| Advisor |
|
|
|
|
|
||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||
|
|
||||||||||||||||
| Identifying Functions | ||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||
|
|
||||||||||||||||
| Developing Functions | ||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||
|
|
||||||||||||||||
| Guiding Parents | ||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||
|
|
||||||||||||||||
|
Classroom Dialogue - T-10: Ordering and Grouping PDF
This knowledge construction function (KCF) or brain tool enables the learner to organize objects or events according to features or 'attributes'. It is used to arrange objects in a series or group them into categories (grouping is also called classifying). For example, we can array a harvested crop of tomatoes by size (small, medium, and large) or classify countries by climate (arctic, temperate, subtropical, tropical, and desert).
Ordering and grouping enable students to organize unstructured information into more coherent sets of data. Ordering and grouping reduces complexity by increasing abstractness. It enables students to operate mentally upon grouped data instead of isolated, discrete pieces of information. Operating upon grouped data is sometimes more efficient and it is a prerequisite for some forms of logical reasoning including syllogistic thinking (see T-16: Strategies for Inferential Thinking). Objects or events can usually be ordered or grouped in many different ways. The chosen method depends upon the purposes and goals of the people who use this KCF. Below are some examples of ordering and grouping:
This knowledge construction function (KCF) or brain tool enables the learner to organize objects or events according to features or 'attributes'. It is used to arrange objects in a series or group them into categories (grouping is also called classifying). For example, we can array a harvested crop of tomatoes by size (small, medium, and large) or classify countries by climate (arctic, temperate, subtropical, tropical, and desert).
Ordering and grouping enable students to organize unstructured information into more coherent sets of data. Ordering and grouping reduces complexity by increasing abstractness. It enables students to operate mentally upon grouped data instead of isolated, discrete pieces of information. Operating upon grouped data is sometimes more efficient and it is a prerequisite for some forms of logical reasoning including syllogistic thinking (see T-16: Strategies for Inferential Thinking). Objects or events can usually be ordered or grouped in many different ways. The chosen method depends upon the purposes and goals of the people who use this KCF. Below are some examples of ordering and grouping:
- The location of the products in the supermarket follows a classification system that enables the signage above the aisles to guide shoppers to the different product categories that are featured in the store (e.g. dairy, bread, fruit, vegetables, meat, candy, sodas).
- Books are classified by subject area in the bookstore. Each subject area is a category in the classification system (e.g. cooking, languages, philosophy psychology, religion, self-help). Within each category, books are seriated alphabetically by the author's last name.
- Libraries use more elaborate systems to catalogue and classify their holdings which may include a range of media in addition to books such as, for examples, audiovisual materials, maps, and manuscripts. The systems are designed to make it easy for visitors first to determine the library's holdings in a given subject area and then locate the available resources on the shelves.
- Placing events in chronological order is an example of sequencing. When we make a timeline, or plan our time using a calendar, we are using a system that sequences time.
- When we purchase a commodity, such as a bicycle or an airline ticket, we may want to sequence our options from least to most expensive. It gives us an overview of the available choices and facilitates good decision making.
- When we plan large events and ask participants to pre-register we can create an alphabetical list of their names to make it quicker to check them in on the day of the event. Placing names in alphabetical order is an example of sequencing.
- Leagues and international competitions are used to seriate contestants (e.g. gold, silver, and bronze) based on the performance of skills required in different sports.
- Living organisms are grouped into kingdoms. The animal and plant kingdoms are familiar. The others are the fungi, protoctista and bacteria kingdoms.
- Taxonomies use hierarchies with divisions and subdivisions to accommodate progressively finer similarities and differences among living organisms. Scientists divide the animal kingdom, for instance, into phyla, classes, orders, families, genera and species where species are divisions of genera, genera are divisions of families and so forth. Older taxonomies tend to rely on studies of overt similarities and common designs between organisms whereas newer taxonomies tend to rely more on studies in molecular biology and genetics.
Below is an example of an introductory teacher-student dialogue that reflects the intentionality of the teacher to mediate the development of the KCF of ordering and grouping. The setting is an elementary school classroom. Use this example for ideas about how you can introduce this function to the students in your classroom. Your introduction can be shorter or longer depending on the needs of your students. The dialogue below includes examples that can be adapted for older children and some you may decide to leave out for younger students. Remember that ordering and grouping is a form of abstract reasoning. Create additional examples as needed for the level of abstraction your students are comfortable with at the point of entry. Then use this function itself to raise the level of abstractness as the class moves along following the introduction of the KCF.
