Blog/Journal #1
Due February 9th
Please respond to the following:
In the article "A Rationale for Differentiating Instruction in the Regular Classroom," Paul S. George divides his argument for differentiation into two parts. The first is "Why is the Heterogeneous Classroom of Crucial Importance?" and the second is "Why Must Instruction in the Heterogeneous Classroom be Differentiated?"
Examine these two sections. George lists several reasons that support his two arguments. Which ones resonate with you the most? Which ones are most applicable to your teaching situation?
For those of you who stress about every detail...look at George's first section, "Why is the Heterogeneous Classroom of Crucial Importance?" , and write about what resonated with you the most OR look at the "Why Must Instruction in the Heterogeneous Classroom be Differentiated?" section and write about what resonated with you the most OR write on something from each section.
Feel free to respond to the posts of others, but you are only required to respond once.
I believe that the section on why the heterogeneous classroom is important resonates the most with me because I teach in an environment that is heterogeneous. I teach at one of the Governor's School for gifted students. The school's overall focus is the arts and technology. The school is located in Petersburg and serves 13 cities and counties from Richmond to Franklin. Each student has a focus area such as instrumental music, painting, theater, or computer programming. The school comprises about 60% female and 40% male. Racially, the student population represents the population of the area that the school serves: about 45% white, 40% black, and 15% other races. So, I totally agree with the author about the heterogeneous classroom provides our high school student with a real-life environment for developing interpersonal and social skills while achieving academic. I teach math to these students who are gifted in acting, singing, dancing, and painting. They tend to be high achievers but some have to work hard in math. I try to very how I deliver to material but most of my teaching is by modelling and scaffolding. I encourage students to engage in elaborated helping of other students.
ReplyDeleteThe second part of George's article is the most applicable to my classroom. As a "resource" teacher I teach every student in the school. All of my classes are heterogeneous, some even more than others. Not only are the "regular" classes that come to me for art heterogeneously grouped, but oftentimes there are students who join those classes only for the resource block. These students typically come from the self contained Special Education environment and the ESL class. Occasionally a student is assigned an extra art block or grouped with another homeroom for art due to behavior issues. As a result I end up with almost every level of ability in the same room for the same lesson. It requires a lot of mental gymnastics when planning lessons and activities because not only are the intellectual abilities varied, so are the fine and gross motor skills. Throughout the years I have adjusted my classroom/teaching style in the following ways:
ReplyDelete*I include a variety of ways to solve design problems(I offer students an easy way and a challenge way to complete tasks).
*I have a large collection of adaptive art supplies (4 types of scissors, thick pencils/crayons pastels to accommodate various grips, paint brushes of all widths and lengths).
*Extension activities for students who want to push farther.
*I offer all students the use of these materials.
Luckily as a resource teacher I typically have the students for a few years, so I am able to get to know them well and watch them grow from year to year. This makes it much easier to differentiate.
The section of George's article that resonated with me most was in the first section: Why is the Heterogeneous Classroom of Crucial Importance? The subheading “Equity” stated that when students learn heterogeneously, there is a higher chance that they will receive enriched curriculum. I find this to be true in my own heterogeneous classroom. In my room of 20 students, 7 are identified gifted, while there are 4 that border performing on grade level in both math and language arts. More often than not during our Remediation/Enrichment block, we are working on enrichment or extension activities. The students that are performing at or below grade level are receiving the same enriched curriculum as my identified gifted learners. I believe that these students embrace and appreciate these opportunities, rather than being pulled for remediation services all the time.
ReplyDeleteThe second subheading that resonated fell under the second section of George’s article. In “Instruction for Democracy’s Future,” George stated that in a traditional classroom students tend to “depend on the teacher for everything” and “do nothing on their own initiative.” I love tasks where students are allowed academic choices, and I’ve found that fifth graders typically thrive with this kind of freedom. There have been instances recently, however, where I’ve had to reign in with particular students because they can’t handle the constructivist approach. These students are typically disorganized or need help laying out deadlines, etc. I suppose this is where the differentiated curriculum comes in to play. Some students can handle it, while I’ve had to adjust assignments for those who can’t. :)
I enjoyed this article! A heterogeneous classroom is my reality. Differentiating the curriculum has been a personal goal of mine for the past 5 years. I make small adjustments each year and it's still a work in progress. The article states that, "good teachers, committed to educating all students in a personalized and motivational way, reject the existence of one single best way to teach..." Despite the fact that I completely agree with this statement and try very hard to differentiate strategies, lessons, and activities regularly, I do find myself struggling at times with it because I still have to meet the time constraints of the SOL's. Differentiating is time consuming and oftentimes exhausting especially when it comes to assessing student work. I’ll be really honest and say that sometimes, I do resort to the teacher-centered classroom/lecture-based lessons, when I simply do not have time for a more student-centered approach. Does anyone else do this? Although I would much rather provide “experiences where the student is the worker,” I just don’t have the time. I guess I need more tools in my belt to be more successful at incorporating opportunities where I am the facilitator and/or manager rather than the knowledge giver. HELP!
