3 Hour Scaffolding Instruction Activity and Reflection by Keisha Berry

Middle School Science Vocabulary

keishaberry — 2025-06-03 17:20:01 UTC

Ms. Resendez is starting a unit on plants and animal cells. She wants her students to identify the function of the cell membrane, cell wall, nucleus, ribosomes, cytoplasm, mitochondria, chloroplasts, and vacuoles in plant or animal cells.

keishaberry — 2025-06-03 17:20:01 UTC

She could introduce the vocabulary before starting the unit. She could also use some visuals to go with the vocabulary words. This will help them to know the different part to help with identify the functions.

Middle School Math

keishaberry — 2025-06-03 17:20:01 UTC

Mrs. Lopez is teaching her students how to multiply and divide positive rational numbers. Her students will be given word problems to solve by multiplying and dividing positive rational numbers.

Middle School Writing

keishaberry — 2025-06-03 17:20:01 UTC

Mrs. Jackson is teaching her students how to write personal narratives. She has asked her students to write about a moment in their life where they grew as a person such as, accomplishing a goal, learning how to be kind or have patience, etc.

Middle School Social Studies

keishaberry — 2025-06-03 17:20:01 UTC

Mr. Hughes' class is learning about the colonization of America and the establishment of the 13 colonies. He wants his students to be able to compare and contrast the reasons for the establishment of each of the original 13 colonists.

Mr. Hughes can use a

keishaberry — 2025-06-03 17:20:01 UTC

Mr. Hughes can provide a cause-and-effect map and provide at least an example of a cause and provide a random effect for another cause to help students understand the content. He can also provide a reading text and have students color code the reasons for colonization.

keishaberry — 2025-06-03 17:20:01 UTC

The teacher could pull out difficult words and define them for the students before teaching the lesson.

Mr. Hughes can also provide a DBQ and have students explain what they understood.

keishaberry — 2025-06-03 17:20:01 UTC

High School Biology

keishaberry — 2025-06-03 17:20:01 UTC

Ms. Curiel is teaching her students about prokaryotic and eukaryotic cells. She wants her students to be able to compare and contrast prokaryotic and eukaryotic cells, including their complexity.

keishaberry — 2025-06-03 17:20:01 UTC

Mr. Matthews is teaching his students how to analyze themes and how they are developed through characterization and plot. He wants his students to create a one-page response that includes characterization about one character and their part in the plot and influence on the themes of the novel, "The Great Gatsby."

keishaberry — 2025-06-03 17:20:01 UTC

I would start with a short video or visual with examples of themes in movies or literature, then have a discussion on how theme is shown through characters’ actions and plot. After identifying some possible themes, I would have the students search for evidence in the text to support their chosen theme, then give them an example of how to organize their answers into a logical format. I would offer a sample for them to reference. Time permitting, they could bounce ideas off one another during the process.

High School World History

keishaberry — 2025-06-03 17:20:01 UTC

Ms. Simon wants her students to describe the major political, religious/philosophical, and cultural influences of Israel, Greece, and Rome by creating a travel brochure. Students will be assigned specific civilizations. The brochure should include the important information about their assigned civilization’s political, religious/philosophical, and cultural influences from the classical civilizations (500 B.C. to A.D. 600)

High School Algebra

keishaberry — 2025-06-03 17:20:01 UTC

Ms. Hernandez wants her students to solve word problems with literal equations for a given variable.

Elementary RLA

keishaberry — 2025-06-03 17:20:01 UTC

Ms. Robertson wants her students to identify the central idea and supporting details of the book, "Everybody Cooks Rice", by Norah Dooley, through a writing assignment. She will read the book to the whole class.

keishaberry — 2025-06-03 17:20:01 UTC

She can use a Central Idea Graphic Organizer to help students identify the central idea using supporting evidence.

keishaberry — 2025-06-03 17:20:01 UTC

She can do think alouds while reading the book.

keishaberry — 2025-06-03 17:20:01 UTC

She can display anchor charts that mimic the graphic organizers for students used in the lessons to continuously visualize and remember the process in finding the central idea and supporting details.

keishaberry — 2025-06-03 17:20:01 UTC

While reading she could model how to incorporate think alouds and paraphrasing to the students. She could also use sentence stems for the writing assignment.

