Differentiation in Practice-Part II

Choosing 2
#2- What plants Need-A Science Unit on the Functions of Plant Parts
#3- We're All in It Together- A Social Studies unit on Needs, Wants, and Community Helpers
Being Familiar with the Objectives
#2
After this unit is taught the students will know:

• The different parts of a plant
• What a plant needs to stay alive

After this unit is taught the students will understand:

• Why plants are important for people

After this unit is taught the students will be able to:

• Explain what a plant needs to stay alive
• Identify and explain specific parts of the plant

#3

After this unit is taught the students will know:

• The different roles people play within the community

After this unit is taught the students will understand:

• All people have responsibilities within their community
• All people have needs that are met by people in the community

After this unit is taught the students will be able to:

• Compare and contrast and evaluate community roles

The Strategies Used

#2

• Gardner's multiple intelligences
• Jig saw groups
• Small group work

#3

• Tiered assignments
• Differentiated writing prompts

How does this apply to me?

**These units are just a small example of what we can do as future educators to teach using differentiation. There are many ideas given to show that meeting the needs of all your students takes time, but is worth it.

Fullfilling the Promise, Pages 120-162

What Is It All About?
This reading gave great examples to creating a differentiated classroom. There are so many ways to make all your students in your classroom feel welcome, safe, and loved in your classroom and meeting all of your students needs. This chapter gave many ways to help students learn no matter what level they are on.

What Did I Like Most?
I especially like the idea of Tiering. We had talked a lot about this in class, but it was hard for me to grasp the concept. Tiering helps student who are on different readiness levels work on a level of difficulty that is appropriately challenging for them as an individual. Tiering helps the teacher to find progress in each student and how far they have come. Tiering helps the student to work at their own level and at their own pace.

How It Applies To Me
So much from this chapter is useful to a future teacher. I want to be able to use each of these strategies to help meet the needs of all my students.

Fullfilling the Promise, Chapter 7

Chapter 7-The Simple, hard Truth About Teaching

• What is essential in learners is difficult for teachers to see.
• People learn better when they feel valued and supported.
• Teaching is more efficient and effective when it matches learner needs.
• It's hard to care for some of our students.
• Learn to fall in love with what we do.

So, how does this apply to me?

I have always known that teaching is not going to be easy. Teachers literally work longer and harder then any profession, and we sill hardly even get paid. But teaching shouldn't be all about the money, teaching should be about changing the lives of our students. Teaching should be about: showing our students we truly care about them, helping our students succeed, and helping our students become who they really want to be.

Fullfilling the Promise, Chapters 5 & 6

Chapter 5-Curriculum and Instruction as the Vehicle for Addressing Student Needs
What I liked from chapter 5:

• "As teachers, we teach. We are charged by society to ensure that students develop knowledge, understanding, and skill necessary to be fulfilled and productive members of society."
• "She taught Algebra, but she did not teach me."
• "Once we know what is genuinely significant in a topic of study, our next job as teachers...to guide students toward a high level of competence with the knowledge, understanding, and skill we have deemed critical."
• Curriculum and Instruction that are demanding helps students to work harder and become proud of what they are able to accomplish.

Chapter 6-Curriculum and Instruction as the Vehicle for Responding to Student Needs: Rationale to Practice

What I liked from Chapter 6:

• "Creating ties in the classroom builds student confidence..."
• "Curriculum and instruction are important, focused, engaging, demanding, and scaffold to maximize the likelihood that each student is well served in the classroom."
• "Focus student products around significant problems and issues."
• "Use meaningful audiences."
• "Help students discover how ideas and skills are useful in the world."

Applying it all to me:

**These two chapters were very interesting and fun to read. While reading these two chapters I thought how important it is not only to know your curriculum, but also know the best ways to teach your curriculum to meet the needs of your students. To show how important this is I have an example. When I graduated from high school, the following fall I started college at UVU. I took a Math class, which I loved. You don't hear much about teachers in college meeting the needs of their students, but this math teacher did. He was able to teach math to me at my level. He brought objects to demonstrate certain concepts, he made sure everyone was understanding before moving on, etc. Needless to say his teaching math in this way helped me to understand concepts I never understood before. The following semester, I took another math class. This math class was the typical college professor. He came to class wrote how to do things on the whiteboard and that was it. This teacher taught math, but not me. I ended up not passing the class and having to take it over again. I still wonder what would of happened if he taught like my first math teacher.

