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a forum used by teachers, students and linguists to discuss investigations of the spelling and meaning of words with the aid of matrices and word sums

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Welcome to the Real Spellers Website
Information about the Real Spellers site overhaul.
This site is for users, teachers, and students of the Real Spelling™ toolbox. While Real Spelling has given permission for us to have this site, it is in no way affiliated with, or endorsed by, Real Spelling™. This site is created by you, its registered users, and will only be as good as you make it. So, log in and contribute!
Please note: you do not need to register or log in to read anything on this site -- it is fully open to all. Registration and logging in are only necessary for posting and commenting.
There are several parts to this site.

The Forums are the place to post and respond to questions from other Real Spellers, and to engage in conversation about, and joint investigation into, points of orthography. Past conversations and correspondences can also be posted here for the benefit of others. To protect the site from the everpresent spammers and bots, you must register and be approved to post (but we will never give your address to anyone). New articles must also be approved, but after you've posted a couple, you become a trusted user and no longer have to have posts approved.

The Wiki was an idea we had -- a repository of the group's knowledge and understanding, which could be constantly edited and refined by the members as we learn more, of the incredibly rich and deep field of orthography that Real Spelling has opened up to us. It could also be an index to the Toolbox, and a place for students and teachers to post matrices, webs, and word sums for others to add to and comment on. For the first year or two, no one contributed to it, so we took it down. But if anyone gets interested, we'd be glad to put it back up again.

The Blogs provide an opportunity for anyone who is interested, adults or students, to post articles, thoughts, teaching techniques, experiences, and investigations on a semi-regular, ongoing basis. This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. if you'd like your own blog, or if you'd like a group blog, perhaps with fellow teachers at your school, or with your students. There are also links to existing related blogs in the top menu.

The Resources section is a place where members can post links, articles, documents, videos, references, slideshows, pictures, lesson plans, or anything else that might be of use to other Real Spellers.

Read our Tips for Posting.

Read A Word About Site Security.

According to the OED, the word "speller" has several meanings appropriate to this site and endeavour. They are:

A preacher, a person who preaches or advocates a particular message, doctrine, practice; a person who exhorts others earnestly.

A person who advocates or inculcates something by speech or writing; a person who, or thing which, imparts a lesson or commends an attitude.

A seeker after something.

One who spells, or spells out, words; one having a specified proficiency in spelling.

Click this thumbnail to read the Speller's Charter.

This site is maintained by Matt. Please This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. with questions, comments, and suggestions.

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Information about the Real Spellers site overhaul. This site is for users, teachers, and students of the Real Spelling™ toolbox. While Real Spelling has given permission for us to have this site, it is in no way affiliated with, or endorsed by, Real Spelling™.

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effects of morphological instruction on vocab acquisition

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How Do You Stir Curiosity in Your Classroom?

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How Do You Stir Curiosity in Your Classroom?

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You know those moments in class when we have our students on the edge of their seats? When engagement is palpable and their eyes are wide open? You can hear a pin drop. You can feel their excitement. And you just know they are , they are understanding, and their minds are full of wonder and interest.

I aim to create these sorts of learning experiences as much as I can in my classroom.

I believe that when students are genuinely engaged and their curiosities and wonders are afire amazing learning happens.

Not only does engagement skyrocket, but I witness higher student achievement, more grit, and perseverance in their learning, and perhaps most importantly, a greater sense of pride and enjoyment in class: students learning.

Some of my most engaging, active and exciting lessons have begun with a provocation. In the inquiry classroom provocations are questions, images, artifacts, and videos that stir thought, wonder, curiosity, and further questions in our students. I use provocations to determine where learning can take us, what research we will need to do, and how I can best support my students in this process.

One of my favorite video provocations is this inspiring video about Karl, an Abyssinian ground hornbill at the Smithsonian National Zoo in Washington, DC. Karl has minimal use of the lower half of his beak due to natural wear over the years and as such he has a difficult time feeding and is limited in what he can eat and how easily he can eat it. The good folks at the zoo decided to do something about it and the result is not only inspiring, it's innovative and educational. Have a look!

I love using this provocation in class as it ties so perfectly with the prompt "How can you use technology to solve a problem?" To most students, this question is overwhelmingly open, broad and non-specific. Students feel uncertain about what they should do to address the question, where to go to find the "problem", and what exactly their teacher is looking for. But when this question comes after the provocation, students generate amazing ideas. Karl's story opens their minds to how technology can solve problems; it sparks their own curiosity in authentic ways and it helps me leverage learning to do some really engaging stuff!

