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Post by Mary on Sept 29, 2015 21:55:04 GMT
Noreen- So true that centers in and of themselves are not differentiation. Having different centers to address the needs of different groups is. Call them centers, stations, whatever the word of the day is, but they need to be made to meet the needs of the students who will be doing the activity.
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Post by maryroman on Sept 29, 2015 21:59:56 GMT
Question 1: On page 5 Mrs. Jasper (of the whole-class instruction family) laments that it would be unfair to the students if they don't all do the same thing. Mrs. Jasper needs to understand that fair does not mean equal. Fair means everyone getting what they need in order to succeed. Missing this basic premise caused Mrs. Jasper, and her cohorts, to miss the education bus. Educators like to use fancy words to make themselves feel important, but I truly believe that differentiated teaching is simply fair teaching. Ms. Cunningham, Mrs. May, Mr. Santos and Mrs. Wang all understand and implement fair in their classrooms. Question 2: Key principle/governing idea of a differentiated classroom......you guessed it....fairness. I agree fair in the classroom does not mean the same. Giving ever child what they need is the key to having a great learning environment. Ms. Robertson is a U.S. History teacher and her students cover the information sequentially. Common Core really pushes the chronology of history. Every other week we get a Scholastic magazine and kids struggle with this(chronology) but by the end of the end of the year they were showing a lot more mastering of this. The textbooks I have today always puts a lot of emphasis on women and African-Americans in History. Sometimes we omit the white guys who did things just to give these people their due. It is like reverse-discrimination to some extent but after 100's of years of seeing no credit for things done this maybe in order. Mrs. Washington-key concepts and principles. All my new textbooks have the 'Big Ideas' for every chapter. We usually start the chapter lesson with this and we try to look at different points of view on each topic. For example what would the liberals think about Planned Parenthood vs. the conservatives (Tea-Party). Do we for example throw this completely out because of a few bad examples in their ranks? We finally have a computer system that works so, for example we watched and listened to the Pope's speech to Congress. We do not have a problem with different cultures and different languages here. Mrs. Washington stopped in her lecture to encourage students to discuss things. We try to do this every day in every class. It is their class time and I encourage them to use their time to question to probe and as deep as they can understand the subject material at hand. We do a lot of compare and contrast in my classes. An example of this is the farming in the late 1800's to the farming today. We went to Big Iron and Bonanzaville and we talked about the differences of farming. You can actually farm today and come in completely clean. Even when I was a kid farming this was not possible. She wrote that 1/2 of their grades were based on a summation assessment. We do some 6 + 1 writing but it usually is only about 10-20% of their grade. I do not at this time have enough confidence in this to give more credit to that type of education. Today there is a big push to treat all students as un-equals and therefore un-equally regardless of the classroom setting. Ironically, standardized tests are designed to treat everyone equally with only a few exceptions. To be fair we need to give students the same conditions, the same resources, the same materials, support and teach to the same standards. It would be very easy to blur the distinction between these two terms when it comes to differentiated teaching because the rubrics would need to be adjusted in varying degrees for various students and this is where assignments can be subjective and equals and fairness thrown out with the results. Joel, I agree with you on the part subjectivity can skew those results. |
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Post by maryroman on Sept 29, 2015 22:01:20 GMT
Great activities, but are they differentiated?
