Student Needs

My previous post was about the different cogs of differentiation and identifying the three parts of what makes your classroom work together. I wanted to focus a little more about each clockwork hub individually though because a paragraph can't sum up how each of these really helps build a differentiated classroom. The first one I'm going to focus on is the students needs. Maslow has researched needs of people in general and talked about until a human feels safe, or has a sens of belonging, any energy put into learning would be wasted. Tomlinson quotes"that if a child feels unsafe, threatened or insecure, the brain blocks off the pathways to learning and attends to the more basic human needs instead. I thought that my quote this week fit really well. It's from Bob Pletka and it reads:

"The quality of the relationship that students have in class with their peers and teacher is important to their success in school."




If students know their teacher wants them to succeed and that their fellow classmates are there to support them through anything, they are going to enjoy class and be willing to help other students out. Teachers are overwhelmed by the many things they have to teach and assess in class, but you have to know as a teacher if your students don't feel like you are there for them, you'll never be able to reach them!

There are different elements for each of the students needs that I think are important to know when teaching children and differentiating for those needs. When you are differentiating for a child each of these needs will be different, that's part of the point of differentiation. You have to know what will work for you as well as them.

Affirmation:

This is one of the students' most basic need, but do we really know what this means? We know that we like to be affirmed and that we need to feel needed/wanted, it's a basic human desire. How are you going to convey that to your students? How are you going to make them feel wanted within your classroom? How are you going to treat that child so that they know that they are your "favorite" even when you have 29 other "favorites" who feel the same way. Part of affirmation is for our students to feel like they are accepted for who they are and that no matter what their background is they will be loved and respected within the class that they are in. Students want to know that they will be listened to and that what they have to say is important and will be valued. I think a great way to allow kids to be heard is to have a sharing time and allow students to get things off of their chest. If they know that you are willing to listen to them and acknowledge what they are feeling they will be more willing to trust you and you will both learn more together. Students need to know that we believe in them and that we know what they are truly capable of. Please don't put a label on your students because then it becomes a stigma you start treating them differently and limiting what they are capable of. 

Contribution: 

When we help students recognize that they will be respected, loved, and listened to within a class they begin to want to learn. They are more attentive and more willing to take part in their own learning. We want students to be able to provide learning for themselves and become life-long learners and we can only do that when we support students in such a way that they take part in building that passion of learning. Students need to know that their strengths and weaknesses are unique and that they can help others in the class as well as allow others to help them. 

Power:

When your environment empowers your students the students will seek more power and when they see that you trust them with the power you have been giving them they begin to feel satisfied with themselves. If they don't feel like they are accomplished in your classroom or that they can accomplish anything in your classroom they will seek for opportunities elsewhere and then a reliable tool becomes lost to the whole classroom. 

Purpose:

Knowing why you have to do something or why you want to do something is a very powerful tool that teacher's can use to teach students why we do certain things. If we subtly show students what their purpose could be and allow them to fully seek out how they can best use that purpose in class, we are blessing them in other aspects of their lives. When we teach them that the choices they make reflect on who they are as an individual for specific reasons, we can teach them that making responsible decisions or choices enables them to have a very specific purpose about why he/she should care about the work they are doing and then education they are getting. 

Challenge: 

Students need to be challenged, there's no argument about that. However if the students are too harshly challenged with material, homework, or other various assignments you can't help them grow. This is again why differentiation is so important within a classroom. Help your students to find that challenge that will stretch their learning to what it could be, but not overwhelm them to the point where everything goes over their head and they don't learn anything. 

Please be aware that each of these needs that students have make them who they are. We shouldn't have to cater to them because that would not be differentiating, but we do need to realize that each student has different abilities that will help your class become closer, better, more of a family when you allow these abilities-be they strengths, weaknesses, talents, unique quirks come out in a way that builds your class. When students truly feel that they are getting their needs met, they are much happier kids and they are more willing to take part in their learning process. Please do not forget that we all have needs and we all want to feel wanted and your students are not any different then you. Put them in situations where their needs and met and their education/confidence grows to a level that helps them be the person you know they can be because you know of their potential and greatness.

Here are some websites that can help your students:
Challenge your students
Websites of activities
Empowering Students
Strategies for Empowering Students

The Cogs of Differentiation

             Learning about differentiation has been an interesting journey so far. I can't say that I know exactly what it is and how I'm going to make it work in my classroom, but what I can tell you is that I hope to be a teacher that differentiates for my students. I wanted to look for a quote to really help me, my students and my class succeed together. I loved this quote and it goes right along with the three cogs of differentiation that I'm going to talk about today. 

          Students and teachers must work together in order for differentiation to work within your own classroom. Henry Ford hit this right on the head when talking about beginning to differentiate with your students. Teach them what it means to differentiate for all the students in the class and how it will help them as well. Explain to your class that when you stay together and work together you are all progressing towards a goal of making your classroom a successful one where learning takes place. The cogs of differentiation shows us that all three of these components need to work together in order to make your differentiated classroom work. 

          Tomlinson presented these in her book as another metaphor to understand differentiation. 

