Week 3

We’re taking a bit of a detour this week, and looking more closely at hallmark #1. Keeping this hallmark in mind, take a look at Fulfilling the Promise, pp. 100‐103; How might you use the information this would produce, in differentiating? What would you, personally, want to add to or remove from this inventory? Explain.

"Differentiated Instruction is a philosophy of teaching that recognizes the unique needs of students and takes responsibility for ensuring that all students receive appropriate learning opportunities and feedback appropriate to their individual needs. Differentiated Instruction is not “individualized instruction”, rather it is an approach that employs multiple, classroom-wide instruction and assessment strategies to ensure that students’ diverse learning needs are continually monitored and met."

I stumbled across this quote when trying to research differentiation in order to better understand its meaning. I feel that it explains perfectly my reasoning for wanting to use the Student Profile Survey and the Student Interest Survey found in our book. The focus of a differentiated classroom is so student centered, zeroing in on each child as a unique individual, and these surveys provide us with an opportunity as early as the first day of class to get to know our students and to begin adapting our own teaching to their needs, desires, and interests of our. We will be able to adapt of the content to be taught to those needs and interests. I also think that it holds teachers to an extremely high standard. In order to know how to modify our teaching we have to know and implement a wide variety of strategies. This means we have to be willing to constantly educate ourselves, to stay current, to attend workshops, to collaborate with our colleagues. We cannot stick to our one way of teaching and expect it to be successful for every student. We need to get creative when it comes to teaching content. The student cannot always adapt to the content, so we need to adapt the content to the stduent. By giving these surveys to our students and others like it, even more than once during the year, we will be providing opportunities for both them, and for us, to grow in the world of education.

My only hesitation in using these surveys, is wondering if the students will give truly thoughtful and honest answers to the questions...or if they will even know how to answer the questions. I would be concerned that they would give very simple, generic answers, and much would still be left to discover as the year progresses, defeating the purpose of getting a jump start on teaching strategies if they are the incorrect ones. I also feel these would only work with certain age groups, as a second grader may not quite know how to explain "some ways of learning that work for (them)". Do you see my concern? I also think that some of the questions can be asked per unit. Meaning, you could introduce a unit, explain what we will be focusing on for that time period, and then ask what about that might interest them, if anything.

Either way, it lets your students know that you are taking an interest in them personally, which will validate them, build them up, and help them to feel emotionally safe in your classroom.

Also “read” (review/skim, etc.) the “File of Inventories/ Pre‐Assessments”posted on Blackboard in the “Inventories” folder, inside of the “Differentiation” folder. What are some relationships you see between this variety of inventory types, and what we are beginning to learn about differentiating content, or process, or product for readiness, or learning profile, or interest?

Out of what I saw in the Inventory, I was most excited to see that there are things that you can do beyond the first day of class to see how your students learn, what they like to read, when they like to write, what their general interests are. There were so many things that you can use throughout the year to mark progression in not only academic skill but in changes of interest to things beyond hobbies such as sports and movies, which will grately impact the materials that you provide for that student, the way in which you approach certain things, and much more in adapting your teaching and your classroom. The Inventory provides another way in which we can mark our students progress & accomplishments or set goals with our students. We can provide many opportunities to continually reshape our classroom, to let our students know that we are taking an interest in them, and to get to know them completely.