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jeff
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Post by jeff on Sept 29, 2015 23:02:02 GMT
This chapter gives a brief overview of what a differentiated classroom is. Please answer the questions below and respond to two colleague's answers. 1. On pages 5–12, the author presents portraits of sets of classes at various grade levels. In some, the teachers largely use whole-class instruction; in others, they plan with student differences in mind and regularly differentiate to address those differences. How would you compare the differences in teaching styles between whole-class instruction and those who differentiated instruction? You do not need to compare ALL philosophies. Give a general comparison. 2. Based on what you've read in this chapter, what do you see as the key principles, or governing ideas, of differentiated classrooms? 1. In a non differentiated classroom there are a set of goals and expectations for all students no matter their level or interests with the same expected outcomes. Students with no interest in the topic, or with different levels of skill are expected to perform to the same expectations. Differentiated classrooms have students interests and skills in mind when creating each of the activities. Learning outcomes are set to skill and interest levels. 2. Differentiated classrooms, the keys are to assess each student for interest and skills. Students are still treated equal as far as ideas and content to learn, but are different as far as interests and skill level. So the ideas and content are still learned with slightly different expectations. |
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jeff
New Member
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Post by jeff on Sept 29, 2015 23:05:23 GMT
Question 1: On page 5 Mrs. Jasper (of the whole-class instruction family) laments that it would be unfair to the students if they don't all do the same thing. Mrs. Jasper needs to understand that fair does not mean equal. Fair means everyone getting what they need in order to succeed. Missing this basic premise caused Mrs. Jasper, and her cohorts, to miss the education bus. Educators like to use fancy words to make themselves feel important, but I truly believe that differentiated teaching is simply fair teaching. Ms. Cunningham, Mrs. May, Mr. Santos and Mrs. Wang all understand and implement fair in their classrooms. Question 2: Key principle/governing idea of a differentiated classroom......you guessed it....fairness. I agree with you that equal and fairness are not the same. |
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jeff
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Post by jeff on Sept 29, 2015 23:10:39 GMT
1) The classes that do not differentiate plan activities and expect all students to complete the activity to the same standards, even though not all of the students are achieving at the same levels. The classes that are not differentiated also expect good work out of students that have no interest in a subject matter. The teachers that did differentiate leveled their students for centers or gave the students topics they were interested in. The teachers that differentiated had the students learn the information, but made it at their levels, so the students can be successful. 2) The key ideas to me are to assess the student, so they can be leveled. With the leveling teachers can challenge the students, but not to make them become frustrated. Also, that the students can learn the same general ideas the teacher is trying to convey, but at different levels. Tyler I agree that to level the field, so to speak, can help students succeed without becoming frustrated. |
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Post by cyarndt on Sept 30, 2015 1:11:07 GMT
1. In reviewing the classroom examples in chapter 1, Tomlinson is comparing whole class teaching examples to various differentiated teaching styles. While each teacher uses their own philosophy to guide and direct how they differentiate the underlying philosophy would be that every child can be successful in education providing the right resources, support, and "hooks" in completing expected grade level expectations. While I agree with the basic principles of a differentiated classroom, I also feel in order for students to obtain true growth, they will have to be continuously challenged.
2. My opinion on the key components of a differentiated classroom are utilizing the correct types of assessments (using a blended approach of assessments), resources available for all levels of learners is essential, clear learning targets, teacher flexibility, and structured classroom management!
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Post by cyarndt on Sept 30, 2015 1:12:53 GMT
 I love all the posts!! Great ideas and conversations are taking place!