Level: K-5
teacher: Today we are going to do an experiment. Here are some words.
teacher: Present the following words written vertically on a flip chart or overhead transparency. Point to the words as they are read aloud
teacher: Dog
teacher: Pie
teacher: Rose
teacher: Cat
teacher: Cake
teacher: Daisy
teacher: Rabbit
teacher: Cookie
teacher: Tulip
teacher: Goose
teacher: Pudding
teacher: Violet
teacher: Candy
teacher: Carnation
teacher: Horse
teacher: Let the students look at the words for a brief period (10 - 15 seconds), adjusting the time upwards for younger students, then hide the words and ask the students to write down as many as they can remember. After they have finished, ask the students how many words they remembered and have them make a note of the number on their paper.
teacher: Now we are going to do something different with the words that we looked at.
teacher: Show the students the words.
teacher: I want you to take a look at these words and see if you can order them in any way that may help you to remember them. Which one do you see first?
students: Dog.
teacher: Yes, dog. What is a dog? How could we describe it?
student: It has four legs
teacher: Yes, it has four legs. It has a tail, a snout and it barks. What kind of being is a dog?
student: I know. It's an animal.
teacher: Yes it is. Look over the other words. Do you see any other animals?
students: Cat, rabbit, goose and horse.
teacher: Take your paper and divide it into three sections vertically - the long way. Like this.
teacher: Model for the students.
teacher: Vertical sections are called columns.
teacher: At the top of the first section write Animals. Then under the word animals, write in the five animals one in each row:
teacher: Animals
teacher: Dog
teacher: Cat
teacher: Rabbit
teacher: Goose
teacher: Horse
teacher: It is hard to remember many different things at the same time. To make it easier, we can look for ways to put the different pieces of information into groups where all the pieces in one group share a common characteristic. We have taken five individual pieces of information, Dog, Cat, Rabbit, Goose and Horse, and, because they are all animals, we have grouped them into a category by that name.
teacher: Now I want each of you with your partner to look at the remaining words and see if you can find two more categories you can use to organize these words, just like we did with the five kinds of animals.
Students take a few minutes to discuss this and complete the exercise. After they are done, have the students identify the two other classes, Desserts and Flowers, or similar category labels. Have the students share the words they included in the classes they created, and why.
teacher: So now your paper looks like this:
teacher: I want you to look at the words again. This time, try to remember them as they are in their groups of Animals, Desserts and Flowers.
Have the students hide the words they wrote in the first part of the exercise. Let them see the tabulated words for a brief interval then ask them to write down, once again, as many as they can within each of the three categories. When they are done, have the students compare the number of words they remembered correctly this time and the first time. Most school children - and most people - will have difficulty remembering 15 words even after a couple of brief exposures. The use of categories facilitates information storage and improves access to it later. You can try at the end of this lesson or at the end of the day to have the students write down the words from this exercise purely from memory. You and they may be surprised at how many they can remember.
teacher: Now, tell me what you experienced. Was it easier or harder to remember the words with the help of the categories?
students: Easier.
teacher: What made it easier?
student: With the categories it was like I just had to remember three groups and after that it was easier to think about what was inside each group.
teacher: Yes, instead of remembering 15 separate things, or items, we could now remember 3 groups, or categories, and 5 items in each category. That is easier. The brain tool of ordering and grouping can often make it easier for us to understand and solve problems. Let's think about some examples of grouping.
student: We group students by grade, K, 1, 2, 3, and so on.
student: And by school! - Elementary, middle, and high
teacher: Yes, students can be grouped by grade or by school. We could also group them by gender into boys and girls, males/females, or group them by any number of other characteristics. When we group we often refer to the characteristics we group by as features or attributes. We can group people, animals, plants, objects, events and really anything we can imagine. Grouping is also known as classifying. So, we group or classify based on the features or attributes we choose to use. Let's look for some additional examples of grouping or classifying.
student: We classify the time of day into morning, afternoon, evening and night.
student: We classify the first day of the week as Sunday, the second as Monday, and the third as Tuesday and so on.
