Estimated reading time: 6 minutes

Are you ready to revolutionize your teaching and captivate your students like never before? Discover the transformative power of the Breaking News Project, a SIOP student lesson to keep your students informed, engaged, and inspired by the latest current events.

In this article, we’ll delve into the exciting world of this innovative teaching approach, providing practical insights, valuable tips, and real-world examples to breathe new life into your classroom.

Get ready to elevate your teaching journey and ignite a passion for learning!

Background

I utilize the SIOP (Sheltered Instruction Observation Protocol) Model to design engaging, student-centered lessons for high school students.

This evidence-based approach ensures that all language learners have meaningful learning opportunities and can easily access the curriculum.

My extensive experience teaching adults, teens, and English as a Second Language (ESL) learners is complemented by my two Master’s degrees in Education and Arts and my TEFL certification.

By combining this academic background with the SIOP Model, I create effective instructional strategies tailored to meet ESL students’ needs.

Design Effective SIOP Model Lessons For High School

Creating effective classroom lessons for high school students can be challenging, but the SIOP model makes it easier.

This framework fosters student engagement, comprehension, and motivation by helping teachers blend language objectives with content instruction.

Learn how to design a SIOP student lesson plan with a Breaking News Project.

Provide Constructivist Learning Strategies

When designing SIOP model lessons for high school students, it is important to provide constructivist learning strategies.

Constructivist teaching encourages students to construct knowledge through hands-on experiences and real-world activities.

With this approach, teachers create meaningful inquiry-based tasks that allow students to explore relevant topics independently.

This helps foster engagement, build critical thinking skills, and deepen comprehension of course material.

Sample SIOP Student Lesson

SIOP model lessons provide multiple ways for students to connect the lesson content and their prior knowledge to make the instruction meaningful and relevant.

Teachers use visuals, discussions, manipulatives, and other interactive materials to explain abstract concepts in a way that allows students to make more personal connections to the material.

The idea is that by providing engaging activities with cognitive and visual elements, students actively participate in their own learning.

By incorporating constructivist approaches into your SIOP lesson plans, your students will not only be engaged during class.

Still, they will also come away with a better understanding of the material being taught.

Incorporate Multiple Intelligences

Engaging students in meaningful ways requires making learning relevant and using strategies that play to students’ strengths.

Incorporating multiple intelligences into a SIOP student lesson helps create an engaging classroom environment and fosters a deeper understanding of course concepts.

To do this, teachers should consider each student’s intelligence profile and design activities that draw on their best capacities, whether:

• verbal-linguistic
• logical-mathematical
• spatial-visual
• bodily-kinesthetic
• musical-rhythmic
• interpersonal
• intrapersonal
• naturalistic

This can involve breaking down complex material into more easily manageable components, catering to various learning styles, and teaching out of sequence.

Sample SIOP Student Lesson

For example, a teacher could assign Logical/Mathematical students to calculate the cost of expanding their business while Verbal/Linguistic students work on writing an advertisement for the expansion.

Including activities in a SIOP student lesson that employs multiple intelligences also requires providing ample resources, such as books, diagrams, or even recordings of music and sounds.

Find topics and activities to appeal to students with different strengths.

This allows teachers to foster a stimulating environment where students can explore their own potential while learning new ideas.

Scaffold Content Acquisition and Application Skills

One of the best ways to ensure that students understand each lesson and can apply it in various settings is to begin with instruction that scaffolds their acquisition of new content.

• Begin a SIOP student lesson by modeling a concept for all students using real-life examples and definitions.
• Follow this up with collaborative tasks where students discuss concepts, suggest resources, ask questions, evaluate arguments, and test theories.
• Finally, offer individual opportunities for application and practice, such as simulations or traditional paper-and-pencil activities.

The process of scaffolding content allows students to receive the basic information they need and ample opportunity to ask questions, play with content, and test theories in a safe setting.

With each step and piece of instruction, educators can provide more explicit guidance and examples and more challenging work until students feel confident in their mastery of the concept.

With this scaffolding and practice, students will be better prepared to tackle any task related to their lesson without much extra help or guidance.

A SIOP Student Lesson Example

For our Breaking News Project, my students worked together to research current news sources in our school library.

This is a great idea to engage students in the process of informative writing. It also allows students to use research methods and critical thinking to filter through topic material.

Here is a short video explaining our Breaking News Project:

Project Activities

Students worked on the following worksheet for our library visit so they could plan for their own news story:

Group Names:	Title:
Media 2 (Video Clip under 2 minutes): Please write down ideas about the video you want to use.	Supporting Idea 1:
Media 2 (Video Clip under 2 minutes): Please write ideas about the video you want to use.	Supporting Idea 2:

For your PPT:

1. Organize your topic and supporting ideas in sequential order (1^st, 2^nd, 3^rd, etc.).
2. Insert your images.
3. Insert your video (not more than 2 minutes).
4. Check your slides and writing for sentence and grammar structure.

For your Media Speech:

1. The leader of your group for this project will present your project.
2. Choose the English statements you want to use:
   1. This just in….
   2. Breaking news….
   3. This story is developing….

Choose the tone of voice you want to use that matches how News Reporters talk.

Engagement in a SIOP Student Lesson

Students worked in groups of three to compile a written copy of their news story. We reviewed and evaluated their writing using a rubric to provide them with relevant and meaningful feedback. 

Once they completed their writing and had a final draft edited and revised for corrections and direction of their news story, they started working on the digital media to present their news.

Student Projects

Their creativity is astounding, and I am overjoyed and impressed with their work on this project.

Here are two examples of Breaking News Stories from my grade 10 English class:

Summary

If you’re looking for a way to keep students up-to-date on current events, the Breaking News Project is a great example of how to design an effective SIOP student lesson.

This lesson encourages and engages students by turning their attention to the news and engaging them in meaningful discussion. This SIOP student lesson will elevate your class and keep your students engaged!

The SIOP model facilitates the creation of classroom lessons for high school students, and with this project, you can take your class’s learning to new heights.

Thanks for stopping by!

Until next time,

Suzanne

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