ReplyDeleteQuestions I still have:
The article stated, "Interests that are needs driven, in their turn, give rise to motivation to learn; humans are motivated, primarily if not exclusively, to learn what matches their individual interests and, therefore, helps them meet their deeply felt needs." This makes sense, however, how do I turn my state-mandated curriculum into something that is needs driven?
The article states, "When teachers created curriculum that inspires authentic new interests in students, students have responded with energy, enthusiasm and focus." This makes me laugh. This question is similar to my first question: How do I create this environment when I am mandated to teach the SOL's?
I found there to be compelling points in both parts of George's article. In the first section about why heterogeneous classrooms are important (well, slightly before) he touches on ethnic diversity and racial integration. He states that "educators must continue to vigorously support a school-level structure and culture that prizes diversity in the public schools." While I agree with this statement, I believe that it is more than just educators that need to recognize this. The community in which my school is located is quite diverse, however many choose to send their children to private school. Thus, in a fairly diverse neighborhood, the school is over 90% African-American, with a small Hispanic population.
ReplyDeleteThe second part of the article resonated more with me, as I chose to focus on the wide range of learners in my classroom. Approximately half of my students entered 2nd grade reading below grade level. I have 8 students that receive PALS (daily reading tutoring). I have 3 EE students and 2 ESL students. I also have 2 students who I consider advanced learners. Trying to meet all of these needs is a struggle, like Stacie stated. Especially when being told what to teach, when to teach it, and given an alloted time to teach it in! I was also going to refer to the quote used above about teachers creating curriculum that inspires authentic interest. I would love ideas on how to do this with all the SOL mandates. I feel that my Reading instruction is the most differentiated, as that always seems the focus in 2nd grade, but I do struggle with the rest of the content areas and feel that I could do more. If we could move away from the constant assessments and "it's all about the data" mentality and towards more flexible instruction that allows for analyzing and critical thinking, differentiation would be more readily accepted and implemented.
The part of the article that resonates with me the most is the part where George talks about both the teachers and the students putting forth effort. George states “Every student needs to know that diligence is a key ingredient of personal success, that natural ability is important but rarely sufficient.” When I read this I immediately thought of my students. Not only did I think of my below grade level readers but I thought of my Gifted students as well. At the beginning of the year I gave a changeling worksheet of math problems to my gifted students to work together and figure out while I worked with the rest of my students. Two of my gifted girls who had never been challenged like that in the past started crying and saying that it was too hard for them (I made sure it wasn’t, that they could figure it out if they put forth the EFFORT). It took me a long time to get those girls to understand that they could do harder problems and that it was ok to make mistakes. Just recently on a 9 Weeks Reading Test one of my below grade level readers said it was too hard and refused to take the test. Yes, it was hard for him but he decided to give up and not put forth the EFFORT to try and do his best. I tell my students all the time that mistakes are okay as long as you are trying your best. I feel like teachers are also blamed when students are reading on grade level or students don’t pass a test. At least from my administration they look at you and ask “Well, what could you have done differently, or what are you going to do about it?” Well, I want to say I’m working by butt off for the child but they need to help out too.
ReplyDeleteOur teacher of the year actually got to go to China this summer on behalf of our school and spend 2 weeks there studying their educational system and presented to us what she learned. She actually talked about how students think school is there job and the parents think it is one of the most important things the children should be doing. We need that attitude here in the U.S. about education.
To me the whole article is applicable to my classroom this year. My classroom contains 6 gifted students, 4 below grade level students (who have been retained in previous years), and a little boy with Autism who stays in my room for all subjects. Without differentiating very few of my students would understand what is happening in my classroom. So, I have 3 reading groups, 3 different spelling groups (our county requires us to do Word Study), and I develop Math enrichment for my gifted children during math. Without differentiating I honestly don’t think I could make it through the day in my classroom.
