LETS WRAP IT UP!

• “Teachers can differentiate four elements of instruction: content, process, product, and learning environment.”
  • Content: What is taught
  • Process: How it’s taught
  • Product: What is produced and can be evaluated
  • Learning Environment: Where and Who
    (Individual, Group, Student/Partner, Teacher/Student; Teacher/Class)
• “Instruction can be differentiated based on student traits, such as readiness, learning profile, interest, and affect.”(See traits immediately below.)

Student Differences that are Accommodated by Differentiated Instruction
Consider the traits below in creating, modifying and varying lesson plans

Interests Academic Skills Sets Language Proficiencies Organization Skills Learning Styles, Profiles (Audio, Visual, Kinesthetic/Tactile)

Personality Social/Emotional Development Intelligences Learning Difficulties Attention Spans Motivation levels

 (found on http://setconnections.org/differentiated_instruction.html)

THINGS TO REMEMBER ABOUT 

DIFFERENTIATED INSTRUCTION:

"NO two children are alike.  An enriched environment for one is not necessarily enriched for another." -Marian Diamonds: Professor of Neuroanatomy at Berkeley

"Three principles from brain research: emotional safety, appropriate challenges, and self constructed meaning suggest that a one-size-fits-all approach to classroom instruction teaching is ineffective for most students and harmful to some." -Teach Me Teach My Brian

"If you always do what you did, You always get what you got." --Marian Diamonds: Professor of Neuroanatomy at Berkeley

JUST REMEMBER... all of your students are going to be different.  Get to Know your students, and get to know how they learn, and what their interests are.  "Remember, if you always do what you did, your always going to get what you got."

HERE ARE SOME HELPFUL IDEAS:

A Final Note..

a Final Note...

One of the last things from chapter 7 that I would like to talk about comes from this: "If we allow ourselves to fall in love with what we do, we will be reborn countless times, almost always in a form stronger and more fully human than the one that preceded it... We must accept two challenges.  First, we need to cultivate passion for what we do.  Second, we need to remove our protective armor and allow our students to shape us, reflecting on and learning from what we see.

In just the three short weeks that I was in field, I grew so much love for the children in my class.  I became aware of horrible circumstances that the student's in my class were facing at home, and it killed me to know that these sweet innocent kids were going through such heartbreaking things.  I CANNOT wait to go back to this class.  I have grown so much passion for teaching from my field experience, and I have learned so much from these sweet kindergarten students.  I now can say that I will love what I will be doing for the rest of my life, and nothing can change that.  There may be bad days, but I can ultimately say that I know I am going to love what I am going to do.  I cannot wait to change the lives of the many students that I come in contact with over the next several years.  

Teachers who CARE

The Simple, 

Hard Truth About Teaching

James Stronge who writes about effective teaching in his book.  Strong says research tells us the following:

*These are my favorite lines that Strong says about caring teachers.*

• Students consistently want teachers who respect them, listen to them, show empathy towards them, help them work out their problems, and become human by sharing their own lives and ideas with their students.
• Caring teachers who create relationships with their students enhance student learning.
• effective teachers consistently emphasize that their love for their students is a key element in success
• Teachers who create a warm and supportive classroom environment tend to be more effective with all students.
• Caring teachers intentionally develop awareness of their students' cultures outside of school.

Here are some of my favorite quotes about caring teachers:

If kids come to us from strong, healthy functioning families, it makes our job easier. If they do not come to us from strong, healthy, functioning families, it makes our job more important.

-Barbara Colorose 

Teachers affect eternity; no one can tell where their influence stops.

Henry Brooks Adams

Students don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care.

Anonymous

Children are like wet cement, whatever falls on them makes an impression.

- Haim Ginott                                         

It all comes down to caring, Our instruction will be much more meaningful if our students know that we care.  Our students are not going to remember the math lessons that we taught, they aren't going to remember the writing lessons that you teach, BUT they are going to remember how you cared about them individually.  Your students will remember that you cared about them, and you cared about their success. 

SMALL GROUPS

"Because student's vary greatly in readiness at any given point in an instructional cycle, it is critical during a unit to find a way to teach to a learner's needs rather than only to an imaginary whole-class readiness."