RLA

keishaberry — 2025-06-03 17:20:01 UTC

Ms. Robertson should have an anchor chart with Central Idea and Supporting Details available while reading a mentor passage. While reading she will model how to look for and annotate her thoughts on the chart. After completing a few thoughts, she should have the students engage and give their thoughts to complete the chart.

Elementary Math

keishaberry — 2025-06-03 17:20:01 UTC

Ms. Clark wants her students to compose and decompose numbers up to the ten thousands place value using objects, pictorial models, and numbers including expanded notation and standard form.

Math

keishaberry — 2025-06-03 17:20:01 UTC

You will need various colors for each place & place value chart to create the number in expanded notation and standard form

Math

keishaberry — 2025-06-03 17:20:01 UTC

You can also use base ten blocks

Math

keishaberry — 2025-06-03 17:20:01 UTC

Preteach the vocabulary have hand gestures to correspond

Math Place Value

keishaberry — 2025-06-03 17:20:01 UTC

Have the students craft the expanded form of a number and fold the paper to visually create the standard form of the number.

Elementary Science

keishaberry — 2025-06-03 17:20:01 UTC

Ms. Roach wants her students to explore the processes that lead to the formation of sedimentary rocks and fossil fuels. She then wants her class to create a model to explain the process of forming sedimentary rocks and fossil fuels.

Possible Scaffolds

keishaberry — 2025-06-03 17:20:01 UTC

One thing that Ms. Roach could do is provide visuals along with the lab instructions so students can complete an investigation. The teacher could also give a graphic organizer to help students organize their observations. As students are performing their investigation the teacher can provide sentence stems to help them write about what they are doing and seeing.

Elementary Social Studies

keishaberry — 2025-06-03 17:20:01 UTC

Ms. Amboree is teaching her students about citizenship and having them explore examples of good citizens. She will have her students read a passage about Ruby Bridges and then write a response as to why she is a an example of good citizenship.

keishaberry — 2025-06-03 17:20:01 UTC

Ms. Amboree could use a variety of scaffolds for this assignment. She could pre-teach vocabulary that will be in the passage, use graphic organizers listing examples of good citizenship, and she could provide sentence started to give the students a sense of how to structure their written responses.

Share your action plan!

keishaberry — 2025-06-03 17:20:01 UTC

What will you do?

What’s your plan to implement what you learned today?

What support will you need to implement your plan?

keishaberry — 2025-06-03 17:20:01 UTC

I am interested in both the sound wall and looking more into the AI options for helping with lessons and scaffolding. I watched a video about the Adobe editor for creating images and that is very interesting to me to dive deeper into how that works and will enhance my lessons.

Explore

keishaberry — 2025-06-03 17:20:01 UTC

My action plan is to continue to explore AI and become familiar with ways it can be used to scaffold so I can share with teachers on my campus to help support them.

keishaberry — 2025-06-03 17:20:01 UTC

I'm looking forward to using AI in my planning this school year. I haven't had much experience with this, so I definitely might need some help.

keishaberry — 2025-06-03 17:20:01 UTC

Help support teachers by being co-teachers and helping with visuals and anchor charts. Help guide small group instruction with graphic organizers.

keishaberry — 2025-06-03 17:20:01 UTC

I intend to utilize Magic School's scaffolding resources to assist my teachers this year. I also have used Diffit before for Social Studies, so I'll use that as a tool for my teachers as well.

keishaberry — 2025-06-03 17:20:01 UTC

I plan to use AI to find new ideas and ways to help my students learn best. I really like all the links provided to help me get started with that. Your information about prompts was very helpful. My students will benefit from the different scaffolding techniques we covered today.

AI Resource

keishaberry — 2025-06-03 17:20:01 UTC

I want to share all the wonderful resources I learned today with my teachers. I want to provide some kind of power-hour PD where they have an opportunity to collaborate and share.

keishaberry — 2025-06-03 17:20:01 UTC

I don’t teach but I am looking forward to sharing some of the AI tools with the special education teachers on my campus just to pass along the resources. They have the potential to make tasks easier and quicker for them.

keishaberry — 2025-06-03 17:20:01 UTC

I will be intentional with my word wall in my class. I also will use more color coding and verbal scaffolds. I plan on reaching out to my content specialist on my campus to help with getting stations started in my class as well.

keishaberry — 2025-06-03 17:20:01 UTC

I plan to go back and share these awesome ideas and tools with my co teachers and reading instructional coach. Will try to implement new ideas and tools into our small group that can effectively help growth and learning like graphic organizers, word walls, and digital platforms.