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Post by cyarndt on Sept 30, 2015 1:38:06 GMT
Today there is a big push to treat all students as un-equals and therefore un-equally regardless of the classroom setting. Ironically, standardized tests are designed to treat everyone equally with only a few exceptions. To be fair we need to give students the same conditions, the same resources, the same materials, support and teach to the same standards. It would be very easy to blur the distinction between these two terms when it comes to differentiated teaching because the rubrics would need to be adjusted in varying degrees for various students and this is where assignments can be subjective and equals and fairness thrown out with the results. Joel, I am SO glad you brought this up!! This has always been a topic for pondering! I think it is essential to guide and support (through various means) students to proficiently meet state standards. I also believe that students need a "hook" for learning new information. Student engagement in the learning process continues to be a struggle for today's students and I feel that they need more of a reason to want to learn. When we look at standardized test, they are a "one size fits all" type of measurement of student academic competencies. While I believe the educational system needs some model of annual growth measurements, I don't feel that standardized test are the best answer. I think about what adults are expected to produce in the workforce and I can't seem to think of any type of occupation where your competency is based off of a once a year standardized test. That being said, I think when a teacher looks at the standards they are expected to teach, the students they have in their classrooms, and what these students come to school with, I think a teacher needs to blend styles of teaching. I think for topics that whole classes aren't prepared for there should be differentiation, then going back to the whole group approach. This way students gain background knowledge with their levels and interests in mind and the classroom teacher can dig deeper during whole group instruction! The only thing missing is........time  |
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Post by cyarndt on Sept 30, 2015 1:41:55 GMT
This chapter gives a brief overview of what a differentiated classroom is. Please answer the questions below and respond to two colleague's answers. 1. On pages 5–12, the author presents portraits of sets of classes at various grade levels. In some, the teachers largely use whole-class instruction; in others, they plan with student differences in mind and regularly differentiate to address those differences. How would you compare the differences in teaching styles between whole-class instruction and those who differentiated instruction? You do not need to compare ALL philosophies. Give a general comparison. 2. Based on what you've read in this chapter, what do you see as the key principles, or governing ideas, of differentiated classrooms? 1. Using centers does not mean a teacher is differentiating their instruction. The primary teachers, Mrs. Jasper and Mrs. Cunningham both use centers. Mrs. Jasper's students do all of activities in each of the centers and have all the same assignments. She has a student who is breezing through the centers and needs to be challenged, and a student who is frustrated and is not gaining the skills needed to be successful in her classroom. Mrs. Cunningham has developed her centers to meet her students' needs at different levels. She assigns each student a task she knows will meet their individual needs. Her students will be challenged and will gain the confidence needed to be an active learner. Mrs. Horton's students complete all the same work. I really like the how Mr. Adams' students self-assess their performance on formative tasks and set a personal goals. The students are allowed to select homework assignments to help them increase their performance and meet their goals. 2. Differentiated classrooms meet the needs of every child in that classroom. Teacher will make their lessons fit all their students' learning styles and levels. I think you are right with the learning centers idea. I love teaching with centers, but if everyone is expected to do the same activity, is it really differentiation? I like the idea of having varied centers with different activities with the same learning goal, but different approaches to meeting that expectation! |
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Post by Cynthia on Oct 1, 2015 0:00:33 GMT
Ms. Robertson is a U.S. History teacher and her students cover the information sequentially. Common Core really pushes the chronology of history. Every other week we get a Scholastic magazine and kids struggle with this(chronology) but by the end of the end of the year they were showing a lot more mastering of this. The textbooks I have today always puts a lot of emphasis on women and African-Americans in History. Sometimes we omit the white guys who did things just to give these people their due. It is like reverse-discrimination to some extent but after 100's of years of seeing no credit for things done this maybe in order. Mrs. Washington-key concepts and principles. All my new textbooks have the 'Big Ideas' for every chapter. We usually start the chapter lesson with this and we try to look at different points of view on each topic. For example what would the liberals think about Planned Parenthood vs. the conservatives (Tea-Party). Do we for example throw this completely out because of a few bad examples in their ranks? We finally have a computer system that works so, for example we watched and listened to the Pope's speech to Congress. We do not have a problem with different cultures and different languages here. Mrs. Washington stopped in her lecture to encourage students to discuss things. We try to do this every day in every