How do Interactive Word Walls affect student acquisition, understanding, and application of content-specific academic vocabulary?

Seminar Title

How do Interactive Word Walls affect student acquisition, understanding, and application of content-specific academic vocabulary?

Vocabulary Instruction

5th Grade

Middle School

Science

All Disciplines

What if your classroom walls could talk? What would they say about the learning taking place in your classroom? I wrestled with this question a lot as I looked around my own classroom space. Rooted in looking for a way to increase student motivation, content-specific vocabulary definition acquisition, and application of vocabulary words, my research compares the effectiveness of traditional Word Wall vocabulary instruction to Interactive Word Wall integration. I desired for students to have more ownership over their learning so that the content found on the walls of our classroom would reflect their thinking. My research is applicable for any grade level or subject area that desires a fresh approach for vocabulary instruction. If you are looking for new strategies to engage and excite your students about learning content-specific vocabulary, then this is the session for you!

Throughout the action research process my thinking was driven by the question: How do Interactive Word Walls affect student acquisition, understanding, and application of content-specific academic vocabulary? I wanted to know, if your classroom walls could talk, what would they say about the learning taking place in your classroom? The review of literature targeted three concepts related to the idea of vocabulary definition acquisition, understanding, and application. I sought to research 1) Interactive Word Walls and their structure compared to traditional Word Walls 2) visual learning and its connection to multi-sensory acquisition and 3) inquiry-based learning and its influence on student motivation. The effectiveness of Interactive Word Walls was tracked by methods that included 1) pre and post assessment of vocabulary words and definitions done with both the traditional and Interactive Word Wall models 2) student surveys related to their thoughts regarding increased motivation, awareness and thoughts about the two types of Word Walls, and understanding of what the Word Walls were and their purpose in our classroom environment. As I collected data, I found that student motivation increased when they had a direct role in the construction and presentation of the Interactive Word Wall structure, definitions, and realia. Together, students and I partnered to create definitions in middle-level appropriate verbiage. Then students were grouped to identify a color, symbol, real-world picture or object that represented the word, and an example of a connection the word had to our unit content. This provided students increased purpose for having the Word Wall structure present the walls. It also helped transform the vocabulary instruction from a traditional Word Wall (words and definitions only) to an interactive model that involved increased student input. This led to more student usage of the content found there. The amount of times students would reference the wall increased because they had gained ownership of its components. Likewise, students also became more aware of vocabulary definitions and connections to other vocabulary words because they could visually reference these connections by looking back at their own work displayed in our classroom. I discovered that students needed a lot of explicit teacher scaffolding and instruction for either type of Word Wall to even be noticed, let alone be used as reference material during learning. For my students, using an Interactive Word Wall model has proven more effective in vocabulary instruction than the use of a traditional Word Wall. I want to continue using Interactive Word Walls as my primary vocabulary instruction strategy. I also want to learn more about methods for vocabulary practice so that my students can find more opportunities to interact with content beyond the Interactive Word Wall itself. In addition, I seek to find effective strategies for managing the space that Interactive Word Walls take up in the classroom environment so they can remain present beyond the time of the instruction of the unit for students to continue to reference.