If I am working with younger learners I may show them a different provocation and tweak the prompt to "What could you create and invent to help solve a mundane task?" For example have a look at this awesome GE commercial that tells the story of Molly, a highly creative and determined child who figures out some innovative ways to get out of doing her chores.

How fun is that?

Think for a moment how your students would respond to Molly and Karl's story. Consider how these provocations tie into what you have planned this year in your classroom. Think about where these videos could be used as start points to your lessons or units. And try one on for size for yourself!
To learn more check out Trevor's upcoming release Inquiry Mindset: Nurturing the Dreams, Wonders and Curiosities of Our Youngest Learners (co-authored with Rebecca Bathurst-Hunt). It is all about bringing the power of inquiry to our K-7 classrooms in accessible powerful ways. Find out more at trevormackenzie.com
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Trevor MacKenzie is a high school teacher at Oak Bay High School in the Greater Victoria School District in Victoria, BC, Canada. He is the author of the best selling Inquiry resource Dive into Inquiry: Amplify Learning and Empower Student Voice . Follow Trevor on Twitter

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How Do You Stir Curiosity in Your Classroom? - OnCUE

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You know those moments in class when we have our students on the edge of their seats? When engagement is palpable and their eyes are wide open? You can hear a pin drop. You can feel their excitement. And you just know they are getting it, they are understanding, and their minds are full of ...

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Read to find out more about Inquiry-based learning.

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‘Inquiry is the dynamic process of being open to wonder and puzzlements and coming to know and understand the world ’ (Alberta Learning, 2004). ’Simply put, inquiry is the personal path of…

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Structured Word Inquiry - Free resources, including lessons and videos, illustrating morphological instruction with word matrix and word sums in classes from K-8

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Kath Murdoch's blog on all about inquiry and the approach.

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I am fortunate to be able to spend a lot of time in the natural environment. It is the source of my well-being and the sustenance of my curiosity. As has been noted by many, being in nature also helps keep our ego in check. It literally puts us in our place.

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You can access the materials you have familiarized with within the booklet Peter Bowers, the founder of WordWorksKingston, who has been doing a comprehensive research on word investigation through scientific inquiry for over 20 years.

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A learning journey to the writing system of the English language.

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This article forms part of a collaborative article written by Ann Whiting and Lyn Anderson. To view the full article click on this LINK.

The Cycles of Life: an orthographic study

Recently my reflections on the gracious death and the beautiful birth of close family members, astonishingly falling on the same day, evoked some poignant teaching memories of guiding young children with their study and ultimate discoveries of the ' cycles of life'.

Whether it be the study of seasonal changes through the lifeline of trees, an arbour of oaks or chestnuts that swathe us with their crisp fallen leaves and fascinating seeds or the evergreen pine that doesn't ever seem to change;

or the sensations of caressing the soft greens and yellows of the mountain meadows; or the discoveries of the strong, remarkable plants of the hot humid tropics;

or the close scrutiny of the jelly-like membranes of an egg and the excitement of chicks hatching in our organic garden;

All momentous signs of the 'cycles of life'.

And so we embark on an orthographic journey, concurrently with our deep study of ' there are many cycles that affect life on earth'.

We really like the word cycles and select this word to study deeply ; to investigate its orthography through the three domains of morphology, etymology and phonology.

What is cycle? What is cycle not?

These questions are pondered and deliberated on consistently throughout the study, guiding our quest for understanding.

We revisit the questions often with our students listening carefully how they communicate and articulate their understanding through the learning experiences that inspire and provoke.

A cycle is not linear, straight or fixed. A cycle is not irregular but may have irregularities as our current weather patterns reveal.

A cycle is circular, constant and infinite. We keep returning to the beginning but is there a beginning point?

'Cycles are everywhere in nature. They can occur over the length of a day, a season, a year, or longer.' ( )

"A bicycle, that goes round and round...," exclaims a 4 year old leads to an enthusiastic conversation amongst the children as we determine which of the bike's components goes round and round.

Everyone has something to say because bicycles are part of our world.

We plant conceptual 'learning seeds' as the children closely inspect the various mechanical parts of the bike. Through close observation the children sketch the bicycle with a range of art materials.

We scribe the children's thoughts and plant important orthographic 'learning seeds' as we announce aloud the orthographic structures of bicycle and bike.