class. It is their class time and I encourage them to use their time to question to probe and as deep as they can understand the subject material at hand. We do a lot of compare and contrast in my classes. An example of this is the farming in the late 1800's to the farming today. We went to Big Iron and Bonanzaville and we talked about the differences of farming. You can actually farm today and come in completely clean. Even when I was a kid farming this was not possible.h She wrote that 1/2 of their grades were based on a summation assessment. We do some 6 + 1 writing but it usually is only about 10-20% of their grade. I do not at this time have enough confidence in this to give more credit to that type of education. Don, you've listed great examples of the activities you do in your classroom. I like that you do the compare and contrast with farming! As a farmer's wife, I can attest to the fact they come in cleaner, but those farmers are still pretty dirty!  I am curious as to what your thoughts are in regards to comparing and contrasting the teaching styles listed in the book. What were the main differences you came away with from the book's classroom examples? What do you believe are the key principles for differentiated instruction? Also, the teacher using summative assessments was reporting that 1/2 of their grades come from chapter/unit tests. Most educational experts agree that you should use a blended approach in assessing (formative & summative). The formative assessments allow a teacher to understand what their students know throughout the classroom instruction (periodic questioning, giving main ideas of content taught, and outlines). Summative assessments allow teachers to know what students have learned at the of chapters or can also include semester tests. |
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Post by mtoepke on Oct 1, 2015 0:19:59 GMT
1. After reading each of the cases between whole class instruction vs differentiated teaching, I felt like it comes down to 2 things. Those 2 things would be student engagement and individual connections with each student. Whether its making that connection personally (Mrs. May essay papers) or by challenging students to their individual needs (Mrs. Wang's math class), she was able to individualize her lessons. Ms. Cunningham has an excellent process of getting students to be engaged both individually, in groups and as a class. She has a great idea of letting the students have fun, getting the students out of their seats while still making sure that learning is being done.
2. As majority of the posts that I have already read--its comes down to not treating every student as the same. And it doesn't mean that you have t prepare for each student separate. Majority of these lessons I feel, the teachers group their students to their abilities while they may be thinking of particular students on certain topics. So it comes down to actually getting to know your students and making those connections with students. Because if you can make a connection to something they care about, you may just see a whole new side to some students.
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Post by mtoepke on Oct 1, 2015 0:35:04 GMT
Today there is a big push to treat all students as un-equals and therefore un-equally regardless of the classroom setting. Ironically, standardized tests are designed to treat everyone equally with only a few exceptions. To be fair we need to give students the same conditions, the same resources, the same materials, support and teach to the same standards. It would be very easy to blur the distinction between these two terms when it comes to differentiated teaching because the rubrics would need to be adjusted in varying degrees for various students and this is where assignments can be subjective and equals and fairness thrown out with the results. Joel, I am SO glad you brought this up!! This has always been a topic for pondering! I think it is essential to guide and support (through various means) students to proficiently meet state standards. I also believe that students need a "hook" for learning new information. Student engagement in the learning process continues to be a struggle for today's students and I feel that they need more of a reason to want to learn. When we look at standardized test, they are a "one size fits all" type of measurement of student academic competencies. While I believe the educational system needs some model of annual growth measurements, I don't feel that standardized test are the best answer. I think about what adults are expected to produce in the workforce and I can't seem to think of any type of occupation where your competency is based off of a once a year standardized test. That being said, I think when a teacher looks at the standards they are expected to teach, the students they have in their classrooms, and what these students come to school with, I think a teacher needs to blend styles of teaching. I think for topics that whole classes aren't prepared for there should be differentiation, then going back to the whole group approach. This way students gain background knowledge with their levels and interests in mind and the classroom teacher can dig deeper during whole group instruction! The only thing missing is........time This is great a post and something that I never really thought about this until I read your post. And when it comes to these tests, they don't take into consideration of how that student learns best. And to piggy-back off of what Cindy said, I also believe that the we need something to measure our growth, but I don't know if I agree that the standardized testing is the way to go about it. But I can't tell you what would be the best way either. |
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Post by mtoepke on Oct 1, 2015 0:42:12 GMT