The last part of the article that really hit home with me was the very last thought. “…and must do so without simply and loudly imploring teachers to make impossible, Herculean, changes in their instructional style and blaming them, even more loudly, when they cannot.” I finished this article thinking to myself thank you! So many people think teachers are miracle workers. Just this week we had a professional development in a new reading program. The very next day our administration was walking around looking for people where were already implementing it and were “fussing” at others who hadn’t. We literally had 3 hours of instruction on it and no time to prepare yet we were supposed
oops. The end got cut off. Here is the rest of the sentence. :$
Deleteto be doing it our room the next day. So, in my opinion it was nice to hear someone say yes we need to make changes but don’t expect them overnight.
Here it goes again, I tried this last night and before I could send it all my blog disappeared.:-(
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed the George article, I found myself examining my teaching and the teaching of those around me. In the article George talks about preparing students for real-life situations now and in the future, that we need to nuture a generation of problem-solvers who enjoy being challenged. I try to help students by differentiating my questions. Some questions have quick answers, whereas other questions make them think and problem solve to get to the answer. I ask them to show me how they figured it out so that everybody is exposed to one of the many different ways to get to the right answer. My frustration is that it's always the same students answering the higher level questions, the other students don't raise their hands and I don't know if they are even trying. As I examine our school, I think about the problems we faced this year and how we have worked as a team to solve them. It has taken a lot of different individuals with lots of different skills and knowledge to accomplish a common goal. This is the classroom in real-life, so I strive in my classroom to celebrate each unique student and make a big deal about what they are good at.
I differentiate my instruction for reading and math. I have 4 reading groups and 3 math groups and my class spends most of the day in small groups. It is much more difficult to plan lessons for all these different groups in kindergarten because it requires pulling things out and getting materials ready for each lesson of the day. Often I am not allowed to spend my time planning after school because there is a meeting I have to attend. This is very frustrating, because I can't take my work home with me. I too feel very bound by the curriculum and SOLs each nine weeks, but try to incorporate them into a themaic unit as much as possible.I am at a point in my teaching where I am branching out and trying new things.
The article did not mention collaboration, but I have found this to be an essential tool for me to move forward, rapidly, and visibly in the successful implementation of differentiated instruction. About two weeks ago I got to work with a wonderful special education teacher. We planned a unit on hibernation that lasted two weeks where her 4th grade students helped to teach my kindergarteners. This was a huge confidence boost for her students and they now wave and smile at my kindergarteners on the sidewalk. My students enjoyed going to another classroom to work on their culminating project as well as, going off on special tasks around the school using the 4th graders as a guide. I was introduced to edmodo-a communication tool, and videotaping activities using a flip camera! We are
going to do some more activities together in the spring. Yes, my teaching is changing with baby steps!
This was a great first article to really get me thinking! Then first section was very thought-provoking; I found myself nodding along as I read. As a teacher, I know we ALL know that differentiation is best and is what we are supposed to do, but this article explained way better than any argument I’ve ever heard or thought about.
ReplyDeleteAt my school, we cluster our kids according to GT, SPED, etc. and we even have some gender classes going. There is research to support this, but this article addressed the fact that to best prepare kids for real-life situations in their lives, heterogeneous grouping is a must. And what are we doing? The opposite? It is really interesting to me, because the argument here at school for this habit of clustering is that it's best so that we "meet the needs of our diverse population", but this article argues the opposite. I worry that we don't know the implications of our own clustering, we don't really know how it will impact them! And I know it's very much a resource/money/distribution of aids, etc. issue, but it's completely counterintuitive. I think that shoving all of the GT kids in one class and all of the SPED kids in another class is a mistake, according to the compelling arguments the author makes. And we are of course essentially labeling them. I feel guilty even writing this! I will be interested to hear other people’s perspectives… what do you all think? I know it’s likely something that we all cognitively struggle with. How do you feel about clustering, and wouldn’t the author strongly argue against it?
I think the point that stuck out to me the MOST in this entire section was the argument that a heterogeneous classroom will heighten a teacher's awareness of individual differences. At that point in the article, I thought WOW. And while I only have my limited experience of 1 school and (almost)5 years under my belt, I can see this being an amazing issue. I thought about the possibility of a teacher becoming desensitized to certain characteristics; For example, if a teacher teaches the GT cluster (or any limited group of students) for so many years, we could easily become desensitized in recognizing talent, etc., and vice-versa. And from the students' perspective, being in this grouping may impact their self-esteem because they are always only comparing themselves to the "best of the best" and won't be able to learn from other learners they would encounter in the heterogeneous classroom.
