What is the difference between content knowledge and content literacy

Such findings have prompted discussion about whether it is more important for teachers to be highly educated in a specific content area, such as physics, rather than in general science education or educational theory, for example. In elementary schools, teachers have traditionally taught multiple content areas to a class of students, and most elementary schools continue to use this model.

Some schools, however, are assigning teachers to subject-specific courses or lessons based on their particular expertise and training, and students are moved from class to class or teacher to teacher throughout the day. When used with younger students, this approach can be controversial, since some educators and parents believe that moving students from teacher to teacher can inhibit the development of strong relationships with adults and adversely affect learning. For a related discussion, see 21st century skills.

Ask yourself, how do I mostly convey the information and knowledge to my students? Do I turn primarily to straight lecture or teacher talk? Or do I allow multiple opportunities for students to discover information on their own? Academic or high-level conversations in small and large group settings do not just happen. It takes time—and scaffolding—to create a Socratic seminar setting in your classroom. In order for our students to engage in academic conversation, or accountable talk, they need plenty of practice with informal conversation in pairs and triads.

Kids need to be talking and not sitting passively in their seats. Remember, Lev Vygotsky believed learning to be a very social act. For every five to eight minutes that you talk, give students one to two minutes to talk to each other.

You can walk around and listen, informally assessing and checking for understanding. Students also will surely have more fruitful answers to share.

And be sure to always provide think time when asking questions of students. When was the last time your students had sore hands from writing in your class? Students need to be writing every day, in every classroom. How about adding to your instruction more informal and fun writing activities like quick writes, stop and jots, one-minute essays, or graffiti conversations?

Not all writing assignments need be formal ones. Workshops are offered nationwide usually through a local university ; teachers of all content areas learn new and exciting strategies to encourage, support, and grow the young writers in their classrooms. The days of believing that we could hand informational text or a novel to a student and assume they make full meaning of it on their own are gone. Whether we like it or not, regardless of the content we teach, we are all reading instructors.

Scaffolding the reading by using effective strategies for before, during, and after reading—such as previewing text , reading for a purpose, making predictions and connections, think alouds , and using graphic organizers—will support all our students, not just struggling readers and English learners.

We need to inspire a love for reading, and build reading stamina in our students, which means eyes and mind on the page for more than a minute. How do we do this?