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!

5/18 Pay It Forward!!!!!

Have I talked about how morning meetings bring people together? They are filled with love and friendship. I beleive my own morning meeting that was held in my college class as a practice session was a fine example of this particular concept. I shall tell you about how it went. 

FIRST! We set up the chairs in a circular shape! 
ALSO! We had a poster on the board that said "Secret Acts of Kindness" and we had five people sign up to share a time where they had either given or received an act of kindness. We also had everyone in the class anonymously write something nice or that they liked about another in the class. 
GREET! Then we had a greeting that is similar to the games "Signs" We each went around the circle and picked our own sign, repeating each persons sign after they did to try to ingrain it in our brains. Then one person starts by doing their sign and then doing someone else's sign. That someone else accept their sign and does a third persons sign. The second person sits down then because they have been greeted. We continued in this manner until everyone had been greeted silently. It was lots of fun picking signs and then giving the signs.
SHARE! We then had five people share the time they had an involvement with a SAK. It was very touching. Some of the things were personal adn others were like someone bought their groceries at the store for them. For each sharing, they were asked about three ish questions or comments about it. It was very touching.
ACTIVITY! Secret Elf. (from the book "99 Activities and Greetings: Great for Morning Meeting" by Melissa Correa-Conolly) We sent one person to the corner, then as a group we said "Elf, elf, there's an elf on my shelf and the elf is..." Then someone would volunteer to be the elf and they would say ina disquised voice "I'm the elf!" the person in the corner would then have three guess as to who is was. It was really fun!
DISCUSSion type thing! Lastly we pulled down the poster and read all of the different things people had said about each other. It was very touching and heart-warming. We talked about paying it forward, where you pass on acts of kindness done to you. We encouraged our class to do so. 

I really had a lot of fun and I felt like everyone in the class also had fun. I learned a lot about my classmates adn felt like it built our community and vocabulary and ideas. I love morning meetings. :)

4/18 New Insights

I've learned some new analogies to apply to the 9 Hallmarks to help us better understand and utilize these classroom differentiation strategies. Remember the definitions I gave a few weeks ago? Well keep those in mind and feel free to reference them. This post is an expansion of those definitions that I learned from my fellow future teachers at school. Here we go:

Hallmarks!

1. A strong link between assessment and instruction. 

A puzzle! You got to get the foundation out there to even start putting the puzzle together. You gotta start somewhere, so you put the edge together. Then you you find all the connections and the links. To put it together. BUT, you have to keep referring back to the picture and the edge and reassessing the whole time to complete it! They are connected!

2. Absolute Clarity about what the teacher wants to know, understand, and be able to do - about what is truly important to learn in this unit. 

The student is blindfolded and the teacher has a map and can see the goal at the end of the maze. The teacher needs move with the student to find the unforeseen circumstances and guide the student to dodge those obstacles! Reach the goal!

3. Shared responsibility for the classroom is between teacher and students in the goal of making it work for everyone. 

Picture a scale. The kind that needs equal weight on both sides to balance. One side is the teachers input, one side is the students. They have to give an equal amount to the learning process!

4. Individual growth is emphasized as central to classroom success.

We are strong as one big link. We have to come together and form a classroom chain with our strengths and weaknesses to keep each other strong, hold each other up.

5. A "way up," unusually through multiple and varied pathways, and never a "way out."

Silly putty! The silly putty is taught a lesson by placing it on a newspaper and it picks up the words and then you need to mold that new knowledge. If you pull to hard, they'll snap!! But if you pull slowly and mend the holes, they'll keep the info!

6. Respectful and engaging work for all students.

"Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference." ~ Robert Frost Different pathways, same end goal. We gotta make those pathways fun and challenging and leveled! 7. Proactive thinking and planning for different pathways.  Going on a road trip. It takes lots of planning, you need a map, start at different places, teacher sees stuff, some are gonna go at a faster place then others! 8. Flexible grouping. A flower garden. For different occasions you'll want different bouquets and flower arrangements! or sometimes you'll want a single rose, etc! 9. Flexible use of time, space, and materials. Bending over backwards and forwards an being willing to change or go to the extreme to get things done!! I am very blessed to be learning in a class filled with all of these geniuses. Their metaphors and connections really helped for the Hallmarks to become real and clear to me. Now I just need to think of my classmates when a particular strategy is mentioned and I know what it is and how to utilize its power. My favorite metaphors would have to be Robert Frost's pathways, the silly putty, and the flower bouquets. They just really hit home with me in their symbolism. I hope these helped you to understand the Hallmarks on a deeper, more personal level as well!!

