What kind of task will help students synthesize their learning?

Think about sometimes you have used comparison in your classroom

What are some lessons or situation where you asked your students to compare?

Why did you use comparison in these situations?

What are some of the strengths or some weaknesses when you used comparison as a strategy?

4 Goals of Compare & Contrast

• Memory• Higher Order Thinking• Comprehension• Writing in the Content Areas

Research clearly indicates the impact of each of these on student learning:

Category: Percentile Gain:

Identifying Similarities & Differences 45Summarizing & Notetaking 34Reinforcing Effort & Providing Recognition 29Homework & Practice 28Non-Linguistic Representation 27Cooperative Learning 27Setting Objectives & Providing Feedback

23Generating & Testing Hypotheses 23Questions, Cues, and Advance Organizers

22

The Four Phases of a Thoughtful Compare & Contrast Lesson

• Describe

• Compare

• Conclude

• Apply

Description

How will I help students identify criteria?

What is the purpose

What are the sources?

Comparison

What visual organizer will I use to help students compare?

Conclusion

What causes the differences and what are these effects?

What discussion questions will I use to develop students thinking?

Are the concepts more alike or different?

What can you generalize from the similarities?

Phase IV: Application (Synthesis)

• Identify other examples of each item.

• Create a product or complete a task that applies new learning.

Similarities and Differences 4 Types of Strategies

Compare & Contrast

Classification

Decision Making

Metaphor

Phase I: Description• Select the items to compare.

• Identify the criteria or characteristics that would focus examination of the items.

• Describe each item separately.On one hand there is… and on the other hand there is…

criteria

Phase II: Comparison

• Select a graphic organizer.

• Identify similarities and differences.

Phase III: Conclusion

• Ask questions such as:

Are the items more similar or more different?

What might account for the differences? What might account for the simililarities?

What new ideas, conclusions or generalizations can you now make?

Principles of Comparison

• Know the content• Give thoughts a

shape• One, two, three

stretch• Make it real