teacher: Yes - and we use the same principle the next unit up when we classify the first month of the year as January, the second as February and so forth. Likewise, we classify the four seasons, winter, spring, summer and fall. Again, we see that people can classify the same thing, time, in many different ways. Most countries use a solar calendar and the seasons to classify time, but some use a lunar calendar based on complete cycles of phases of the moon. Good. Let's look for more examples of grouping or classifying.
student: We can classify bugs!
teacher: Yes, good, we can classify bugs. Now, bugs can mean different things, so before we can classify bugs we have to make sure we know which bugs we are talking about. What can the word bug mean?
student: Bugs can mean insects like spiders or ants.
student: Bugs can mean germs that cause disease.
student: Bugs can also be problems with computer programs!
teacher: Yes, bugs can have all of the meanings: insects, germs and software glitches. Before we classify we have to know which meaning we will be using. Will it be insects, germs, or software problems?
student: Oh, I see, picking the correct meaning is really important.
teacher: That is very true. If a word has more than one meaning we must identify the meaning that is relevant for us before we can classify. Things can very quickly get very confusing if we don't do that. Some might be classifying insects, some might be classifying germs, and some might be classifying software problems.
student: We might end up classifying the wrong thing.
teacher: Yes, we might be applying our brain tool in the wrong area. Since we can use this brain tool everywhere it is important to know exactly where we need to use it. So, let's go on, which meaning of the word bugs should we use?
students: Let's choose insects!
teacher: OK, what are some examples of how we can classify bugs?
student: Some bugs have wings and some don't.
teacher: That is right. We can classify bugs into those that have wings and those that don't.
student: We can classify the ones that have wings into those that have four wings and those that have two.
student: We can classify insects into those that have mouth parts adapted for piercing and sucking and those that have mouth parts adapted for licking and chewing.
other students: Aaaargh, disgusting! - How did you know that!
student: I think insects are fascinating. You can look at enlarged pictures, from microscopes, to see what kind of mouth they have.
teacher: Yes, that is correct. You know a lot about insects. Let's see what else we can classify. Let's try a different area, something outside of the animal or plant kingdoms.
student: We can classify sports as individual or team sports.
student: We can classify communities by size like cities, towns, and villages.
student: We can classify means of transportation as air-based, land-based, or sea-based, such as airplanes, cars and boats.
student: Yes, or balloons, bicycles and rafts.
teacher: Yes, these are all great examples of how we can use this brain tool to categorize or group the information we are working with. You are getting this. - There is another way we can use this brain tool to organize information. It is called sequencing. When we sequence, we put things in order according to some criterion. For example, in the zoo we can sequence the elephants by their size or age. We can sequence counties by the size of their population or territory. Let's think about some examples of putting things into a series from our own lives.
student: I order my baseball cards from the batter with the lowest batting average to the batter with the highest batting average.
student: We could each measure the distance from home to school and find the sequence from the one who lives nearest to the school to the one who lives farthest away.
teacher: Yes, those are good examples. Let's find some more. You are getting this.
student: The World Series!
teacher: Yes, the World Series in baseball is a series of games that are played, one after another, between two teams competing for the top honor. There can be seven games in the World Series. The first team to win four games in the series wins the World Series. What are some other examples of how things are organized into a series?
student: The homework lessons in the math book are numbered. You could see the lessons as a series.
student: And it goes from easier to harder!
student: When you bake a cake you have to go through a series of steps. A recipe is a series, a series of steps!
teacher: Yes, you are right. A recipe lays out a series of steps that have to be followed in the correct order.
student: A manual! A manual tells you the series of steps you have to go through to put something together or do something.
teacher: Yes, a manual, in some ways, is like a recipe. It tells us about the sequence of steps we need to take to accomplish a goal.
student: A travel plan! Like, first we go to grandma's, then to the beach and then to the city.
teacher: Yes, a travel plan organizes a journey into a sequence of steps. You use this brain tool when you create a travel plan or an itinerary. These are good examples. How could we use ourselves to create a series right here in the classroom?
student: We can stand in a line from shortest to tallest.
student: We can stand in a line from youngest to oldest.
teacher: Yes. Now, let's think about combining the two uses of this brain tool: Putting things into groups and putting things into a sequence. Is it possible first to classify and then to seriate? Let's see if we can come up with some examples.
student: Yes! - First, we can classify ourselves into girls and boys and then, within each group, we can sequences ourselves by height from shortest to tallest.