1) The classes that do not differentiate plan activities and expect all students to complete the activity to the same standards, even though not all of the students are achieving at the same levels. The classes that are not differentiated also expect good work out of students that have no interest in a subject matter. The teachers that did differentiate leveled their students for centers or gave the students topics they were interested in. The teachers that differentiated had the students learn the information, but made it at their levels, so the students can be successful. 2) The key ideas to me are to assess the student, so they can be leveled. With the leveling teachers can challenge the students, but not to make them become frustrated. Also, that the students can learn the same general ideas the teacher is trying to convey, but at different levels. Yes, assessing is important. A teacher might find that a concept is already mastered by her students. She might find the opposite; her students might need more background knowledge. Assessment--more so pre-assessment, is something that I have found so important. Not only because I came into a new school but because I took over a position of someone who taught so long. And what my expectations of freshman in Fargo were totally different of where they were at here. |
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lori
New Member
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Post by lori on Oct 1, 2015 2:03:10 GMT
1. Mrs. Jasper is using whole-class instruction with her centers because every student goes to every center regardless of the student's need. Some students breezed through the center which means they did not need it. Mrs. Cunningham uses centers, but she does not have every student go to every center. She assigns centers based on readiness. She is differentiating. Students do not all work on the same tasks. Mr. Elliot uses whole-class instruction with some differentiation. He lets each student select their own biography, so he is trying to meet the varying interests of his students. This could also allow each student to choose a book at their reading level. However, each student was given the same assignment and graded with the same rubric. Mrs. May is also using some whole-class instruction and is differentiating. She is using interest inventories to help her students choose a famous person to research. This is to be sure that each student will enjoy the assignment process because they have a connection to the topic. Students can select reading material that they can understand. Mrs. May is meeting with each individual students as they set goals for themselves. She is providing personal coaching to individual students based on their needs. However, all students are following the same assignment process and are given the same rubric. Ms. Cornell uses a very structured whole-class approach as she basically follows the same routine for each chapter. Mrs. Santos is differentiating a lot in her classroom! She is grouping students according to reading levels and uses different graphic organizers for different groups. She frequently has two versions of labs, one for students who need more help in understanding the concepts, and one for students who have already grasped the concepts. Mrs. Santos often gives students a choice for performance assessments. She uses a single rubric for all options. Mrs. O'Reilly uses whole-class instruction with her novels. Everyone reads the same novel and does the same assignments. Mr. Wilkerson is using novels, too, but he is differentiating by letting the students chose among 4 or 5 novels. While the novels might have the same theme, they cover a variety of interests. Mrs. Horton follows the same routine for every students for her language lessons. She does allow for a bit of collaboration among the students when they are allowed to work with partners on assignments. Mr. Adams uses a lot of differentiation. His students work on different exercises that are of varying degrees of difficulty. He meets with individual students to set goals. His use of mixed-readiness pairs is more like traditional classrooms. Mr. Matheson uses whole-class instruction as he follows the same routine with each of his math lessons. Mrs. Wang is differentiating when when she allows students to select their own homework assignments to help with areas of need. Mrs. Bowen is not differentiating. Every student does the same exercises and drills in phy. ed., while Mrs. Horton does differentiate because she identifies a starting point for teaching skills for each student. Ms. Robertson and Mrs. Washington both use a lot of whole-class instruction, but Mrs. Washington is trying to meet varying interests by supplementing a lot of the lessons and by using a variety of resources at varying degrees of difficulty and in different languages. 2. (1) The teacher is really clear, and specific about what she wants students to learn. (2) The teacher knows that her students are all different and she changes and adapts accordingly. (3) What the students are assessed on is what they were being taught! (4) The teacher must make adjustments in every part of the teaching process to meet the differences of her students. They have different needs, interests, and learning styles. (5) There is a lot of collaboration among students and teachers and among students with other students. (6) The teachers are very flexible. Nice job Brenda thinking through each teachers action and explaining each one. You did a nice job going through the lessons of each teacher. You put a great deal of thought into it! Lori |
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I love all the posts!! Great ideas and conversations are taking place! 
I am curious as to what your thoughts are in regards to comparing and contrasting the teaching styles listed in the book. What were the main differences you came away with from the book's classroom examples? What do you believe are the key principles for differentiated instruction? 