My action plan is use the AI tools to intentionally help scaffold my student's learning, so that the content is comprehensible, accessible, engaging and fun for them. I practiced using the globin tools and I'm going to use this one to create partner/ group activities as a way to deepen their learning.

keishaberry — 2025-06-03 17:20:01 UTC

Concept and Mind Maps

keishaberry — 2025-06-03 17:20:01 UTC

Share how you could use concept and mind maps to support student learning in your content area.

I use a double-bubble map to have students compare/contrast key historical figures or forms of government.

keishaberry — 2025-06-03 17:20:01 UTC

I use a main idea and details graphic organizer to help students organize their thoughts and write a simple paragraph.

keishaberry — 2025-06-03 17:20:01 UTC

KWL charts.

Annotations

keishaberry — 2025-06-03 17:20:01 UTC

Some students are very successful using genre appropriate graphic organizers to help monitor comprehension when reading.

Verbal Scaffolds

keishaberry — 2025-06-03 17:20:01 UTC

Share how you could use verbal scaffolds to support student learning in your content area.

Example:

keishaberry — 2025-06-03 17:20:01 UTC

Use a rap to learn the Bill of Rights in U.S. History.

Reading - Shakespeare

keishaberry — 2025-06-03 17:20:01 UTC

We read the original text, in chunks, and paraphrase to clarify vocabulary, plot, conflict, etc.

I used Mr. Betts class on youtube all the time in my History class.

keishaberry — 2025-06-03 17:20:01 UTC

We use verbal communication to introduce new vocabulary and have students practice by pronouncing it and reading the words out loud.

keishaberry — 2025-06-03 17:20:01 UTC

We used fun songs to help them remember the big rock of that unit. It was always fun to see the student's nod their heads to the music.

keishaberry — 2025-06-03 17:20:01 UTC

You can use Magic School’s sentence starter tool to generate options for sentence stems for students who have trouble generating ideas when writing. For example, I used a 3rd grade Science TEK

“12 (b) identify and describe the flow of energy in a food chain and predict how changes in a food chain affect the ecosystem” and Magic School came up with this sentence starter: “If frogs are removed from a pond, I think___ will happen because ____.”

Magic School

keishaberry — 2025-06-03 17:20:01 UTC

Just learned about this website and I think its great. I used it to create a song related to the Science topic that students can probably sing at the end of the unit to review what they learned.

Cue Cards/ Response Methods

keishaberry — 2025-06-03 17:20:01 UTC

Share how you could use cue cards and response methods to support student learning in your content area.

keishaberry — 2025-06-03 17:20:01 UTC

I have many students that are non-verbal, in order to give them an opportunity to respond to class discussions I use Letter cards, ABC. All students have the opportunity to use them if they choose.

keishaberry — 2025-06-03 17:20:01 UTC

I use a thumbs up and thumbs down for responding to questions. I've also used dry erase boards where students can mark a, b, c or d for an answer choice.

Procedural Scaffolds

keishaberry — 2025-06-03 17:20:01 UTC

Share how you could use procedural scaffolds to support student learning in your content area.

Constructed Response Frames

keishaberry — 2025-06-03 17:20:01 UTC

We created an anchor chart with the procedural steps for writing an extended constructed response. Intro = Hook + main idea. Etc. So, students would remember the process and elements of an ECR. Eventually I printed out mini copies and took the anchor chart off the wall and students would grab a mini copy if/when they needed.

I use Choice Project Boards and break it down into days to allow processing time and collaboration among partners or groups.

keishaberry — 2025-06-03 17:20:01 UTC

Classroom procedures. Nonverbal signals for different items inside and outside of the classroom.

Example: Questions and Sentence Stems

keishaberry — 2025-06-03 17:20:01 UTC

Share how you could use questions and sentence stems to support student learning in your content area.

Sentence stems

keishaberry — 2025-06-03 17:20:01 UTC

I could have students glue a few example sentence stems in their science notebook. Then when we have think-pair-share, they can reference the sentence stems for discussion.

Sentence Stems

keishaberry — 2025-06-03 17:20:01 UTC

I will occasionally use sentence stems in my room. My students are never engaged with writing, and will often say I don’t know when you ask what they want to free write about. I plan on having a visual of some sentence stems that they can use to help them build an idea of what to write about, and how to start their writing.