teacher: Yes, we can classify ourselves by gender: boys or girls. Good. Let's look for one more. Let's find an example where sequencing is followed by categorization.
student: We can put blocks in order of size and then group them by color.
teacher: Excellent. Can you see how this knowledge construction function can be useful in your thinking?
students: Yes.
student: I can really use this function with anything, can't I? I can group anything and everything. It really depends on me!
teacher: Yes, as for all the brain tools, whether and how we use them depends entirely on us. Can you think of some examples where ordering and grouping can help you at home?
student: I could use it to order the clothes in my closet and drawers.
student: I could categorize my books and videos and then sequence them alphabetically by title.
student: My mom organizes her pantry. Now I can tell her which brain tool she uses to do so. She says organizing the pantry enables her to find things quickly and know when we have to get supplies from the supermarket. Now I understand that.
teacher: Yes. There are many places and times where we can make life easier by ordering and grouping. During the week, think about ways people can use this brain tool to make their lives easier and better. Write them down. Think about how you can use it too. On Friday, we will share with each other the examples we come up with during the week. If you discover a lesson or activity where you feel classifying or seriating will help, be sure to point it out to me. I appreciate when you share your thinking with me.
teacher: Now we are going to look at literature for our language arts work. I think you will be able to see how the brain tool of ordering and grouping can help you with your activity today and with many both similar and different kinds of activities. We have read a book this month. Select the characters that are most interesting to you from this book. Write down all the reasons you can think about why each one is interesting. After you have done that, take a look at all the different reasons and see if you can group some or all of these reasons into categories. If you have many categories you might be able even to group whole categories under other categories. After you are done, we will talk about how each of you ordered and grouped the reasons that the book characters you read about are interesting to you. Remember, there are many different ways to do it. Use the ones that are right for you based on your experience.
Note: Later in the day, during a social studies or history activity, you can have your students work on seriation by having them create a time line of historical events or, in science, classify plants, animals, insects and so forth. In math, students can put numbers into sets (such as odd and even numbers or numbers divisible by 3). Throughout the school day, and across the academic subject areas, connect activities to this knowledge construction function to enable students to recognize it and practice using it.
Level: K-5
teacher: Today we are going to do an experiment. Here are some words.
teacher: Present the following words written vertically on a flip chart or overhead transparency. Point to the words as they are read aloud
teacher: Dog
teacher: Pie
teacher: Rose
teacher: Cat
teacher: Cake
teacher: Daisy
teacher: Rabbit
teacher: Cookie
teacher: Tulip
teacher: Goose
teacher: Pudding
teacher: Violet
teacher: Candy
teacher: Carnation
teacher: Horse
teacher: Let the students look at the words for a brief period (10 - 15 seconds), adjusting the time upwards for younger students, then hide the words and ask the students to write down as many as they can remember. After they have finished, ask the students how many words they remembered and have them make a note of the number on their paper.
teacher: Now we are going to do something different with the words that we looked at.
teacher: Show the students the words.
teacher: I want you to take a look at these words and see if you can order them in any way that may help you to remember them. Which one do you see first?
students: Dog.
teacher: Yes, dog. What is a dog? How could we describe it?
student: It has four legs
teacher: Yes, it has four legs. It has a tail, a snout and it barks. What kind of being is a dog?
student: I know. It's an animal.
teacher: Yes it is. Look over the other words. Do you see any other animals?
students: Cat, rabbit, goose and horse.
teacher: Take your paper and divide it into three sections vertically - the long way. Like this.
teacher: Model for the students.
teacher: Vertical sections are called columns.
teacher: At the top of the first section write Animals. Then under the word animals, write in the five animals one in each row:
teacher: Animals
teacher: Dog
teacher: Cat
teacher: Rabbit
teacher: Goose
teacher: Horse
teacher: It is hard to remember many different things at the same time. To make it easier, we can look for ways to put the different pieces of information into groups where all the pieces in one group share a common characteristic. We have taken five individual pieces of information, Dog, Cat, Rabbit, Goose and Horse, and, because they are all animals, we have grouped them into a category by that name.
teacher: Now I want each of you with your partner to look at the remaining words and see if you can find two more categories you can use to organize these words, just like we did with the five kinds of animals.