Teaching in small groups is a very effective strategy.  Teaching in small groups allows you to teach at student's readiness levels, interest, and learning profiles.  The key to working with small groups, is that you shouldn't have groups set in stone where the same people work with the same people overtime.  Teachers should be actively looking for students to work with in small groups.  For example, if you are starting to write a story, and a group of students are really having trouble coming up with what to write about, you could quickly give the gesture of saying, "I see there are some students struggling to come up with what to write.  If you are having trouble and think you could use some help coming up with some ideas, meet me up at the whiteboard, and we will go over some possible topics."  These students will work together for maybe 3-5 minutes, and then that exact same group of students will probably never work together again.  That need of coming up with a topic to write about was solved in less than 5 minutes, and you have those students back to their seat writing rather than them goofing off, and procrastinating about a topic.  

You can use Small Group Instruction for any Subject!

AIM HIGH!

"It's likely that we underestimate what any student can accomplish"

- Chapter 6 Carol Ann Tomlinson 

Has one of your students ever surprised you?  Has someone ever done something that you never thought they could do? Have you yourself done something that you never thought you could do?  If you haven't done something yourself that you never thought you could do, you surely know someone that has done something that has simply surprised you.  Many times we underestimate our students abilities. Sometimes we are robbing them of the things that we don't have them do because we don't think that they can.  I am here to tell you that we are wrong.  WE need to "AIM HIGH" 

 "It is highly likely that students achieve much more when we present them with tasks that we genuinely believe to be beyond them."

-Carol Anne Tomlinson chapter 6.  

Once we start Aiming High with our students we then lead into the NO  excuses attitude!

"Accepting no excuses for work that is undone, incomplete, or inferior is trickier that it might seem.  Seen correctly, "no excuses" is not punitive but redemptive."

If we are going to require our students to accomplish tasks that we have "Aimed High" for them, we must make them accomplish the things that we have set for them to accomplish.  We cannot let our students give us excuses as to why they cannot/will not complete something that we have given them to accomplish.  Instead, we must provide support for them so that they will accomplish the task.  We cannot give our students "aim high" tasks and not give them support in doing those tasks.  It is essential for us to help our students accomplish those "aim high" tasks.  

"A no excuses teacher is formed with one part Mother Superior, and one part Marine Drill Sergent at the core.  The message is not so much, "If you don't do the homework, i'll line up zeros in the grade book," But rather, "If I need to provide a time, place, and support system in this room to make sure the homework or the project gets done, so be it--but the work will get done."

A GREAT classroom conveys to all students, 

"This is hard, but you can do hard 

things, and I am not willing to 

let you settle for less."

I think that a great way to show our students that they are important to us is to allow choice.  Let students decide on their own what is important to them, and allowing them choice allows them to learn in a way that they want to learn.  A great tool to allow choice are CHOICE BOARDS, or THINK-TAC-TOE BOARDS.  Here are some great examples.  

  

Not only do Think-Tac-Toe Boards provide choice, they also are differentiated for each student.  Students will be able to complete activities on their own level, while still having a choice!

These strategies are great ways for student's to feel like their work is important, and what they are doing is worthwhile! 

YOU are IMPORTANT, what you DO matters, and I want you to know that you are IMPORTANT to ME.

~Because you matter, the teacher says to the student, and because learning matters to you, I will do my best to, 

-Make sure I teach you and you learn what is genuinely of value in a subject:

-Pique your curiosity about what we explore, capture your interest, and help you see daily that learning in inherently satisfying;

-Call on you consistently to help you become more than you thought you could become through dedicated work; and 

-Be you partner, coach, mentor, and taskmaster all along your learning journey in this class. 

There are some GREAT examples in the book that show teachers that make their students feel important, as well as making whatever they do feel important.  Some of the things we can do to make our tasks worthwhile and important are, link the content to real life, use meaningful audiences, and help students discover how ideas and skills are useful in the world.  I would like to share an example where one of my professors shared that she used to do with her class.

Every year before christmas, the class would be learning about perimeter, area, volume, etc.  This professor would have her class build gingerbread houses on the last class before Christmas break.  But, before the class could build their gingerbread houses, they would have to plan out exactly what they were going to build, and how they were going to build it.  Everyone has built a gingerbread house before, and that is something that everyone in the class could relate to.  The class had to measure and figure out the size of the graham crackers that they were going to use, what type of candy they would use and how it would fit onto their gingerbread house, they did so much math related concepts in order to figure out what they would need, and they had to come up with a complete drawn out plan that was accurate before they were able to build their gingerbread house.  I think this activity is a perfect example of a teacher that gave her class something important to do, and those students learned so much by doing this.  