Reading

keishaberry — 2025-06-03 17:20:01 UTC

I’ll pose a question about a reading we’ve done in Google Classroom, using a sentence stem, to get quick and easy feedback. Sometime I allow students to see others’ answers, sometimes I don’t.

Writing

keishaberry — 2025-06-03 17:20:01 UTC

Daily writing warm-ups usually have sentence starters off to the side for those who need help getting started. These are accessible to all.

We use sentence stems for both the warm-up and exit ticket responses. By doing so allows students to academically have access to the learning, but also to help deepen their responses.

keishaberry — 2025-06-03 17:20:01 UTC

Question Tools

keishaberry — 2025-06-03 17:20:01 UTC

I really like the Magic School and Driffit web pages. Finding questions that match different DOK levels, but still give you the same information is so hard. I can't wait to explore them more to use in my classroom.

Visual Scaffolds

keishaberry — 2025-06-03 17:20:01 UTC

Share how you could use visual scaffolds to support student learning in your content area.

Rules and Procedures

keishaberry — 2025-06-03 17:20:01 UTC

My students and I create our classroom anchor charts. They feel more comfortable using them since they were involved in the process.

Graphic Organizers

keishaberry — 2025-06-03 17:20:01 UTC

I had my students use graphic organizers to connect to different concepts. They would have them glued into their reading journals so they could reference them during workstations or for when they worked with me in small groups.

keishaberry — 2025-06-03 17:20:01 UTC

This is something I would use in my classroom to scaffold reading with my inclusion students as part of a small group rotation.

Organizers

keishaberry — 2025-06-03 17:20:01 UTC

Graphic Organizers – Includes Venn diagrams, concept maps, KWL charts (Know, Want to Know, Learned).
Timelines – Chronological order of events, useful in history or project planning.
Storyboards – images or sketches used in planning narratives or presentations.

keishaberry — 2025-06-03 17:20:01 UTC

Having the rules and procedures available. Using graphic organizers. Visuals are big key to learning. With so many students with Autism using visuals help them learn. You also take in account just how many people need visuals that help them process the words that go with them.

Manipulatives

keishaberry — 2025-06-03 17:20:01 UTC

Share how you could use manipulatives to support student learning in your content area.

keishaberry — 2025-06-03 17:20:01 UTC

In Mathematics, base ten blocks are golden. For example, addition and subtraction. Also great for place value!

Manipulatives

keishaberry — 2025-06-03 17:20:01 UTC

I teach mainly reading and writing. When thinking of manipulatives, my mind used to only go towards math. However, last year I started using tangible items like magnetic letters, magnet tiles, pop-its, and color index card pieces to help with blending and segmenting. I have seen such a huge improvement with engagement!

Color Coding

keishaberry — 2025-06-03 17:20:01 UTC

Share how you could use color coding to support student learning in your content area.

keishaberry — 2025-06-03 17:20:01 UTC

I've used color coding for making sentences, such as yellow for a noun, green for the verb, orange for an adjective. Students know they need to have one word from each color card.

Color Coding

keishaberry — 2025-06-03 17:20:01 UTC

Color coding is a visual scaffolding tool that can highlight important vocabulary words or concepts in learning. This will allow students to focus on the important information of their learning. I have used color coding in the past for homework, individual reading and jigsaw reading.

keishaberry — 2025-06-03 17:20:01 UTC

I use color coding to help transition through work. Work not yet started is in the green folder, transition to doing the work on a yellow folder and when completed it goes into the red folder.

Writing

keishaberry — 2025-06-03 17:20:01 UTC

After writing, we will highlight different parts of the piece using different colored highlighters.

keishaberry — 2025-06-03 17:20:01 UTC

I've used color coding to help students identify the different types of figurative language. Some of those are hard to pronounce for some of my kiddos but because of the color system, it helped them engage in poetry lessons.

Word Wall/ Word Bank

keishaberry — 2025-06-03 17:20:01 UTC

Share how you could use word walls and word banks to support student learning in your content area.

Word Walls

keishaberry — 2025-06-03 17:20:01 UTC

In a special education classroom, I typically haven’t had room to create a word wall. However, this year I have cleared a wall in order to put sight words, vocabulary words that we learn, and words of student choice on there. I want it to be interactive.

keishaberry — 2025-06-03 17:20:01 UTC

I like the idea of the sound wall vs the word wall. Many of my students cannot yet read words so breaking it down into sounds would be much more beneficial!