Students take a few minutes to discuss this and complete the exercise. After they are done, have the students identify the two other classes, Desserts and Flowers, or similar category labels. Have the students share the words they included in the classes they created, and why.
teacher: So now your paper looks like this:
| Animals | Desserts | Flowers |
| Dog | Pie | Rose |
| Cat | Cake | Daisy |
| Rabbit | Cookie | Tulip |
| Goose | Pudding | Violet |
| Horse | Candy | Carnation |
Have the students hide the words they wrote in the first part of the exercise. Let them see the tabulated words for a brief interval then ask them to write down, once again, as many as they can within each of the three categories. When they are done, have the students compare the number of words they remembered correctly this time and the first time. Most school children - and most people - will have difficulty remembering 15 words even after a couple of brief exposures. The use of categories facilitates information storage and improves access to it later. You can try at the end of this lesson or at the end of the day to have the students write down the words from this exercise purely from memory. You and they may be surprised at how many they can remember.
teacher: Now, tell me what you experienced. Was it easier or harder to remember the words with the help of the categories?
students: Easier.
teacher: What made it easier?
student: With the categories it was like I just had to remember three groups and after that it was easier to think about what was inside each group.
teacher: Yes, instead of remembering 15 separate things, or items, we could now remember 3 groups, or categories, and 5 items in each category. That is easier. The brain tool of ordering and grouping can often make it easier for us to understand and solve problems. Let's think about some examples of grouping.
student: We group students by grade, K, 1, 2, 3, and so on.
student: And by school! - Elementary, middle, and high
teacher: Yes, students can be grouped by grade or by school. We could also group them by gender into boys and girls, males/females, or group them by any number of other characteristics. When we group we often refer to the characteristics we group by as features or attributes. We can group people, animals, plants, objects, events and really anything we can imagine. Grouping is also known as classifying. So, we group or classify based on the features or attributes we choose to use. Let's look for some additional examples of grouping or classifying.
student: We classify the time of day into morning, afternoon, evening and night.
student: We classify the first day of the week as Sunday, the second as Monday, and the third as Tuesday and so on.
teacher: Yes - and we use the same principle the next unit up when we classify the first month of the year as January, the second as February and so forth. Likewise, we classify the four seasons, winter, spring, summer and fall. Again, we see that people can classify the same thing, time, in many different ways. Most countries use a solar calendar and the seasons to classify time, but some use a lunar calendar based on complete cycles of phases of the moon. Good. Let's look for more examples of grouping or classifying.
student: We can classify bugs!
teacher: Yes, good, we can classify bugs. Now, bugs can mean different things, so before we can classify bugs we have to make sure we know which bugs we are talking about. What can the word bug mean?
student: Bugs can mean insects like spiders or ants.
student: Bugs can mean germs that cause disease.
student: Bugs can also be problems with computer programs!
teacher: Yes, bugs can have all of the meanings: insects, germs and software glitches. Before we classify we have to know which meaning we will be using. Will it be insects, germs, or software problems?
student: Oh, I see, picking the correct meaning is really important.
teacher: That is very true. If a word has more than one meaning we must identify the meaning that is relevant for us before we can classify. Things can very quickly get very confusing if we don't do that. Some might be classifying insects, some might be classifying germs, and some might be classifying software problems.
student: We might end up classifying the wrong thing.
teacher: Yes, we might be applying our brain tool in the wrong area. Since we can use this brain tool everywhere it is important to know exactly where we need to use it. So, let's go on, which meaning of the word bugs should we use?
students: Let's choose insects!
teacher: OK, what are some examples of how we can classify bugs?
student: Some bugs have wings and some don't.
teacher: That is right. We can classify bugs into those that have wings and those that don't.
student: We can classify the ones that have wings into those that have four wings and those that have two.
student: We can classify insects into those that have mouth parts adapted for piercing and sucking and those that have mouth parts adapted for licking and chewing.
other students: Aaaargh, disgusting! - How did you know that!
student: I think insects are fascinating. You can look at enlarged pictures, from microscopes, to see what kind of mouth they have.
teacher: Yes, that is correct. You know a lot about insects. Let's see what else we can classify. Let's try a different area, something outside of the animal or plant kingdoms.
student: We can classify sports as individual or team sports.
student: We can classify communities by size like cities, towns, and villages.
