Revised Philosophy of Education

Not much has changed in my philosophy of education. I feel like the big difference is that I now know how to implement many of my ideas. After completing this course, I now know how to differentiate instruction in a variety of ways in order to better meet the needs of my students. I still feel as though our biggest responsibility as teachers is to meet the needs of every student in the classroom, and differentiating instruction seems to be the best way to meet this goal.

It's been a great semester! Thanks!

Grading in the Differentiated Classroom

This week choose 3 of the 4 Grading Articles found on Toolkit to read. After reading the articles, consider that you are getting started in a differentiated classroom, what principles pertaining to grading and assessment do you want to adhere to? Please make sure you support your principles with examples from class or the articles you read.

As I begin teaching, I think I'll really take to heart what Carol wrote in the beginning of her article, "Grading for Success." She says that "to truly measure achievement, grading practices should grow from a philosophy of teaching and learning that respects student differences and reflects individual growth." I really think this one statement sums up the intricacies of grading in the differentiated classroom. Carol goes on to talk about how we teach aiming towards student success, and should have the same philosophy towards grading. We must look at the gains that individual students have made. She also emphasizes the need for clear grading requirements for each assignment, letting students know what you expect of them and how the assigment will be assessed. In the same vein, it is important to give students detailed feedback of what they did well, and what they still need to work on. Also critically important is a new view on grades as more of an assessment of growth then an assessment of natural ability. I love Carol's idea of giving grades and levels on the report card, where a child that shows excellent growth but has below grade level abilities would get an A3. This really takes into account both ability and effort in a really easily understandable way. I would really love to implement that system in the classroom.

In Tonya Moon's article, "The Role of Assessment in Differentiation," she goes into more specifics about assessment. She talks about attentiveness to "students' level of mastery of the identified learning goals and objectives" in terms of grading their assignments. She also points out that differentiation and grades should both focus on "clarity and focus on preidentified knowledge, understanding, and skills for which students are accountable." The big question she asks about grading is basically: Did the student meet the learning goals set for him/her? I like this idea of grading, and would definitely use it in the classroom.

In Guskey's article, "Making High School Grades Meaningful," he opens by saying that "most teachers base students' grades on more than one factor. The difficulty is figuring out how to weight and combine the different pieces that go into the final mark." He goes on to talk about product, process, and progress as the three elements of grading in the classroom. I loved this idea! It takes into account natural ability, effort, and growth in coming up with a final grade for students. In the classroom, I would love to encorporate ideas from all three of these authors in making sure that my students are rewarded for both their intelligence and their growth in the classroom.

Management Strategies

This week we looked at various management strategies. What advice would you give to teachers who decide to implement the strategies you reviewed to ensure that they work smoothly and effectively in the classroom?

• Set Firm Routines - Make sure your students know what to do! Practice transitions between activities so that they don't fall apart when you try to put them into place. Make sure students know what to do when they finish work earlier than other students in the class.
  
• Be Organized - Know what you want students to do, otherwise you can never expect things to run smoothly. Have a place for students to turn in work when they are done so you're not constantly bombarded by students wanting to turn in assignments. Plan more than you think is necessary for a lesson in case it goes more quickly than anticipated.
  
• Be Available - Make yourself available to students both in class and outside of class in order to address individual concerns and struggles. Make sure students feel as though they can come to you with cognitive and affective needs.
  
• Be Flexible - Nothing will ever go exactly as you plan for it to! Be ready to adapt! The main objective of differentiation is to adapt to students' needs. It may be necessary at any time for you to adapt a lesson that isn't working quite like you planned for it to.
  
• Know Your Students - It is pivotally important to know your students both cognitively and affectively, so that you can best address their needs.
  

Strategies and Assessments

Look at the strategies and assessments your fellow classmates created on our website. If you were at a school where colleagues asked you for feedback on this work, what would you say to them? Please respond to the work of at least two of the groups.

Some questions to consider:
• Are the KUDs clear? Worthwhile?
• Do you see alignment between the KUDs, assessments, and the strategy?
• Does the activity adhere to the intent of the strategy?
• Are all tasks respectful and challenging?

Interest-Based Lesson Plan:

I really like the way this lesson is set up. Interest-based lesson plans are always very appealing to me. Your KUD's are great! I love that y'all focus on so many aspects of Chinese culture. I see the link between the pre-assessment worksheet and the KUD's, in determining which areas of Chinese culture the students are most interested in. However, I'm not sure I understand the connection between the KUD's and the bridge building activity. If a child says they're more interested in Chinese writing, how can they apply this interest to bridge building? The activity itself is very well-designed. Allowing the students a choice about the type of bridge they create as well as the materials they use to create it and the purpose it will serve really gets as student interests. I also really like the idea of the post card as an exit card for the class, but I would suggest making sure that it is used to show what the students learned from the activity, not just to tell about what they did.