Part 3/18 - Let's Be Morning People

My dad is a morning person. Every morning he gets up, gets ready and either whistles or sings throughout the whole house waking up the whole family. As each of us walk into the living room like zombies, he greets us, "Good morning, Tia!" From all five of the rest of the members of my family he typically receives a grunt, moan or a bleak, "hi." My dad then proceeds to read to us from the book we read every morning. He asks us questions as we read, we hardly ever answer coherently. Afterward, he leaves to work, kissing us each on the forward or patting our backs and wishing each of us a fabulous day!! I have always envied my father in this regard. My new goal is to be my dad in my morning classroom. My extension of this goal is for my students to also become my dad in our classroom. With his morning attitude in all 30ish of us we can conquer the world! 

Sylvia Allan is a gem. She came to our Differentiation class at school and presented her classroom Morning Meeting components. She has one of those attitudes like my dad.

Her Morning Meeting agenda is:

*Class Creed

*Greeting (Monday Only)

*Pledge

*Memorization

*Class Business

-Vegetables

-Dessert

-Medicine

*News 

*Share 

*Class Cheer

There are two critical rules: 

1. NEVER sit at your desk during Morning Meeting (This is NOT planning time!)

2. It is not a therapy session for us or the students.

First, those who sit at their desks during morning meeting are idiots. How could they miss that? Sylvia Allan discussed how she has had students tell her vitally life changing important things thanks to morning meeting that they have never told anyone. I want to be the kind of teacher that a student can go to if they help with anything. Second, I love what she said about Morning Meeting not being a therapy session for the teacher or the students, they are merely sharing info and facts, having discussion and learning about each other. 

Sylvia Allan uses proximity as a reward for good students. I love this! Give the attention to students who are behaving properly as motivation for the other students. 

During Morning Meeting, make sure students understand everything they are saying in both their class creed, memorization, Pledge, news, cheer, everything. Take it slowly one at a time and not all in one day, but make sure they know what they are saying. You probably wondering specifically what Dessert, Vegetables, and Medicine are. I shall explain: Vegetables are things that are good for us, things we are going to do that day or that need to be fixed from the day before. Dessert are the specific things that they did well the day before. And Medicine is used when there is a problem that can't be fixed any other way. It is nasty, but cures the ailment. (They also have a Literary Term and Quote everyday.) 

My favorite thing to hear about in Sylvia Allan's lesson is how the students bonded with each other and with her. I loved hearing how they all became friends, even the ones who were quiet or a little bit odd. Their friendship carried into the next year and included all of their new classes. Morning Meeting helped students in her class to find who they were and how they learn, if that's not a perfect example of a Differentiated classroom, I don't know what is. :)

Morning Meetings brings people together. Let's all be Morning People!!

Part 2/18 - Hallmarks of a Differentiated Classroom

http://pdsupport.cmswiki.wikispaces.net/file/view/Wordle_-_Differentiation.jpg/143564969/662x297/Wordle_-_Differentiation.jpg

There are 9 Hallmarks (or key components) of a Differentiated Classroom. These characteristics are principles that need to be present in order for a properly differentiated class to exist. They all need to be present during all hours of the class, in order to be fully effective. These 9 features are not easy to accomplish all at once, but I know it is important to have all of them in action if you are truly going to meet your students' individual needs. Let's discuss each one:

1. A strong link between assessment and instruction. 

WE  CAN'T ASSESS THINGS WE AREN'T TEACHING. We must assess students knowledge continually, formative is an ongoing, hourly assessment. Summative is important too, it just doesn't happen as constantly as formative does. We must adjust our instruction based on those assessments.

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. 

If you are clear in what you need from the class, then you can begin to focus on their understanding and their needs to make goals. 

3. Shared responsibility for the classroom is between teacher and students, in the goal of making it work for everyone. 

We aren't teaching rocks. These are people, small people, but people none-the-less. They have opinions and interests and they want to have a good day just as much as you do. Let them have a say, let them contribute. Let the classroom be a place were they feel comfortable and safe. They can make mistakes and learn. Additionally, the teacher needs to be ready to learn from students as well. 

4. Individual growth is emphasized as central to classroom success.

Progress is key. We are here to improve and help each other improve! We want to be challenged, but not excessively, just enough to push us. We don't compare or compete, unless it's with ourselves and our own personal growth!

5. A "way up," usually through multiple and varied pathways, and never a "way out."

This one is my favorite, I briefly discussed a similar concept in my last post. Our classroom helps students to stretch and grow in their knowledge. We, as teachers, must teach up to them, not down. We must scaffold and support them. 

6. "Respectful" and engaging work for all students.