Fullfilling the Promise, Chapter 3 & 4

Chapter 3-Teacher Response to Student Needs: A Starting Point for Differentiation
Chapter 4-Teacher Response to Student needs: Rational to Practice
How can we do it all? seems to be the question that haunts me continuously. I know, in order to make a difference in the lives of my students, I must really get to know my students, but how can I do it all? I often have to think to myself, why did I enter into the teaching profession? Why do I want to be a teacher? These questions come back to the same answer, because I want to make a difference in the lives of my students. I often hear stories about dream teachers, who risked everything they had to make a difference in their students life. The purpose of teaching is not to risk everything I have worked so hard to receive, but to help students learn and be prepared for the road that lies ahead of them.
I believe I can make a difference without risking my marriage or family, just by making the children feel loved and secure in my classroom, by making the children feel important, by making it my responsibility for my students to succeed, by not letting my students give up, by seeing things through my students eyes to help them learn better.
I ask, how can we do it all? The answer is differentiation.

Surveys

Student Profile Survey
*Very easy and fun way to learn more about your students in a simple setting. This survey is helpful in finding ways your students learn best. As a teacher it would be very beneficial to use this survey to easily meet the needs of your students. I really like this survey and I would have the children in my class complete the whole thing. I believe this survey could help me become one step closer to meeting the different needs of the students in my classroom.
Student Interest Survey
*This survey is beneficial in other ways than the student profile survey. This survey helps a teacher to learn more of the students interest in their classroom. Children love to talk about themselves. This survey would be a great way for students to share information about themselves and not take up too much class time.
More and More and More
* There are so many ways you can use pre-assessments in your classroom. I really like the first one, especially for the younger grades. This is an easy way to get an idea about how the students in your class feel about reading and writing. I also liked these surveys because they were short and the younger students could feel them out with out loosing concentration. These different surveys about reading helps not only the teacher, but the student as well. The surveys help the student to know: what reading they are interested in, do they picture what they read, etc. The writing surveys help teachers and students as well by finding out what students like to write about, etc.
Also within these surveys there is so much a teacher can pre-asses a student by using them. I especially like, "Focus Questions for Anecdutal Notes: Reading Intermediate." This survey is for the teacher, it will help the teacher find out more about what level of reading a certain child is at, what the student likes to read, is the student reading within their reading level, etc.

A Differentiated Classroom

Chapter 1-What's behind the Idea of differentiated Classrooms?

• Teachers must take into account who we are teaching as well as what we are teaching to meet the needs of all our students.
• We, as future teachers, need to understand and get to know our students as individuals.
• Readiness-student's knowledge and understanding of a particular subject or concept.
• 4 student traits we must address in order to teach our students effectively

1. Readiness-students knowledge and understanding of a certain subject or concept

2. Interest-what creates passion and curiosity for the student

3. Learning Profile-how students learn best

4. Affect-how students feel about themselves, their work, and the classroom as a whole

• 4 classroom elements I can modify to help meet the needs of my students

1. Content-what teachers teach and how students gain knowledge

2. Process- how students make sense of information

3. Product-what students should know or be able to do at the end

4. Learning Environment-the operation, feel, and look of the classroom

Chapter 2-Student Needs as the Impetus for Differentiation

• Students need to feel love, accepted, and secure in a classroom.
• The students in my classroom will differ in many ways, it is up to me to find the proper way to meet the needs of all my students.
• Get to know our students as individuals and not as a whole class..

But, how?

**There is one of us and like 20-30 of them. How do we learn and understand our students quickly enough to start meeting their needs?

Hallmarks of a Differentiated Classroom

What I think are the most important...

1. Teacher's sights are high, just as students' sights are high.

*Set high expectations for yourself and don't take the easy way out.

2. Individual growth is emphasized as central to classroom success.

*Our goal is for our students to achieve their best. Supporting and helping students along the way helps students to do their best.

3. A strong link between assessment and instruction.

*If we assess student knowledge and understanding we can make plans and guarantee student progression.