HERE are some other examples of important tasks that the book gave, 

* A high school history class continually integrated interviews with their reading, lectures, and discussions.--The direct link between history and lives of real people made the issues and principles behind their study dynamic and important to the students

*A school math class studied a construction site near the school that seemed to be creating a potential for traffic accidents.--While students participated in direct instruction on key computation skills they studied the construction site, and ultimately they made recommendations to the construction company and town council.  Most of what they recommended was implemented. 

THESE are the types of things that we need to get our students doing.  These are the things that students think are IMPORTANT and will remember for the rest of their lives.  CHOOSE IMPORTANT activities and assignments for your students to do.  

        

CURRICULUM AND INSTRUCTION AS THE VEHICLE

Important:

-What we study is essential to the structure of the discipline.

-What we study provides a roadmap toward expertise in a discipline.

-What we study is essential to building student understanding

-What we study balances knowledge, understanding, and skill.

It is our job as a teacher to decide what is important and what is not.  I suggest that we don't waste any time teaching something that is not worthwhile.  Is our time worthy enough spending time on this particular task?

Focused:

-Whatever we do is unambiguously aligned with the articulated and essential learning goals.

-Whatever we do is designed to get us where we need to go.

-Both the teacher and students know why we're doing what we're doing

-Both the teacher and the students know how parts of their work contribute to a bigger picture of knowledge, understanding, and skill.

Backward design keeps sticking in my mind referring to focused.  We need to have our end goal in mind when we are designing our content.  Where do we want to go? and how are we going to get there? and how are we going to get ALL of our students where they need to be?

Engaging:

-Students most often find meaning in their work.

-Students most often find the work intriguing.

-Students see themselves and their world in their work.

-Students see value to others in the work.

-Students find the work provokes their curiosity.

-Students often find themselves absorbed by the work. 

MIX IT UP! Are we just teaching, or are we teaching our students?  Engagement is ESSENTIAL!  What will our students learn when they are not engaged?  (that should be an easy answer :) )

Demanding:

-The work is most often a bit beyond the reach of each learner.

-Student growth is nonnegotiable.

-Standards for work and behavior are high.

-Students are guided in working and thinking like professionals.

-There is no "loose" time.

How do you feel when you have accomplished a big task?  Does it make you feel good or bad?  I know when I accomplish something hard it makes me feel accomplished, and makes me feel like I am a hard working and valuable individual.  Our students should always feel like they are valuable.

Scaffolded:

-Teacher teaches for success.

-Criteria for success are clear to students.

-Criteria for classroom operation and student behavior are clear to students.

-Varied materials support growth of a range of learners.

-Varied modes of teaching support a variety of learners.

-Varied Avenues to learning support a variety of learners.

-Small and large group instruction focuses on varied learners needs.

-Varied peer support mechanisms are consistently available.

-The teacher uses modeling, organizers, and other strategies to point out success. 

It is our job as a teacher to make sure that each of our students are pushed, and grow to their full potential.  How will we make sure that all of or students make it?  Will we just just leave their journey to chance hoping that they will make it?  Or we will scaffold them and make sure that they make it?

It's not what you teach, 

it's how you teach it.

It's an ultimate goal of a teach to, ensure that students develop the knowledge, understanding, and skill necessary to be fulfilled and productive members of society. -Chapter 5 Fulfilling the promise of the differentiated classroom

With that being said there are 2 types of teachers.  The teachers that teach, and the teachers that teach you.  Both teachers most likely know the content that they are teaching, they both are most likely experts in the subject/subjects that they are teaching, The difference between those two teachers is this: 

One teacher, "The information is here.  I'll deliver it. You get it."  

The other teacher, "I will learn about you and do whatever t takes, using this subject matter, to make sure you are a fuller and more potent human being than you were when you walked in this room.  Please be my colleague in that quest."

Which teacher do you want to be?  I think we all know the answer to that.  This quote explains what this student said the difference was between these two teachers, "The difference was that the first teacher taught algebra.  The second teacher taught me German."  

If we are just teaching to teach, our students are not learning.

I would like to share an experience that I had in high school.  I had a teacher for math my first semester of my junior year.  It seemed to me like I was learning nothing.  The teacher would teach, and students in the back of the class were totally checked out, and were doing other things.  The teacher knew math, and taught math everyday of that semester but that didn't mean that I learned any math.  As the semester changed my math teacher changed as well.  Oddly to my surprise I really started to understand everything in that math class.  It was the way that the teacher taught that changed my understanding.  It was the same math class, and there were two teachers teaching EXACTLY the same content, but one of those teachers was teaching math, and the other was teaching ME math.  Something in that class changed the way that I viewed math.  As I came into my senior year, I had enough math credits that I wasn't required to take math, and as good as that idea sounded I signed up for a college prep math class from the same teacher that I had for my second semester of my junior year.  That year was no different than the semester before.  I learned SO much.  As I began taking college math classes just the next year there was so much that I already knew, and I owe that all to the teacher 

who taught ME math.  