"Two roads diverged in a wood, and I, I took the one less traveled by and that has made all the difference." ~Robert Frost. Many students need to take different pathways. We can't all take the same path or even go the same pace. Work must be high quality, inviting, important, and involve our highest level of thinking. However, in the end we all have the same objective to reach, we just have to get there different ways. 

7. Proactive thinking and planning for different pathways.

Plan in advance for lots of pathways! Be ready to adjust or open a new pathway based on needs that students are expressing. 

8. Flexible grouping.

There are many ways to group and all will be needed at some points in time. You group based off of similar interest, close level, far-apart level (for assistance), mixed group for showing each other new ways of thinking. Using different groups helps set up a balance in the classroom. 

9. Flexible use of time, space, and materials. 

Have a classroom set up in such a way that you can do a variety of different activities. Be ready to get all sorts of materials for different reasons for the students. If someone needs more time or less, be flexible. Make it all work for everyone.

That is a lot of information to take in and observe, then to apply!! Honestly, I am terrified of not being able to do all of this because I want to do all of this so bad. I want to help my students help themselves to find their own pathways and I want to give them the tools to progress down that pathway whatever it may be so that we can all meet our goals. I am already excited to feel their excitement when they make a connection or finally get something. There is nothing that can stop me from doing everything I can to feel that feeling. I want it more than anything and I know differentiating my classroom will give me and them the greatest opportunity to feel that excitement of learning. Each student deserves to have fun in the process of understanding. 

Let's go Differentiate!! :)

Post 1/18 - Classroom Differentiation

Hiya, folks!! 

This is Tia Janette Smallcomb. I am studying at Utah Valley University to be a Elementary School teacher and it is my goal to be a good one. A key component of being a good teacher is differentiating your instruction. This means you have to know your students and you have to teach them where they're at as individuals and as a whole. You have to teach in different ways and at different levels.  You have to keep in mind a lot of things to make sure each student is learning to their fullest potential. 

In the book Differentiation in Practice by Carol Ann Tomlinson, I learned some beneficial things:

Quote: "Teachers proactively engage learners where they are, recognizing that an elementary classroom is a mixed bag of readiness levels, interest, and learning preference."

I love this quote! This is something for teachers to embrace with their whole being! While we are teaching we need to remember that elementary school impacts kids view of school, learning process, and themselves as learners.We must be proactive, differentiating instructing isn't something you do once and move on, it's ongoing and it is a mixture of a great many things. We must make learning a fun, good, and beneficial experience for each child, so that they will find learning fun and continue doing it.

 Differentiated teaching is responsive teaching: 

• Who she teaches
• Where she teaches
• What she teaches
• How she teaches

Some ways that I read (and liked) about how to differentiate and how to help you figure what to be differentiating include: Pre-assessment and continual assessment, giving more than one way to show understanding, having clear and flexible groups (similar skills/interests vs mixture or both), flexible in all things, involve students in understanding the nature of the classroom and in making it work for all, help students understand importance of competing with oneself to achieve one's "personal best." My favorite thing about differentiation is that we must use it to give children a "way up" not a "way out." They deserve that push in the right direction, a challenge, not the easy way out. 

Student Characteristics:

• Readiness - Scaffold! The best tasks are slightly too hard for the student they need a small amount of help to figure it out.
• Interest - For my Exceptional Students class I worked with a resource teacher that helped kids with reading by choosing passages that the children were interested in. For one boy, it was driving, another was horses. 
• Learning profile - This is the learners preferred mode of learning-the way a learner learns best.  

The curricular elements that can be differentiated are content, process, and products. You adapt these based on student characteristics in need of differentiation. I am excited as a future teacher to engage in differentiating my instruction! It is going to be a hard and arduous task, but it is going to be completely worth it! I want to help each child in the best way possible for them!! :)

Instructions for Reference

Final Engaged Learning Project
Reading Reflection Blog
"Create a blog on which you discuss differentiation - what you read and learn about it, in personal reflection, and offering ideas for other beginning teachers who would like to differentiate. This should be a new log dedicated to this purpose, and you are responsible for sending the URL to your instructor, and making sure she has access to reading and commenting on your postings. You will need to include at least weekly blog postings, but a total of 18 postings throughout the semester. ASAP: you must send your blog address through Canvas email.
Assessment: 5 pts possible for each post
1 pt - submitting a blog entry on time (at whatever regularity you establish - at least weekly)
2 pts - thoroughly addressing major points of differentiation according to the text readings/class discussions
2 pts - reflective depth, as judged by instructor
10 pts (bonus? to Slytherin?) - will be awarded for your 'voice' and personality coming across in your blog

Dr. Peterson's Blog
http://inspiretoteach.blogspot.com/