We announce aloud the orthographic structure of <re+cycle +ed> as we scribe the children's thinking. We specifically announce 'replace the final non syllabic with the vocalic suffix <-ed>.

We ask the children to think about the meaning relationship between <cycles> and <recycled>.

Through these experiences we provide opportunities to build an understanding of the free base element <cycle>. We carefully note the children's deepening understanding as they verbalise their ideas and thoughts and through conversations that occur in the learning environments. We especially note the changes that occur for the non-native English speakers and those that struggle with our language as they encounter new and unfamiliar lexicon.

We begin to discover words that belong in the same family. As we extract words from the word bag the students hypothesize which words may be or may not be in a family. We announce aloud the structure of each word as it is revealed and discussed.

The children notice that the words all share a common base element. We hypothesize <cycle> .

The children illustrate the words collaboratively and our word-web begins to grow, as does the children's understanding, each time we encounter it.

Later we revisit these words to provide evidence that they do belong in the same family.

Stories are made of words and every word has a story.

Cycle as a noun was attested in the late 14c. It is derived from Greek kyklos , 'any circular body, circular motion, cycle of events', indirectly via Late Latin cyclus,

ultimately able to be traced back 5,500 years to a Proto Indo European root *kwel-(1) "to revolve, move, round".

This ancient root has produced, amongst a myriad of other interesting connections, distant etymological relatives such as collar, colony , pulley and wheel.

In 1883 specifically referring to riding a bicycle.(Etymology Dictionary)

We use images to share the etymological journey of cycle with the children. We want them mostly to understand that it derives, indirectly, from Greek kyklos.

The children ask about the spelling of <k> in the Greek word. We show how the word is spelled in Greek κύκλος. We talk about how a medial in a base element is a reliable sign that the word has derived from Greek. <y>

On another day we share the story of Cyclops, literally 'round eyed'. The children have discovered the story in the library and of course they wish to know more.

How is it Built?

We return to the selection of words we have hypothesized sharing the free base element <cycle> . We model the assembly of the word sum, announcing aloud the written elements, pausing at the morphemic boundaries and announcing any suffixing changes. We find evidence of all the elements we have constructed.

As we begin to construct the matrix the children assemble the word sum on small white boards or in their word inquiry journals.
We write the word sum for each complex word before we add further elements to the matrix. We continually refer to the word-web to select words to place on the matrix.

The simultaneous actions of writing and announcing aloud ensures the "c-y-c-l-final non syllabic e ... ing is rewritten as c-y-c-l-replace the e ... ing, cycle".
internalization of all the elements.

We do this over a period of time, throughout the day, during the week focusing on one or two word sums at a time. The children take their matrix home to share with their family. We continue to explore the subtle differences between each word that share the free base element <cycle> .

The children choose to add to their matrix and build further words.

Simultaneously we continue our deep study of cycles in nature. We decide to focus on the cycle of day and night to appreciate and realise the motion of the earth orbiting the sun.

Phonology
With our knowledge of the morphology and etymology well embedded, we now embark on a study of the phonology of <cycle>, to investigate the significant graphemes and phonemes that bring further sense and meaning.

We know that morphology and etymology drive phonology and therefore we can only investigate a word's phonology within the domains of morphology and etymology.

The phonology of the free base element <cycle>:

the single, final, non syllabic <e>

As we hoped, the children are questioning and discussing the different functions of the single letter grapheme <c> in the initial and medial positions of < c y c le>.

It is necessary for the children to understand:

the same grapheme can and will represent different phonemes and

the same phoneme can be represented by different graphemes.

The orthography of <c> provides the relevant learning opportunity to deepen these critical phonological principles. We study and analyse the single letter grapheme <c> which can represent two different phonemes /s/ and /k/ .

The linguistic terminology: grapheme, phoneme, IPA, angle brackets and slash brackets naturally occur in our everyday discourse.

As with all our quests, we need to ensure the learning community understands the meaning of the words we will use to analyse phonologically.

The children take part in the trading game to communicate the meaning of their word. The children trade words and move to another partner.

Through this collaborative task the children encounter many words, building and deepening their personal lexicon. We deliberately partner ourselves with children who need support to understand their initial word. After this the children support each other.

The children collaboratively illustrate the words and return the words to the word bag.

During the next encounter the children select a word from the word bag and identify the position of the grapheme <c> in their word. We discuss the circumstances of this grapheme: initial, medial or final?

We guide the children through a concept attainment quest.
The children place their word on the Venn diagram as directed by us. Their role is to think about our thinking.