Learning Profile Lesson Plan:

This is an excellent lesson plan! I really can't come up with any criticism. The KUD's are clear and consise. They are relevant to the book The Pain and the Great One and to important learning skills. The activities adhere closely to the KUD's. I love the idea of making students argue for the opposite side of the side they can relate to. It reinforces the ideas of perspective and bias. Also, the learning profile differentiated activity is great! All three tasks are respectful and challenging and get at the different learning profiles. The pre-assessment and formative assessments really assess what the KUD's want students to have learned. I particularly like the idea of the exit card about things you learned, questions you have, and an observation of a bias in class. This really reinforces the main points of the lesson.

Differentiation Chart

I only made minor changes to the differentiation chart. It was just unclear to me before which ideas flowed from which headings. Now it makes perfect sense, and I think this chart is really helpful when thinking about how to differentiate in the classroom.

Challenge of Differentiation

What might be the greatest challenges to providing a differentiated classroom, as you see it now in the semester?

One big challenge to creating a differentiated classroom is knowing what each of your students need. It's one thing to know how to provide different levels of instuction, but quite another to know exactly where each of your students is at in terms of ability in each subject. As an elementary school teacher, I won't be just working with students in a particular subject, I'll have to be fully familiar with their ability in every subject. It's equally important to know the learning preferences of your students: whether they like to work in groups or alone, with music or in silence, etc. This helps to optimize their learning experience.

Another big challenge is making all options equally appealing. It's difficult to make a three-tiered lesson in which students are equally likely to want to do each activity. If you assign one group of students to watch a movie, another group to read articles, and another to write a paper, all of the students will obviously want to watch a movie, even if that's the activity for your lowest ability students. In the same vein, if you have your high ability students creating a model and your lower ability students doing worksheets, the lower ability students will feel slighted.

How might you address those challenges?

I think the answer to these challenges is just putting in more time. In order to know your students abilities and preferences for learning, you just have to get to know them, both academically and socially. Pay close attention to students' academic performance both in your classroom and in the past in order to form them into ability groupings for a particular subject. It is also important to be flexible with your grouping so as to meet all students' needs. In order to learn about students' learning preferences, the easiest option is to just ask them what they like in the classroom. A simple survey about their ideas towards group work, creative vs. analytical vs. practical assignments, noise level, etc. can be very helpful.

In terms of making equally appealing instruction for all students, you just have to be creative and hard-working. And if it's absolutely necessary for one activity to be more appealing than the other, make sure that it's not the same group of students who get the more appealing activity every time. Switch it up!

Reasons for Optimism About Differentiation

1) Drawing from theory and research, how would you rationalize (maybe to another
teacher, a parent, etc.) using differentiated instruction in a classroom?

Many researchers have suggested that students perform best when given a moderate amount of challenge in the classroom. Vygotsky proposes the idea of the "zone of proximal development" in which students need some help to complete the assigned task. According to Vygotsky, students perform best when instruction is in the "zone of proximal development." Studies have also shown that students learn best when they're success rate on assignments is approximately 80%, which is in support of Vygotsky's theory. By using differentiation in the classroom, teachers can teach all students at their individual levels of maximum growth potential. If you simply teach at the level that most of the class is comfortable with, some students are receiving far too much challenge, and others are receiving no challenge at all. These students on the high and low end of the ability spectrum will not experience as much growth in the non-differentiated classroom.

2) Within the differentiated model, where do you feel more research is needed?
Why?

I would like to see more research in the realm of interest differentiation. No quantitative data on the results of interest differentiation was offered in the article. It seems as though interest differentiation would be the most difficult to implement in the classroom, and it's important that we gather as much data on its effectiveness as possible in order to make it worthwhile for teachers.

"Teaching Beyond the Book"

Think about the article “Teaching Beyond the Book.” Why do we want to teach to kids’ strengths? How is this helpful to students? to teachers? Is there a relationship between strength and interests?

It is very important to teach to the strengths of our students. By recognizing their strengths, a teacher can make students feel more valuable in the classroom and also make them more motivated to learn. Displaying each student's individual strengths in the classroom can improve peer relations and individual students' self-esteem. Teachers also were shown to see more potential in their students when they were aware of their individual strengths, and taught those students more effectively and in a more differentiated manner.

Recognizing student strengths is helpful to teachers as well as students; it makes the students easier to teach. By allowing students to research their areas of interest as they relate to the Civil War, Mrs. Lupold ignited a desire to learn in her students. This, I'm sure, made the unit incredibly more interesting for both the teacher and the students. By allowing them to bring in their own research, the unit was given an entirely new flavor.

There is a very strong relationship between strength and interest. We often exhibit our biggest strengths in areas that are of interest to us. Like the example of the boys building in class in the article. They are very interested in building, and exceptionally good at it. The teacher used this interest and strength to make those boys interested in writing. By tapping into the interests of students, we can increase their strengths in other areas.