Word Banks for Writing

keishaberry — 2025-06-03 17:20:01 UTC

We use word walls as vocabulary support but also writing support. Anchor charts with transition words and when to use them has helped our students with constructed responses. Same with having a bank of sentence stems ready for when they need to explain or cite evidence.

Dictionary/Thesaurus

keishaberry — 2025-06-03 17:20:01 UTC

Share how you could use dictionaries and thesauri to support student learning in your content area.

Dictionaries

keishaberry — 2025-06-03 17:20:01 UTC

I've had students complete Frayer Models for vocabulary words using dictionaries. They would also use the thesaurus to find synonyms and antonyms to add to their Frayer Model.

keishaberry — 2025-06-03 17:20:01 UTC

Just having students practice looking words up in the dictionary. They are so accustomed to Google; however, they need to know how to utilize a dictionary for testing.

Danica Bott's AI for Educators

keishaberry — 2025-06-03 17:20:01 UTC

Magic School Assignment Scaffolder

keishaberry — 2025-06-03 17:20:01 UTC

Goblin Tools- Magic ToDo

keishaberry — 2025-06-03 17:20:01 UTC

Breaking things down so you don't!

Chat GPT

keishaberry — 2025-06-03 17:20:01 UTC

Ask questions, ask for instructional steps to be broken down, ask for instructional scaffold suggestions, and more!

Scaffolding Activity

keishaberry — 2025-06-03 18:33:38 UTC

2025-06-04 16:01:13 UTC

Pre-teach vocabulary, use visuals, watch a video about the specific scenario. Use sentence stems for the writing portion.

2025-06-04 16:02:28 UTC

There are Pixar videos on theme. Show one of these and do a think aloud about the theme and how you can determine this based on the characters' actions and the plot. If needed, show another video (these are short) and have students mirror the teacher's thinking - this could be done in turn-and-talks. Then move this skill to texts.

Elementary math

2025-06-04 16:03:45 UTC

Review place value chart - and add next place value - +100,000 to add rigor

plan

2025-06-04 16:24:45 UTC

I hadn't thought previously about using AI to assist with scaffolding. I get stuck doing the same old things. I will definitely be using the resources that you shared, especially AI.

Next Steps

2025-06-04 16:26:13 UTC

I'd like to continue to improve use of AI. I'd also like to revisit word walls.

Questions and Sentence Stems

2025-07-29 15:07:47 UTC

I could use this scaffold to help students get their thoughts flowing when they’re stuck. It takes off the pressure and helps everyone participate, especially my quiet kids or English learners

TPR

2025-07-29 15:10:01 UTC

I will include TPR to support student comprehension, increase recall, increase vocabulary, and support more movement and an interactive activity.

Word Wall

2025-07-29 15:10:35 UTC

I’d use the word wall by adding new vocabulary as we learn it with visuals during the unit. I’d refer to it during lessons, model how to use the words in a sentence, and have kids use it when writing or during partner talk. I’d also have students help add words.

Question and Sentence Stems

2025-07-29 15:11:23 UTC

I could use question and sentence stems during group discussions to help those who are stuck, and also to provide a model of how to ask and answer questions using the correct vocabulary.

Themes in Literature

2025-07-29 15:13:23 UTC

As we explore a theme in reading, such as Survival or Friendship, I could have students create a One-Pager with things like definitions, examples, important vocabulary, visuals, personal experiences, etc. to share with the class. (Example found online)

Color Coding in First Grade

2025-07-29 15:17:59 UTC

I could use color coding in first grade in several ways. One useful way I could utilize it in my lesson and small groups is color coding with phonics. I could use different colors for the vowels and consonants, as well as the digraphs or blends we are learning that week. I could also use color coding with text evidence and responses to comprehension questions.

- Jayme Herman

Procedural Scaffold

2025-07-29 15:21:44 UTC

I could have my students complete a role playing activity over a specific topic of study. For example, if we are learning about the solar system, maybe I can have students pick a planet and share facts or information about their assigned planet. This will ensure each planet is covered and other students will learn new information.

2025-07-29 16:00:38 UTC

Mrs. Amboree should create a list of words that define a good citizen with the help of students on a large chart paper for student reference. Could you show a video of Ruby Bridges before reading about her? Model how the writing should look like with a familiar person, principal, teacher, etc., and provide sentence stems for them to use when they start writing independently.