"How interesting that cycle and circle are placed in the overlap!"

We revisit the phonological analysis over a number of days so the children have time to ponder on the placement of the words.

When we reconvene as a group the children discuss and share their hypotheses.

We decide as a learning community that the single letter grapheme <c> is representing either /s/ or /k/ or both in the case of circle and cycle.

During the next weeks we revisit the We revisit the phonology of <c> so that the children develop their understanding of grapheme choices. We encourage the children to add other words to the growing collection as they encounter them in books or when writing.
vowel letters and learn how to the pathways of each letter. The children especially enjoy scripting the beautiful ligature of the vowel letter < y>. script

We plant further phonological ' learning seeds' so the children will encounter other phonemes represented by the single letter grapheme <c> ; or other graphemes that represent the phoneme /k/.

We are left with many questions as we continue our orthographic study.

Throughout our quest we read and revisit Jeannie Baker's stunning literary text

We wonder why the author has chosen the title Circle.

We feel and see the cyclic nature of the bar-tailed godwit's annual journey in the text.

"Are they etymologically related?"

We would like them to be related, but we know we need to provide evidence...

This study is an ebb and flow, a cycle , it's cyclical, we are continually returning to our quest to deepen our learning and those of our students.
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To view the full article please click on this . This will take you to Ann and Lyn's new Blog,LINK . Ann and Lyn are collaborating to demonstrate the power of studying orthography with the very young and our eldest students, explicitly embedded in the realms of meaningful and inspirational learning contexts.

Caught in the Spell of Words

Caught in the Spell of Words

stories are made of words and words are made of morphemes

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This article forms part of a collaborative article written by Ann Whiting and Lyn Anderson. To view the full article click on this LINK . The Cycles of Life: an orthographic study Recently my reflections on the gracious death and the beautiful birth of close family members, astonishingly falling on the same day, evoked some poignant teaching memories of guiding young children with their study and ultimate discoveries of the ' cycles of life'.

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Kath Murdoch's Socratic Questioning Method through Inquiry Process

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Kath Murdoch's Socratic Questioning Method through Inquiry Process

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Inquiring into Friendship and Relationships

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Inquiring into Friendship and Relationships

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These are story books as mentor texts compiled by Kath Murdoch to help teachers inquire into the two important values with students.

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Recent Publications on SWI

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These videos give a window into the classroom instruction we support. It allows students to investigate the well-ordered structure of English spelling and how it links to meaning. I describe this as "word structured inquiry". You can learn much more about how spelling works and how to teach it at www.wordworkskingston.com.

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By Gina Cooke

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Why is there a silent <b> in the word doubt? by Gina Cooke

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Why is there a "b" in doubt? - Gina Cooke

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By Gina Cooke

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By Alice Vigors

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...requires a better understanding of the English spelling system - by Peter & Jeffrey Bowers

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Lots of great websites and links compiled by Kath Murdoch

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This flowchart was created in my classroom to show what happens to words that end in silent <e> and why the consonant doubles when they get a vowel suffix. Students made hypotheses and tested words through this flow chart to find out whether their hypotheses were correct.

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A piece of research on the benefits of teaching morphology when teaching spelling

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A piece of research on the benefits of teaching morphology when teaching spelling

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By Dr. John R. Kirby and Peter N. Bowers Queen's University

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By Neils Ramden
You can just type any word in the search box and it creates a list of that word's relatives.

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* We're aiming to create paid-for versions of Word Microscope and Mini Matrix-Maker, but demonstration and test versions can be used for free.

Welcome Page

Welcome to the morphology micro-site. It has information on how English words are built up and interactive web-tools to try out.

Use this page, www.neilramsden.co.uk/spelling/, as a bookmark in your own browser or when quoting this site to other people, even if you quote other specific pages as well such as the Word Searcher. Other pages might get moved.

This micro-site is for anyone interested in the English writing system, especially in how words represent meaning and how they are put together.

For newcomers, we hope you'll see English orthography in a new way.

For the more experienced, it's here to test ideas or as a resource to help others.

We hope whoever you are, you'll use, enjoy and send us comments on this morphological micro-site.

morphology noun 1 linguistics the study of morphemes and the rules by which they combine to form words. 2 biol the scientific study of the structure of plants and animals. 3 formal the structure of anything.

from Chambers Reference Online

Neil and Louise Ramsden

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We're aiming to create paid-for versions of Word Microscope and Mini Matrix-Maker, but demonstration and test versions can be used for free. Welcome to the morphology micro-site. It has information on how English words are built up and interactive web-tools to try out.

