Each week I have each of my students look up the vocabulary for the week. It’s my first assignment for the week.
I started that with my web mastery course.
First I believe strongly in consistency. My students know that on Monday morning they are going to see a new topic and they are going to get a new set of vocabulary words to look up.
Second, it gives them a chance to sharpen up their internet searching skills. One of my favorite, mis-defined words of the week this week was class for my web design students was “class”. I wanted the definition as it relates to XHTML, and they gave me lots of other definitions. Not all, as they had already caught on to the fact, I wanted a very specific set of definitions.
Finally it helps with the exam. We have a district final and both the students and teachers struggle with it because we don’t have a clue what is on it. One of the test writers (I’m often one), got the brilliant idea years ago to produce a vocabulary list as a review and that’s helped a lot.
Some of us give the kids the vocabulary list at the end of the semester, but I’m finding it’s better to give the list as we go, and then use the list as a review.
Besides, then the kids know what I am talking about when we discuss our assignments.
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