The other most argument George makes that really resonated with me is the benefit of having different types of learners interacting with each other and the crucial social skills that are obtained. This is such an important skill and in a homogenous classroom, I believe this is often NOT obtained. George argues that the more different types of people interact, the more likely they are to see themselves as friends and emphasize their similarities and not their differences, which is a vital life skill.
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ReplyDeleteBoth the need for heterogeneous classrooms and the need for differentiation resonate with me. You can not have a successful and productive heterogeneous classroom where all learns can thrive and grow without differentiation.
ReplyDeleteI have long dealt with differentiation in my years of teaching. I am a self confessed inclusionist. I am a Special Education teacher and have fought for my students to be kept within the general education classroom through Collaborative Inclusion classrooms. This is only successful when the teachers involved both are fully vested and make the effort to differentiate their classrooms for each student as an individual. In my teaching I saw my best example of good differentiating when working with the DOE in Prince Edward County to get our Inclusion program set up across all levels (K-12). We all worked hard for our students and our students had success. We had a mixed bag of students. We had those who had trouble keeping up, not on grade level and those who needed more than the curriculum allotted. I in fact had a couple of Twice Exceptional students. Both of which I suggested needed to be screen for gifted (my first experience with seeing giftness in those who others over looked). For those do not know me I have a passion for 2e (Twice Exceptional kids), which first glimmered back when I first began my career as a SPED teacher. But I digress… We would build our lessons based on the needs of the students. It was not uncommon to come into one of our classrooms and see two teachers (the regular education teacher and myself) working with all the students on various activities. Not everyone did the same activities (all the time), not everyone had the same assessment criteria, not everyone had the same roles, but everyone learned. They learned from each other during peer-teaching. They learned from us (the teachers) and they learned by their interest in their activities. Our classrooms worked wonderfully, but we had a lot of work into them. We also had a lot of support both from T/TAC coming into our classrooms and our administration. It was not always easy or pretty, but we made it work.
My first schooling was as a Sociologist so I tend to look at the learning and teaching community as a whole through my Sociologist goggles. Schools and the classroom are mini societies in which children need to learn about the world. They learn how to act in work and society through their years in school. Today I see that children are placed in little boxes and kept from the world they are not able to grow into well rounded and mature adults. They do not know about real life and will have a hard time when set ‘free’ from school at graduation. They will enter the workforce (or colleges) as mere children and not young adults ready to concur the world.
After reading the article a few times, I have changed my views on what I traditionally understood and thought of hetero. vs. homogeneous classroom. I have always worked in schools and on grade levels where the students were GT, SPED and even kids reading on certain levels were clustered, but still considered heterogeneous classrooms. I always thought even when you group the kids like this...you still get a variety of ability levels, learning styles, backgrounds, etc. Therefore, all classrooms are arguably, heterogeneous. All classrooms need differentiation, no matter how similar their academic levels are. I think George makes an excellent point for heterogeneous classrooms when he states “it provides a learning environment that may be more consistent with our nation’s democratic goals, where students will one day will work, worship, and live together can learn together today, while permitting each other to achieve success on their own terms”. So it is basically preparing them for a world where there will be so many different levels of intelligence, work ethic, disabilities, backgrounds, etc. Our world is diverse and our classrooms should be too. I honestly never really thought of it that way. I really like the point where he says that all these students can achieve academic success on their own terms. It aligns with the push we are seeing in education in Virginia now with the new teacher evaluations which seem to look more closely at the rate of growth for all students, not just “did your students pass the (minimum standardized) test?”, which will highlight the hard work teachers put in for all students and benefits students by truly giving them the year’s worth of education they deserve. And it provides students and opportunity to celebrate each other’s success too. On the other hand, it will hold teachers accountable when the students meet the minimum benchmarks, to the fact that their education doesn’t stop there. The challenge we all face in making this happen is time for planning, resources available, proper training, and all of those unknown situations requiring immediate attention that pop up everyday in the wonderful world of teaching. I guess I didn’t give the heterogeneous classroom a lot of thought because teaching kindergarten, you really always get that. I differentiate instruction to 4 different math levels (that are assessed and change on a weekly basis) and six different reading levels. This would not be possible without a lot of collaboration with other teachers for planning and small group instruction. With a whole class of diverse learners , differentiation definitely keeps you on your toes as a teacher, but the results are worth it!
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