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Please write your feedback on how you thought the session was and your takeaway for what will help you in your classroom with your students. Thank you for your attendance!

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Backwards Design UBD & Structured Word Inquiry

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Backwards Design UBD & Structured Word Inquiry

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By WordWorksKingston

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By Dayna Laur

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Several years ago, I began implementing more classroom opportunities for my students to practice their verbal communication skills. Having access to unlimited technology had allowed me to support their online and written communication skills, but I still saw a lack of both oral and listening skills on the part of my juniors and seniors. There are several methodologies that I have tried with great success, but at the request of one of my good friend's and colleagues, John McCarthy, I'm writing this detailed description on how to conduct my twist on the Harkness Discussion.

Early on in my consulting career, I was introduced to the Harkness Discussion, by a teacher who attended one of my trainings and taught AP Literature. I was intrigued by the process and did some additional research on it. There are several variations and you can view some videos on the process here. However, I found that a few tweaks and changes were needed in order to maximize the potential of the process. The result is what I call a Spider Web Discussion, which is described in Authentic Learning Experiences: A Real World Approach to Project Based Learning .

To start a discussion, place students in a circle, but don't assign students a specific seat. Sitting on the floor is what worked best for my students. However, a circle of chairs works just as well and may be preferable for younger students. You may use as many students as you like and my classes of thirty were used to the process. I have found, however, that middle school students should be limited to approximately 15 and elementary school students, depending on the age, should be limited to between six and ten. (I've done this with kindergarten students too!) If your class size is larger than the suggested size for the age level, you will need to run multiple discussion groups. Have one group of students participate in the discussion, while another group of students is working on something else such as a learning center. You could also have one group observe the discussion of the active group. This may, however, produce similar results in the information discussed, unless you use two different discussion prompts.

The next step, is to write the names of the students on a pre-made large circle that you have drawn on either chart paper or on letter size paper attached to a clip board. Place dots at regularly spaced intervals around the circle. For each dot, write a corresponding student name. If you would like, you might also decide to use numbers instead of names. Just be sure to have a corresponding list of names that relate to the assigned numbers. This suggestion came from another good friend and colleague, Tim Kubik, who mentioned numbers would allow you to show the final chart to a parent without compromising student information. The chart with the names or numbers is important for you to be able to track the discussion. You can see a sample of one of my charts that is provided as the photo for this blog.

Now, choose a prompt to start the discussion. It is up to you whether or not you want to provide the prompt in advance. I do not. Since I am using the discussion as a formative assessment of student understanding of significant content and the critical thinking about the content, in addition to communication and collaboration, I do not want to give them an advance prompt. I certainly don't want to give students a specific reading, prior to the discussion, either. This would lead to students simply regurgitating the information that they had read and would defeat the purpose of the discussion. The prompt should be open-ended in nature to allow for rich discussion. An example prompt that I have used in my government class is, "How can we increase the active political participation of U.S. citizens?" An elementary appropriate prompt for the same topic might be, "How can we be better citizens?"

Once students begin the discussion, you completely step out of interacting with the students. Contrary to many Harkness protocols, in my version, your role, as the teacher, is to merely chart the discussion. Whoever begins the discussion (and it can be anyone) will be the dot at which you will begin the chart. Then, draw a line from the first speaker to the second speaker. The line will continue from the second speaker to the third speaker and so on for the entire discussion. This means that you might have a line that goes back and forth between two speakers several times if they are vacillating on a discussion point. That's okay. You will also want to make any antidotal notes in the margins of the chart related to misinformation that may be discussed that you will need to address following the discussion. However, the hope is that one of the other students will be able to address this during the course of the discussion. You will also want to take note of any student who brings the conversation to the next level. These students will be eligible for additional points once the discussion has concluded.

