Differentiate for the WIN!

The Little Prince and the Fox

Chapter 7
The Simple, Hard Truth About Teaching

Essential Question: Who is the teacher and who is the learner?

Let's talk about things Effective Teachers do. Things that all of us teachers should strive for. 

• CARE ABOUT YOUR STUDENTS!!! Create loving relationships, be aware, respect the students.
• Interact directly with students - You can only know what's going on if you are involved!
• Be Enthusiastic!! It rubs off!!!
• Hands-on!!
• Inquiry!!
• Clear goal identification!
• match instruction to learner needs
• Flexible grouping!!
• Be more concerned with understanding the meaning!! Not memorizing!!
• Know your students.

Without these things plus other things, your teaching will not be reaching it's highest potential and therefore neither will your students!! I want my students to be happy, feel loved, and reach their highest potential!!

I love differentiated and I have totally enjoyed this class, and this amazing book, and learning about all the tools and strategies available out there for making DIFFERENTIATING THE BEST IT CAN BE!!! Thanks Dr. Petereson!! And Good luck to all your differentiators out there!!!!! You'll rock!!!! 

Now let's do what we said we needed to do...

Highlights of Chapter 6

• Use Tiered Approaches!! 
• Students are working toward the same knowledge, understanding, and skills. BUT readiness level is varied for individual students!! 
• Take a "No Excuse" Stance
• don't take excuses for an answer!! No undone work, no incomplete work, no poorly done work! Provide any needed support, guidance, or scaffolding necessary. They can do it! Let them know they can!
• Try ThinkDots
• This is a great Toolbox strategy!! It provides peer support. 
• Think Alouds
• they are the best!! I think most clearly when I think out loud. It puts everything into perspective. So I know this strategy can help others as well! 
• Promote Language Proficiency
• Label stuff! post rules, schedules, procedures, etc. Visual cues! Write instructions down! Graphic organizers!! Summarize!

Ways to practice using the Curriculum and Instruction Cog appropriately as a vehicle to Responding to Student needs! This chapter has tons of great and helpful strategies to help differentiate with students!! I love having this resource available. I especially love that it talks about Toolbox strategies because those are the best :)

Jentry Youd and His Class Family

TALK      LAUGH      MOVE

Jentry Youd is a UVU graduate who uses Morning Meetings!!! He says that it makes his class! I love hearing about different ways to do morning meetings!! His love and passion for morning meetings really is contagious and exciting! I loved how his style was a new way to do morning meetings. It just shows that we can adapt morning meetings to work for us in our own classes!

Jentry does Morning Meetings every morning in his class. He does an ACTIVITY, a SHARE, and they cover a GOAL. These goals vary on what the class may need to work on and they can last for quite some time until they nail it. He has created a Google doc filled with 50 Morning Meeting Activities!!! He shared it with us and I am thrilled to use it!!!

Jentry believes something that we learned my first semester from Professor Adamson. He firmly agrees that EVERY DAY students need to
Talk
Laugh
and Move
I 100% agree with this statement. I know those are three things I need to do every day. Since that is true, then it has to be especially true for growing and developing and learning children.

I loved the stories he shared about how his students love morning meeting, about how he's helped kids with anxiety, or that are going through a hard time such as death of a loved one. I also loved the story about taking Morning Meeting away one day and that solved his classes behavior problem!!

He was so fun and happy. His students reflected that and I hope to have a similar relationship with my students. :)

Meshing Togeher

The Student Seeks   The Teacher Responds  Curriculum and Instruction are the Vehicle!!

After learning about the three important cogs of the differentiation machine, this quote from the Disney movie, The Incredibles came to my mind as a perfect description of how these cogs need to work together:

Bob (Mr. Incredible) and Gilbert Huph (Bob's Boss at Work for an Insurance Company) are at Bob's work in Huph's office discussing the company and it's policies:

Huph: You know, Bob... a company...
Bob: Is like an enormous clock.
Huph: ...Is like an enormous cl... Yes, precisely. It only works if all the little cogs mesh together. A clock must be clean, well lubricated, and wound tight. 

I hope my classroom and also all of my students together will work together in this manner as Huph described in the movie. If we do everything right, the machine should run smoothly. :)
I hop

The Vessel in which the Force is Driven!!

Chapter 5
The third cog and completion of our differentiating mechanism!!
Curriculum and Instruction as the Vehicle
Important
Focused
Engaging
Demanding
Scaffolded

Memorization of material is a poor poor way to try and learn something. Instead one should learn to make meaning of any given information and tools of how to figure other information to solve problems!!! Precision and understanding must come from teacher in student. Both must share in knowledge of why they are learning what the are learning. Make it fun!! Make it hands-on!! Make it unique and interesting!! Inquiry!! Scaffold them in their individual and class ZPD!!!

The student can have needs, the teacher can respond to those needs, but without anything to learn and a great way to learn it then there is not point to the clock and it won't work!!! The three must interact together!! I think this is so true and so important. The curriculum, the teacher, and the student must work with one another for optimum learning to occur!! I hope I can bring all three of things together in my own class.

Fav Point:

• Balancing knowledge, understanding, and skill.
• We have to some of all three and we have to make them work together equally!! 

Directing the Force!!

Chapter 3

The second cog of the differentiating clock!!
Teacher Response: a starting point for differentiation.

Invitation

Opportunity

Investment

Persistence

Reflection

As we learned in the previous post, the student are seeking for things as they are learning. In order to guide those needs where the need to go the teacher has to respond to them! Send good vibes to the students! Invite them with who you are, let them know they are valued and respected. Give them opportunities, let them know they have those opportunities and that they CAN do it. Persistence is key! Don't just drop it if a student isn't getting it! Try a new approach!! Make it happen! I think Reflection may be the most important part of this cog. You have to review and reflect and rethink as you are working with the students to help you achieve all the other portions. 

Without the teacher's response to the needs of the students, the students needs won't be met and that defeats a lot of purpose in our goal as educators! We want them to learn! I want them to learn! :)

The Force of Differentiating

CHAPTER 2

The first cog of the clock!!

The Student Seeks

Affirmation

Contribution

Power 

Purpose

Challenge

Give the students what they seek!!! Give them that X that marks the spot they are knowingly or unknowingly searching for!! They want to know why they need to know something. They want it to be worthwhile and stretch their muscles. They want to be apart of the process and they want to feel loved!! help them out!

I want to give my students what they need and even what they want. Most importantly I want them to feel right on the edge of comfortable so we can expound their schemas and create new ones!

Some key points I found in chapter 2:

• (My fav) Student needs are the impetus for differentiation. 
• The needs of the students are what drive the differentiating!! It is not random!!
• Emotions trump learning, need to feel safe. 
• Nobody retains or likes information the learn learned when bored, scared, or ignored!