Classroom Community

Having been homeschooled, I view education differently than most people I know.  As I read the textbook, “Fulfilling the Promise of the Differentiated Classroom,” by Carol Tomlinson, I came across a description of how a new student often feels when they attend school for the first time.  This description resonated with me because I have felt these same feelings.  A child who has never been to school might resent having assignments and homework that take time away from other things that matter more to them. A child in this situation often feels that school is stealing their time, and controlling their life.  This is actually the reason my mother chose to homeschool me. She was tired of feeling like the public school controlled her life, and she was not going to let the school continue to control her life through her children.   

                I believe a foundation of trust is the key for helping students feel welcome and excited to come to class each day.  I will strive to create a classroom community of trust. I desire to have my students trust me to only give assignments that will help them experience joy and satisfaction as they learn and grow.  I want my students to be able to trust that I will be there to help them learn because I believe in them—their capabilities and their potential to achieve and become. I also want my students to trust one another and work together as friends, and not be afraid to share their thoughts and feelings.

                Creating a classroom community of trust seems like a daunting task, but it is worth the effort if every child can feel safe, secure and benefited for having been in my classroom.  In order to create this environment of trust I need to listen to my students; I need to find out their interests, hobbies, and goals.  Utilizing the sharing time portion of morning meetings in my classroom will be a valuable tool for me to use to learn about my students and for my students, to learn about each other.   Sharing in morning meetings will also help my students to feel comfortable, instead of anxious or worried, with me and their fellow classmates.  

                Another useful tool for creating an atmosphere of trust is assessments.  In order for my students to trust that I will work to help them individually, I will use ongoing assessments to help me know where each child is academically.  I will explain to my students the importance of the assessments and how the assessments help me to help them. I will use the assessment results to inform my instruction.  Giving feedback to each child about their assessment results is important—because it will help me ensure that each student knows that their growth is important to me. 

                Meaningful learning activities and tasks are another way to create trust in the classroom.  I need to be clear about what I want my students to know and do.  I need to give each of my students tasks that we both feel will benefit them, and are not just tasks to fill their time while I work with other students.  My students need to experience joy and satisfaction as they learn and spend time at school.   One way to help my students recognize all we accomplish in our class is to take a few minutes at the end of each day to make note of what we did that day.  I will do this by writing a short journal entry, dictated by my students, at the end of every day on a PowerPoint slide.  I will also add pertinent pictures to the slides of various classroom activities.  Every few weeks, as a class, we will review the slides so we can remember the fun, worthwhile things that we have done as a class.   At the end of the year, we will watch our completed PowerPoint slide presentation to see all that we have accomplished together throughout the year. 

                Additionally, I will give my students responsibilities as a means of creating trust in the classroom.  My students need to know that I trust them.  I will create class jobs and explain clearly what my expectations are, so that my students can complete the tasks I give them. I will give my students the responsibility to complete the tasks, and hold them accountable for getting their tasks done by having a system of rewards/consequences.  

                Creating a universal sense of trust in my classroom is the vital foundation required for learning to occur.  When students feel safe and secure it opens the pathway for learning.  If trust is absent, student learning will be hindered by feelings of insecurity and fear.  An atmosphere of trust in my classroom will enable me to help each one of my students reach their full potential.

                

Teachers Are Also Different

Not only is each student different, but each teacher is different and has something different to offer students.  I had the wonderful opportunity to teach my field class for the last three days because my cooperating teacher is at a teachers' conference.  The sub for my class is a retired principal.  I felt so nervous teaching in front of him, wondering what he was thinking.  After the first day of teaching, I asked him what suggestions he had for me.  He said that I needed to find what works for me.  I can try out the other teacher's ways of managing the class, but I need to find what works for me.  He emphasized the point that all teachers do things differently. They need to find what works for them, and while they are trying to figure it out they may not do everything perfectly and that is all right.

Knowing that it is all right to "mess up" and not do everything perfectly the first time helped me to not be so nervous for the next day when I taught.  I learn so much about myself each day I teach and learn what works for me. I hope, as I continue to teach, I can also learn what works for each of my students.

Differentiation in Field

Wow, my field experience started 3 days ago and I have already learned so much about teaching and meeting the needs of individual students.  My field teacher uses assessments to guide her instruction all the time. She is continually assessing and using that knowledge to make her instructional plans.  She does a Running Reading Record on each student every week to check progress and help them progress.  She has reading groups that are based on a student's readiness levels.

My field teacher is continually striving to learn her students' interests.  She has one student that she has not yet discovered what motivates him, or what he is interested in.

One idea that I really like for creating classroom community that my field teacher uses is to record, at the end of each day, the highlights of the day on a PowerPoint slide.  She has each slide numbered for the day of school.  The students determine what is written on each slide. The teacher also takes pictures and adds them to the slide.  The class will watch the slide show at the end of the year to remember all the fun things they did together.

Toolbox Strategies

After our class presentations on toolbox strategies I was still a little confused on how the strategies could be used for differentiation.  I looked up some of the strategies and I think I understand better now how to differentiate with them.  To differentiate with graphic organizers you provide different supports within the graphic organizer for different students, or you provide a different graphic organizer for the individual students based on their needs.  For the journal entry strategy you provide different supports.  For learning menus you provide different activities that have different support systems in place.  To differentiate with the toolbox strategies you use tiering and scaffolding.

Metaphors

The textbook contains many metaphors that help me to understand differentiation. I will add here a metaphor that I helped to formulate for a group project in a different class. This metaphor also applies to differentiation just like the metaphor of the mother making gravy for her son, the bread maker becoming an expert bread maker, and the way we learn to ride a bike.  This metaphor is about a gardener and is sung to the tune of "You are My Sunshine."

Teachers are gardeners of little children 
They help them learn and stretch and grow
They may not know it, but they are learning
Please continue to help children grow.

A gardener helps plants grow by nourishing and nurturing the plants. The more the gardener knows about a particular plant the better able the gardener is to differentiate their care for that plant.  Teachers are always learning, even if they do not always realize it.  It is when the teacher applies what they are learning from the individual students that they are able to help children continue to grow and flourish.

Learning About My Students

Our textbook discussed the interaction between the Fox and the Prince in every chapter.  The Fox asked the Prince to tame him.  The last chapter ends with the question, "Can you show me how to tame you?"   If I am willing, I can learn from my students how to teach them and help them achieve.   I feel that learning about my students from my students is the key to differentiating effectively.  To differentiate, teachers must learn about their students, learn from their students, and learn with their students.  Once I know my students, I can differentiate content, process, and products according to student readiness, interest and learning ability by applying the hallmarks of differentiation.

Tiering

As I was reading more on the subject of tiering, I found a website created by Bertie Kingmore that has many articles on the subject of differentiation.  I read the article on tiered instruction. Kingmore explained tiered instruction using the analogy of a staircase.  Students are all at different levels of the staircase, so they need different instruction, activities, or support systems to get them to their highest learning potential.

In class today, it made sense to me that tiered instruction is differentiating for a student's readiness.  The cake analogy and our discussion of how the hallmarks apply to tiered instruction helped me to understand the hallmarks of differentiation a little more deeply.   The one that stood out to me was hallmark 2 (absolute clarity about what the teacher wants the students to know, understand, and be able to do - about what is truly important to learn in this unit).  In tiered instruction the teacher uses the same objective, but differentiates the process, and products to get the students to where they are supposed to be.  I can only succeed with tiered instruction if I know clearly what I want my students to know, understand, and be able to do.