CLASSROOM OPERATION AND ROUTINES

Carol Ann Tomlinson points out 

4 classroom rules that classrooms can grow from,Those are:

* WE WILL SHOW RESPECT FOR PEOPLE, THEIR IDEAS, AND THEIR PROPERTY

*WE WILL WORK HARD TO ENSURE OUR OWN GROWTH 

AND TO ASSIST THE GROWTH OF OTHERS.

*WE WILL PERSIST, EVEN WHEN THINGS ARE DIFFICULT AND UNCERTAIN.

*WE WILL ACCEPT RESPONSIBILITY FOR THE QUALITY OF OUR WORK 

AND FOR OUR BEHAVIORS AND ACTIONS

*These rules would be worded differently 

depending on the age of our students.*

I LOVE the ideas that are given in the scenarios from the chapter about helping classroom operation! Those include:

1. Individual Growth is a big deal and should be celebrated!

2. Trying 3 different ways before giving up or asking for help

3. Students take responsibility for their own learning

4. Anchor activities

5. Each person gets what they need to grow 

and develop as fully as possible

"In fact, clear and predictable classroom routines are probably the difference between productivity and chaos for classrooms where teachers attempt to address variations among learners" -Carol Ann Tomlinson 

THE KEY TO CLASSROOM ROUTINES 

AND CLASSROOM OPERATION!

Students need to understand:

•  How the class will begin and end.
• How to get, and put away materials.
• How to keep records of their work.
• How to move around the classroom in acceptable ways.
• How to use time Wisely.
• How to figure out where they should be, and what they should be doing at a given time.
• Where to put work when they finish.
• How to get help when the teacher is working directly with others.

Teach your students exactly what they should be doing at exactly the right time.  If we build routines in our classrooms, it will be so much easier for us to differentiate our classroom.  We will have so much more time to focus on helping our students instead of trying to get our students to stay on task, to be respectful to others, and how to move about the classroom.  If we teach these routines in the very first days of school, they will become habit, and we will be able to focus our time on differentiating our classroom for our students rather than focusing our time on all of our management issues.

  

CLASSROOM ENVIRONMENT

I've been dreaming of the day where I will get to decorate my own classroom.  I'm sure my family is sick of me saying, "Can we just save that??  It might work good in my classroom one day..."  I say that about every piece of furniture that anyone is getting rid of.  I can't wait to make my classroom an exciting inviting learning environment for my students!  The book says, "Environment will support or deter the student's quest for affirmation, contribution, power, purpose, and challenge in the classroom." It also says, "It will often be the first messenger of how learning will be in this place."  and that is what I would like this blog post to be focused on.  

Don't these kids in this class look happy to be there?  My goal is to make all of my students happy in my classroom.  Here are a few things to consider about CLASSROOM ENVIRONMENT

• BULLETIN BOARDS
• FURNITURE ARRANGEMENT
• GROUP WORK 
• CULTURES
• POSTERS

Here are some great examples of inviting classroom environment.

Some strategies that the book lists and I agree with are:

• Study students' cultures
• Commend Creativity
• Make room for all kinds of learners
• Help students know about one another
• Celebrate Success

I would like to end this post that will lead into my next post about communication.  As teachers we need to teach our students to respect all students in our class.  From one of the scenarios in the book it says, "...She teaches her middle schoolers how to listen respectfully to the ideas of peers, how to make suggestions that are positive in tone, how to build on one another's ideas, and how to debate ideas in ways that are respectful of both the ideas and the people who hold them."

I saw a video clip where students were having a classroom discussion, every time a student disagreed with another student they wouldn't just say, "No! You are Wrong!" Or "No! thats not right!"  They would say, "________ I respectfully disagree because___________."  I think that is a good way to set the tone for your classroom environment.  Classroom environment consists of the physical appearance in the classroom as well as the emotional parts in the classroom.  

5 Ways For Teachers To Respond 

To Their Students Needs

The 5 ways that the book mentions to respond to students needs are: 

Invitation
Opportunity
Investment
Persistence 
Reflection

Invitation: Things to think about

• I respect who you are as well as who you can become.
• I want to know you.
• You are unique and valuable.
• I believe in you.
• I learn when I listen to you.
• This place is yours too.
• We need you here.