2025-11-17 16:37:36 UTC

When teaching students to subtract with two and three digit numbers, I can have students break the problems down by using sentence stems like "my first step is..." Since there are multiple ways to subtract a number, this can get the class talking about and comparing different first steps. Then when they have an answer, I would use a sentence stem like " I can prove my answer by..." and having students prove to me that their answer is correct.

Word Wall (IWW)

2025-11-17 16:42:30 UTC

IWW's are a powerful tool used to help students learn academic vocabulary and construct meaning using words, visuals/ relia, and connections between words. We encourage our science teachers to build IWW with student during the Explain phase when students are learning about the scientific principles of the concept.

Then students can take their learning off the IWW and put it into writing about it.

Color Coding Science

2025-11-17 16:46:28 UTC

This is something I've use when I used to teach reading, but never considered doing it in science. We expect students to complete a CER during every concept. I think it would be an easy tweak to have teachers use one color for the Claim, one color for the Evidence, and one color for the Reasoning. They could put a green star on their Explore data collection piece of the investigation to show that this piece will relate to the Evidence part of their CER.

Concept and Mind Maps

2025-11-17 16:46:42 UTC

I would use concept and mind maps as a scaffold for secondary students as they allow students to see the overall goal and "Big Picture". With concept and mind maps, students are able to make connections between the TEKS they are learning and how each topic applies to the overarching concept. Students see where they are in the learning as well as where they are going in order to fulfill the learning objectives.

Cue Cards / Response Cards

2025-11-17 16:50:02 UTC

Response and Cue Cards are a great way to encourage participation from all students as the teacher is checking for understanding. These cards take away the guessing game of which students understand and which students do not as they can serve as a visual representation of immediate feedback. Teachers may quickly spot which students got it and which students do not therefore, allowing teachers to re-teach or determine which students may need scaffolds or small group instruction.

2025-11-17 17:18:10 UTC

She could use base ten blocks. Give students a set amount of base ten blocks, and count them to form a number and write in standard form. Then work in reverse - give a number in standard form and build with place value blocks.

The teacher could use a color code for expanded form - a different color for each place value.

Biology Scaffolds

2025-11-17 17:24:11 UTC

For this lesson the teacher can scaffold and provide students with an increased opportunity of comparing and contrasting prokaryotic and eukaryotic cells by:

Frontloading the vocabulary as a homework assignment in which students create a Frayer-model for the words cell, prokaryotic, and eukaryotic
Creating an interactive word wall in which students completed Frayer-Model are displayed.
Using a Venn-Diagram to compare and contrast prokaryotic and eukaryotic cells. Within the Venn-Diagram, students may use color coding (1 color for the properties of Eukaryotic cells; 1 color for the properties of Prokaryotic cells; 1 color for the properties shared by prokaryotic and eukaryotic cells)
Instructing using multiple visuals where students can easily see the difference between prokaryotic and eukaryotic cells.

Possible Scaffolds

2025-11-17 17:25:14 UTC

Hands on investigation would come first. The students need this live exploration to help them understand the concept. As kids are doing the hands on, they are writing/ drawing their observations in words/ drawings. The teacher can create a drawing whole group that sums up what the students observed. While reading about the formation of fossil fuels/ sedimentary rocks, the teacher should ask questions and have sentence stems available for discourse. Partner A and Partner B discourse can be used to respond. Partner A can be red and Partner B can be blue.

The class can create an Interactive Word Wall that explains the formation of sedimentary rocks/ fossil fuels using words, pictures, relia. Sentence stems can be added to the IWW to guide students in their writing and speaking.

Before they create their own model, the students can make a concept map that explains the formation of sedimentary rocks/ fossil fuels. Sentence stems of First, Second, Then, Next, and Finally can be used to guide/ support student learning.

My Plan

2025-11-17 18:04:20 UTC

I'm so excited to share this with my science coordinator and specialists first. I think we can be more intentional in our curriculum docs to spell out some of the scaffolds that teachers can use with students. I want to start with color coding and being intentional with concept mapping along with sentence stems to be listed in the curriculum documents.

2025-11-17 18:04:49 UTC

I hadn't thought about being able to use AI as my "thought partner" to help scaffold for students. I'm excited to take many of these tools back to my school to plan for my students.