student: We can classify means of transportation as air-based, land-based, or sea-based, such as airplanes, cars and boats.
student: Yes, or balloons, bicycles and rafts.
teacher: Yes, these are all great examples of how we can use this brain tool to categorize or group the information we are working with. You are getting this. - There is another way we can use this brain tool to organize information. It is called sequencing. When we sequence, we put things in order according to some criterion. For example, in the zoo we can sequence the elephants by their size or age. We can sequence counties by the size of their population or territory. Let's think about some examples of putting things into a series from our own lives.
student: I order my baseball cards from the batter with the lowest batting average to the batter with the highest batting average.
student: We could each measure the distance from home to school and find the sequence from the one who lives nearest to the school to the one who lives farthest away.
teacher: Yes, those are good examples. Let's find some more. You are getting this.
student: The World Series!
teacher: Yes, the World Series in baseball is a series of games that are played, one after another, between two teams competing for the top honor. There can be seven games in the World Series. The first team to win four games in the series wins the World Series. What are some other examples of how things are organized into a series?
student: The homework lessons in the math book are numbered. You could see the lessons as a series.
student: And it goes from easier to harder!
student: When you bake a cake you have to go through a series of steps. A recipe is a series, a series of steps!
teacher: Yes, you are right. A recipe lays out a series of steps that have to be followed in the correct order.
student: A manual! A manual tells you the series of steps you have to go through to put something together or do something.
teacher: Yes, a manual, in some ways, is like a recipe. It tells us about the sequence of steps we need to take to accomplish a goal.
student: A travel plan! Like, first we go to grandma's, then to the beach and then to the city.
teacher: Yes, a travel plan organizes a journey into a sequence of steps. You use this brain tool when you create a travel plan or an itinerary. These are good examples. How could we use ourselves to create a series right here in the classroom?
student: We can stand in a line from shortest to tallest.
student: We can stand in a line from youngest to oldest.
teacher: Yes. Now, let's think about combining the two uses of this brain tool: Putting things into groups and putting things into a sequence. Is it possible first to classify and then to seriate? Let's see if we can come up with some examples.
student: Yes! - First, we can classify ourselves into girls and boys and then, within each group, we can sequences ourselves by height from shortest to tallest.
teacher: Yes, we can classify ourselves by gender: boys or girls. Good. Let's look for one more. Let's find an example where sequencing is followed by categorization.
student: We can put blocks in order of size and then group them by color.
teacher: Excellent. Can you see how this knowledge construction function can be useful in your thinking?
students: Yes.
student: I can really use this function with anything, can't I? I can group anything and everything. It really depends on me!
teacher: Yes, as for all the brain tools, whether and how we use them depends entirely on us. Can you think of some examples where ordering and grouping can help you at home?
student: I could use it to order the clothes in my closet and drawers.
student: I could categorize my books and videos and then sequence them alphabetically by title.
student: My mom organizes her pantry. Now I can tell her which brain tool she uses to do so. She says organizing the pantry enables her to find things quickly and know when we have to get supplies from the supermarket. Now I understand that.
teacher: Yes. There are many places and times where we can make life easier by ordering and grouping. During the week, think about ways people can use this brain tool to make their lives easier and better. Write them down. Think about how you can use it too. On Friday, we will share with each other the examples we come up with during the week. If you discover a lesson or activity where you feel classifying or seriating will help, be sure to point it out to me. I appreciate when you share your thinking with me.
teacher: Now we are going to look at literature for our language arts work. I think you will be able to see how the brain tool of ordering and grouping can help you with your activity today and with many both similar and different kinds of activities. We have read a book this month. Select the characters that are most interesting to you from this book. Write down all the reasons you can think about why each one is interesting. After you have done that, take a look at all the different reasons and see if you can group some or all of these reasons into categories. If you have many categories you might be able even to group whole categories under other categories. After you are done, we will talk about how each of you ordered and grouped the reasons that the book characters you read about are interesting to you. Remember, there are many different ways to do it. Use the ones that are right for you based on your experience.
Note: Later in the day, during a social studies or history activity, you can have your students work on seriation by having them create a time line of historical events or, in science, classify plants, animals, insects and so forth. In math, students can put numbers into sets (such as odd and even numbers or numbers divisible by 3). Throughout the school day, and across the academic subject areas, connect activities to this knowledge construction function to enable students to recognize it and practice using it.