I would like to share an experience about Invitation that I think one of my field teachers did a very good job at.  Every morning her classroom was full of former students, students from other 1st grade classes, and students from different grades.  She talked with all of the kids that were in her room before school, and sometimes even had them cut things out for her, and boy you would have thought those kids were in heaven.  They LOVED to help her with anything that she would let them do.  As soon as the bell rang her students knew the drill.  They would all line up outside her classroom door and she would greet each and everyone of her students as they came through the door.  She would say, "Good morning ______.  I am so glad you came to school today."  She cared about each one of her students, and her students knew that, and it was amazing to see the classroom unity that her class had.  

Opportunity: Things to think about

• I have important things for you to of here today.
• The things i ask you to do are worthy things.
• The things I ask you to of are often daunting.
• The things I ask you to do open new possibilities for you.
• The things that I give you to do here help you become all you can be.
• You have specific roles that make us all more efficient and effective.

I think as we think about opportunity we need to think about the tasks that we give to our students.  I think to make this applicable to me as a future teacher it means that I will not give out busy work.  I will not assign a task just to fill up time.  If I am going to assign a task I must make it something worthwhile for myself, and my students. I also think that the tasks that we assign need to push our students to their full potential.  

Investment: Things to think about

• I work hard to make this place work for you.
• I work to make this place reflect you.
• I enjoy thinking about what we do here.
• I love to find new paths to success.
• It is my job to help you succeed.
• I am your partner in growth.
• I will do what it takes to ensure your growth.

Persistence: Things to think about

• You're growing, but you're not finished growing.
• When one route doesn't work, there are others we can find.
• Let's figure out what works best.
• There are no excuses here, but there is support.
• There is no finish line in learning.

I have another experience that goes along with persistence.  In one of my field classes we had a little boy named "B."  B struggled, and B did not have a very good home life, and his home life carried over into school.  B struggled in almost every activity that we did in class, but the teacher did not give up on B.  If B wasn't getting it she always came up with an alternative way to teach him, or to explain to him again.  She made sure that if B didn't get it the first time she would try something different to make sure that he got it.  

Reflection: Things to think about.

• I watch you and listen to you carefully and systematically.
• I make sure to use what I learn to help you learn better.
• I try to see things through your eyes.
• I continually ask, "How is this partnership working?"
• I continually, ask, "How can I make this better?" 

I think reflection is the most important piece in teaching.  I've heard so many teachers tell me, "you always need to reflect after you teach a lesson."  It is so true though.  We always need to be thinking, "What can I do better?"  It is also important to be thinking, "What am I doing well?"  I love the statement above that says, "I make sure to use what I learn to help you learn better."  Isn't that key??  If we don't put what we learn into practice what is the point of reflecting??

WHY BECOME A TEACHER?

I'm sure we have all been asked a time or two, WHY do you want to become a teacher?  I remember just before I started the elementary education program and I was at my cousins bridal shower.  I was talking to someone and telling them that I was going to school, and I told them how excited I was to start the program.  She then began to ask me why I wanted to be a teacher, and how awful of a job that would be, and they don't get paid nearly enough, and how she thought that if I was going to be a teacher I should at least teacher junior high or high school because at least then I wouldn't have to be a babysitter...  At first, I didn't really know how to respond?  But then I got thinking, and who was she to tell me that I was choosing an awful career???  What made her think that she needed to tell me that?  I chose to not be offended by her comments to me, because if I was really worried about those things that she was telling me I OBVIOUSLY wouldn't be choosing the career path that I was.  As Chapter 3 clearly states that their are a variety of reasons that people choose to become teachers, and how much light children bring into our lives!  

This quote pretty much sums up one of the many reasons that I have chosen to become a teacher.  Teachers can make so much of a difference in children's lives and it all starts inside the classroom. 

 As teachers... we sense as novices that we are destined  to be much more than just dispensers of information, sergeants of behavior, and captains of the test prep."

As teachers we are preparing our future generations to become valuable and beneficial members of society.  In a way it is up to us to make sure that we are preparing this children to grow up and to become successful.  Another reason that the book mentions why some people choose to become teachers is because they want to give back to our society.  

To end on a high note, Deborah Meier who was a remarkable principal said this when she was told that her faculty was remarkable, "Her school staff is not remarkable because they are more gifted than other teachers or because they have taught longer or because they went to more exclusive colleges.  They are remarkable because they lived what they believe."

That is what it all comes down to.  Care for our students, and living with what we believe.  Keep these things in mind as my next post will be all about teacher responses to students needs.