Wednesday, October 31, 2012

Tuesday Teaching Strategy - Frayer Model



Frayer Model

The Frayer Model is a strategy for learning a new concept, such as vocabulary, by helping to establish relationships.  The model is used in a graphic organizer format for students to easily see those relationships.  Below are two ways to incorporate the Frayer Model Graphic Organizer
-          Students write the term in the center, and then in the surrounding boxes they write the definition, characteristics, examples, and non-examples.
-          Students can also write the term/concept in the center and list essential characteristics, non-characteristics, examples, and non-examples.
-          You can make each box a heading that fits the needs of the concept you are trying to teach.

The purpose of listing examples and non-examples and essential and nonessential characteristics is to help students build well-founded knowledge about the concept they are learning. In order for students to precisely understand completely what a concept is, a student must also know what it isn't.  The Frayer model can be especially useful when guiding direct, in-class vocabulary instruction.  If students have sufficient background in content, the Frayer model can be used for taking notes and monitoring their own learning and progress about the concepts that have been covered in class.

Implementation:
-        Instead of assigning the vocabulary in a book, have students each complete a Frayer Model for a single vocabulary term and then present it to the class and then students can take notes on each term.
-        Science teachers can use this same format for taking notes about reactions from a science experiment.
-        Social Studies teachers can take a time period, historical event, world leaders, or a government/economic concept and use this to help format understanding.
-        Math teachers could use this same format when students are completing a word problem.  Each box could represent a different aspect of the problem to solve it or each box could be a step in solving the problem.
-        Health teachers could use this to discuss the various effects of drugs or chemicals in the body.
-        English teachers could use this to check for students understanding in a short story or to identify various parts of a piece of writing.

Remember, the Frayer model DOES NOT have to be just for vocabulary words.