanding. In mixed ability classrooms, some ways that are effective are choice boards, role playing, graphic organizers, cubing, and journals, just to name a few. (page 80) Sense-making strategies help students understand and process in a way that makes sense to them.
ReplyDeleteElda
An activity may not produce the level of comprehension that we desire of the students because it is not meaningful to them. A sense making activity is differentiated according to student’ readiness, correlating the difficulty of the task with the student’s skills, according to the student’s interest, that is giving the students choices so they can choose a preferred activity, and according to the students’ learning profile, taking into account the students’ preferred way of learning. A sense-making activity involves an activity that the students make or do which will assist them in giving meaning to their experience in order to gain understanding of the concept being taught.
ReplyDeleteAn “activity” is basically a simple activity the requires students to use their basic skills to understand a concept and/or to answer a basic question. A “sense making activity” is designed to help students process and “own” ideas, and information in a way that works best for the student. Sense making activities are meaningful and can be differentiated by student’s readiness, interest, and learning profile. It is important to differentiated “sense making activity” because the teacher offers more than one way to make sense of what’s important.
ReplyDeleteThe potential difference between an "activity" and a "sense making activity" is a sense of ownership by the student. Students require the opportunity to make sense of the material being taught in order to retain that information. An "activity" is a vehicle to help students understand key concepts. Activities for D.I may include key FCRR activities or Ready Tools for Instruction. Activities for whole group may come from such resources as CRISS strategies or graphic organizers that enable students use the essential information to show understanding of an essential skill.
ReplyDeleteIt is important to make sure that I am differntiating a "sense making" activity rather than an activity because it allows for students to work with a teacher or peer, using essential information and skill. It is a differentiated process that judges student's level of understanding interest and their preferred way of learning.
Sense making activity is to process of content or ideas and skills in which they have been introduced. When students encounter information and ideas or skills , they need time to run the input and a through the own filters of meaning. Differentiate Instruction (Carol Ann Tomlinson 2nd Edition) As a teacher according to student's readiness you know what is their level of understanding and skills. Students make sense of the ideas in a preferred way of learning. I understand that the most important is to teach using different strategies to reach out the students where they process the information and make sense of it.
ReplyDeleteAn activity has no benefit to the student. A lot of times, these activities are given as busy work and the students do not take it seriously. The students can tell when an activity is purposeful and helps them learn. Especially in high school.
ReplyDeleteSense making activity, activate prior knowledge and allow the students to show what they have learned. These assignments are appropriately challenging and allow the student to demonstrate mastery of the skills or concept that was taught in class. It is very important to assign students sense making activities so that they do not lose instructional time doing things that is not meaningful.
The difference between an "activity" to a "sense making" activity is the opportunity we give students to make sense of what they learned and "own" that content or skill. "An activity" is something that students just complete without really understanding or making sense of it. A "sense making" activity is a short and effective activity which focuses on one or few skills where students can advance and help progress from basic understanding to a more complex level. Examples of "activities" are something students will make using essential information or answer essential questions; a "make sense" activities are those that students will make in a range of modes, with or without teacher support, using essential or more advance skills etc. "Sense making" activities are effective when they match the students' needs and consequently help them meet their goals.
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