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Sense-Making Posters

In FOSS, sense-making discussions are a prominent and important part of FOSS active investigations. In order to create a culture of productive talk in the classroom that supports engagement in the science and engineering practices, set up norms for discussion so students feel free to express their ideas. We recommend that this be done together as a class activity. However, presenting a poster of norms to students and asking them to discuss why each one is important can also be effective. My Responsibilities (Norms) Poster can be used in this way (see download below).

Work with students to discuss ways they might contribute to the conversations. Review the sentence frames and strategies for responding to others. Examples are displayed on the posters below. During sense-making discussions, be sure students have visual access to the established class norms and sentence frames, as well as the word wall, class notebook, and equipment photo cards as appropriate.

For more strategies for supporting academic discourse in the classroom, see the Sense-Making Discussions for Three-Dimensional Learning and Science-Centered Language Development grade-level chapters on FOSSweb under Teacher Resources.

  • My Responsibilities (Norms) Poster
  • Sentence Frames for Sharing Ideas Poster
  • Respond to Others Poster

How to Print Sense-Making Discussion Posters

You can purchase the poster set from School Specialty, or you may opt to print the posters yourself. The poster dimensions are 25 inches wide by 33 inches long when printed out at 100%. If you'd like a smaller poster we suggest printing one out at 80% which would give you a poster with the dimensions of 20 inches wide by 26 inches long. The easiest way to print the posters is to bring/send the files to a local or online printing service or office supply store. Your school district may also have this service. Poster size images are generally available from any site that prints digital photos.


Credits

For more on talk moves, refer to Talk Science Primer, by Sarah Michaels and Cathy O’Connor (Cambridge, MA: TERC, 2012). Available online at https://inquiryproject.terc.edu/shared/pd/TalkScience_Primer.pdf.

Thanks to Brenda Tuohy, Think College Now Elementary, Oakland Unified School District, CA, for sharing her sentence frames.