I'm going to refresh my lens that I look through when planning my lessons - I will use strategies like color coding, word walls, visuals, graphic organizers, to weave in scaffolding to support deeper understanding.

Action Plan

2025-11-17 18:05:46 UTC

My action plan would be to model the various scaffolding tools to teachers during our PLC's.

In order to do this, I would first explore the strategies a little further on my own and create exemplars to share with the respective science grade levels. I would start with the topics that students typically struggle with the most and show teachers how scaffolding can increase student understanding and retention of the concepts. Then I would model one or two strategies during the PLC's.

4 More Graphic Organizer Activity

keishaberry — 2026-02-25 23:51:05 UTC

habuain — 2026-02-26 16:17:56 UTC

I would use sentence stems anytime students need support structuring their responses for CER's

habuain — 2026-02-26 16:19:26 UTC

I would use mind maps when trying to demonstrate the process of weather fronts because they visually organize ideas and show relationships.

Math

2026-02-26 16:20:29 UTC

I can use this when introducing vocabulary. Instrumentals and all!!!

Math

2026-02-26 16:21:40 UTC

I will use this when introducing new vocabulary. Instrumental and all.

Manipulatives

2026-02-26 16:22:53 UTC

I use manipulatives to help students learn to count, add, and subtract. Ten frames are great for learning to count. Base ten blocks give students a visual of the numbers to add. And, even a 100's chart helps with learning numbers.

2026-02-26 16:24:00 UTC

Use color coding for different parts in a math word problem

2026-02-26 16:25:44 UTC

Instead of using paper graphic organizer, use digital graphic organizer

2026-02-26 16:26:56 UTC

Visuals for where to put items when finished helps with organization. Visuals for math helps students connect numbers with values. Visuals for reading helps students with understanding stories or concepts.

Math

2026-02-26 16:28:25 UTC

I will use this information to build maps on how to properly use the calculator functions to solve problems

Color Coding

2026-02-26 16:29:41 UTC

I use color coding to help when learning CVC or Blend words.

Math

2026-02-26 16:35:48 UTC

Wow. Can't have enough anchor charts with exemplars for all grade levels

Questions & Sentence Stems

jburges — 2026-02-26 16:38:16 UTC

Sentence stems would be great for a teacher-led small group. For example, teaching a science lesson about natural resources, small group at the table to do some content vocab. work, and sentence stems could be one scaffold to support the student discussion and responses using the vocab.

Math

2026-02-26 16:39:11 UTC

Should be in all classrooms but I believe it is a must have for math and sciences, from the abacus to the laptop.

2026-02-26 16:39:15 UTC

I love the idea of a mind map! This would be especially great for when I discuss plot with my students, analyzing characters, or thematic elements.

2026-02-26 16:41:47 UTC

I love in incorporating drawing while reading into my small groups. For students, having a visual alongside their reading really guides them into deeply understanding the characters, themes, and plot.

habuain — 2026-02-26 17:09:27 UTC

A good scaffold she could add to support learning is a Venn diagram or comparison chart. This helps students visually organize similarities and differences between prokaryotic and eukaryotic cells.

Sentence stems

Prokaryotic cells are ___while eukaryotic cells are ___.

Place Value Craft

2026-02-26 17:18:40 UTC

Have the students create a craft using place value and base ten blocks that are color coded--Yellow, green, blue, and red.

2026-02-26 17:24:38 UTC

Front loading vocab, showing students a video, color coding key words, and breaking down concepts.

Math

2026-02-26 17:24:55 UTC

Front loading through short video lessons then based on short mini-lessons determine how we move forward based on those lessons.

2026-02-26 17:48:22 UTC

Be more aware of all the scaffolding opportunities and try something new.

Math

2026-02-26 17:49:40 UTC

There are two primary things that I will utilize after this PD. I was unaware of Magic School and Goglin.tools and will be incorporating them into my lesson planning. I will also begin color coding, especially when introducing vocabulary,

2026-02-26 17:49:48 UTC

My action plan, is to use more AI tools and share them with the rest of my team during PLC. I want to look at the curriculum and break it down and see where we can work on instruction and make it more meaningful.

Action Plan

2026-02-26 17:50:41 UTC

I plan on exploring Diffit and Magic School further. I will be using them from now on.

2026-02-26 17:52:18 UTC

I do like the podcast feature and magic school, which I will be sharing this with my team so we can incorporate it into our lessons!