The goal of the conversation is to have every student participate. This is definitely one of the areas in which I differ from many Harkness implementations. I don't remind students if they haven't participated. Nor do I assign a facilitator student to remind student if they haven't participated. It is the responsibility of the group, as a whole, to ensure everyone participates. This is where the art of collaboration and communication can really kick in for the students. Rather than calling someone out, students learn how to draw those students, who tend to be quieter, into the discussion. They may say something like, "Sally, I know you always have great thoughts on (insert topic discussion here) and would love to hear if you have any insight on the direction the conversation has been going." Remember, since collaboration is key, each student must participate at least once. In this respect, I assign a grade to the discussion. I only make it worth 15 points. However, every student must participate at least once in order to have the entire group receive the points. Thus, it is an all pass or an all fail endeavor. While I am not a huge proponent of grades, per se, I use the points as a bit of an incentive, at least the first few times that we conduct a Spider Web Discussion in class. Let's face it; points are often a big piece of the educational picture for many students. After several implementations of the discussion protocol, however, points are no longer the motivating factor. The students merely want to have the discussion as a part of their communication. You know you are really onto something when the students begin asking when you are going to have another discussion! "Mrs. Laur, It's been two weeks since our last Spider Web Discussion. Don't you have one scheduled soon?"

Some of you may be concerned about the "all pass, all fail" methodology to the Spider Web Discussion. You are certainly free to base it off of a percentage of those who participate and often this is how the Harkness Discussion is run. Let me give you some guidelines on how to make this work without causing serious anxiety in students. The first time you run it, you know not every student will participate. At the end of the discussion, make note of the fact that you won't grade it this time, but that students should be ready for a grade in the next discussion. During the second discussion, you probably still won't have full participation. At the conclusion of the second discussion protocol, announce to the entire class that those who did not add to the discussion will have the opportunity to write a few paragraphs for homework that evening. The paragraphs should include the information that they would have said during the discussion, but did not. If the homework paragraphs are turned in the next day, all students will receive the points. I guarantee the peer pressure will kick in and those two or three students who did not participate will turn in written paragraphs. By the time you run the discussion for the third time, you will more than likely see all students fully participating. You may still have a few students who only speak once or twice, but that's okay. The more frequently you run the discussions, the better the students will become at both participating and listening. This means your frequent talkers will learn to listen more as well! Also, keep in mind that the grading aspect of all pass or all fail isn't something that you would want to implement in early elementary groups. For these students, you can feel free to use any reward point system that you may already have in place.

Earlier in this post, I mentioned the possibility of extra points. I do not like extra credit and do believe that districts should ban it. However, this is not considered extra credit. Extra credit tends to be non-germane work to the curriculum in order to boost grade averages. These extra points (and I only give three) are simply incentive for students to dive deeply into the discussion. You will probably only have two or three students who take the conversation to the next level at first. You will want to make note of this on your chart in order to debrief the process at the conclusion of the discussion. You also need to ask the group who deserves the additional points. Inevitably, the group will choose the exact students you noted. The more frequently you implement the discussions, the greater the number of students who will take the conversation to that next level. Thus, your assigning of the extra points will require deeper and deeper thinking by the students.

I run my Spider Web Discussion for the first time on the first day of class. This let's students know they can expect something different from your classes. Perhaps you might want to try this as a new semester starts in January. This is also a great way to assess your students' communication and collaboration skills right from the start. You can easily identify those who are your talkers and those who are quieter, right off the bat. You can then target these students in order to scaffold the discussion process for them in other ways and through other activities in class. For example, conducting a silent debate (see page 20 in Authentic Learning Experiences) may be a way to foster this growth.

At the conclusion of the discussion, ask the group to predict the pattern of the spider web chart. This should be done before you begin to debrief the discussion points, clarify misconceptions, and note the students who deserve the extra points. Does the chart lean heavy on one side or the other for participation? Does the chart look like a true spider web that is evenly spaced? Students get very good at knowing the pattern of the web and this helps them to determine seating for future discussions. Students learn where they should and should not sit during the discussion. If two students are talkers, they don't want to sit next to one another!

The more frequently you implement a Spider Web Discussion in your classroom, the more you foster communication and collaboration growth with your students. You also are able to continually formatively assess these skills in your students in order to provide appropriate supports in the classroom. Additionally, you are formatively assessing the content knowledge and the critical thinking of the content for each of your students. This, too, promotes planning for any scaffolding of the content that you may need to do for a student, a small group of students, or the entire class of students.

I look forward to hearing how you implement a Spider Web Discussion in your classrooms. You may even get brave enough to try it in a faculty meeting or in a teacher training session. In any case, building communication and collaboration skills in teachers and students alike is important for growth and learning.

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Spider Web Discussions as a Formative Assessment - Laur Educational Consulting

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Several years ago, I began implementing more classroom opportunities for my students to practice their verbal communication skills. Having access to unlimited technology had allowed me to support their online and written communication skills, but I still saw a lack of both oral and listening skills on the part of my juniors and seniors.