• The first hub of the clock work is the needs of the student in your classroom. The student seeks affirmation-which is there to help them confirm things they already know about themselves that are positive. We all seek this as human beings, that need to be needed and to have people recognize our talents and achievements. This is no different with our students; contribution-our students want to contribute to the class. They want to have boundaries and be accountable for their role within the classroom; power-when you empower your students and make them feel important they are more likely to help the class succeed; purpose- help your students realize that they do have a part within your classroom and what their purpose is within yours. Help all students realize that everyone has a purpose within your classroom; challenge-if your students are bored because things are too easy then they are not going to help your class progress or if the material is too hard then your students are going to pay attention either. This is what differentiation is all about making sure that your students progress and that their work is challenging/engaging enough for them to help them grow on THEIR OWN level. These are the things that the student wants teachers to help them with. Tomlinson said: "The premise of differentiation is that we cannot teach nearly so well when we overlook or underattend to these student needs. (Tomlinson, 2003 p. 11)"
• The second hub is more about what you do within the classroom. We as teachers need to invite students to participate in all aspects of your classroom. We must also give them opportunities to show what they know and allow them to make decisions and learn to accept either positive or negative consequences of those choices. It's also important to show our students that we are invested in not only their education, but them as a person. There can be a lot of misconceptions on how some teachers teach, which some believe it's just to improve the test scores that are given. While that is important because your students need to show what they've learned and know, it shouldn't become the main focus. There are always going to be other factors that play into how a student demonstrates his/her knowledge, but if we give our students different opportunities to show us what they know they are much more willing and less stressed out about it. We also must be persistent as a teacher and show our students that we are not going to give up on them, that we only want them to do their best and reach their potential. A big part of making all of this possible is by reflecting on what you are doing as a teacher, what is or is not working within your class. If something is not working for you or your class you need to adapt and try something different. You as a teacher need to realize as well that helping your students understand that they are all different and will need help in different ways is not a bad thing but a very good thing. If someone begins with the "that's not fair" statement always remind that fair is not always equal, but it's important to help individual students on their level. Please, please, please constantly reflect on whether what you're doing in your classroom is truly helping your students and don't be afraid to make any changes necessary. 
• The third hub is all about the curriculum. We need to make sure what we are teaching has a purpose and that we stay focused on why we are teaching it. But no matter how much we have to teach and why we have to teach it, we must make sure that they students are engaged because if they are not then they aren't going to learn anything you're trying to teach anyway. The most important part of the curriculum that relates back to differentiation is scaffolding. Scaffolding allows you more freedom to differentiate within your classroom to help you help your students on their level without individually teaching all of your students at once.  

Differentiation can be explained with a few different metaphors and that's what I found out from just reading one chapter in Tomlinson's book. The reason I wanted to share this metaphor with you is because it's a way to show how all aspects of the classroom teachers, students, and curriculum work together in order to create a differentiated classroom. What we need to realize is that as teachers we need to take into account what we are teaching, how we are teaching, why we are teaching, but most importantly WHO we are teaching. When we realize that differentiation really does come back to who the students are and where they are at in their readiness we can prepare ourselves and our curriculum to help them reach their potential and learn in the best way possible.

What Is or Is Not When it Comes to Differentiation

       Today in class we discussed more about what differentiation is and what it is not and I thought the quote I picked today really fit with that. My last two posts have been trying to define what differentiation is and how I can use it within my classroom. This one goes a little bit more in depth for those of you who are like well you gave us a little bit of a definition, but what does it look like? 

Differentiation is NOT

Differentiation is not individualizing every lesson you do by teaching each student on their own. Could you imagine if this was what differentiation was all about? Teachers would be failing left and right with students and burning out a lot quicker. We as teachers want to make sure that every student feels like they have that opportunity to get individual instruction if needed, but there isn't any way to teach every lesson to every student individually.  

Differentiation is not behavior management. Although we want to have our classes run smoothly every day all day, that is not differentiation. Consequences whether good or bad help to manage your classroom, but should not be your driving force to what you think differentiation is. Some students made need extra attention here and there to help modify their behavior in class for acting out or other various things and just because you do this does not mean that you are differentiating for them. 

Differentiation is not a reaction. When you have your students take a test after teaching them a unit or lesson and they didn't do as well as they needed to, many teachers' first reaction would be to panic and find out how to pull students back to reteach the concept. It's that knee jerk or gut reaction that has us making rash decisions instead of carefully considering what we could really do to help our students. 

Differentiation is not really, really, really good teaching. Being a good teacher is a great thing. There are many teachers out there that are great teachers for various reasons, but some of them aren't differentiating in their classroom. When great teachers take the time to differentiate they open up the opportunity to grow even more as a teacher and become one of the best where all students are reached and progress is observable. 

What Differentiation Is

Differentiation IS a way to provide access to all students in order to build on their past experience and further their education. If we teach to the standard of multiple entry points, many of our students will not feel "dumb" or "stupid" when talking about subjects in school. They will be able to participate in the conversations we have a feel like an expert because of the knowledge they already do have. 

Differentiation IS proactive and responsive. Teachers need to make sure that when they see a need, they fill a need and that's not waiting until the situation becomes desperate. It's that first glimpse of the possible storm ahead and how to take precautions to maintain it or solve the problem before it can truly arise. 

Differentiation DOES include accommodations and adaptations for individual students under your care, but that does not mean that every student needs an accommodation to everything or else you'll never get anything done. Take into account as you go to teach a lesson which students may struggle with what you're going teach and adjust before you teach the lesson. Or if you see a struggling student emerge through your lesson be able to move gears or switch him/her to a place where she/he can best learn and fulfill their potential. 

So What? 

What does this mean for educators? Differentiation is a big deal, but done right your classroom will have so many wonderful experiences and bonding moments that you will be blown away. I'm not the expert by any means, but I'm hoping that by the end of the semester I will have a better understand of exactly what differentiation is because the things I listed today on my blog are not the only answers. There are a few that can help anyone looking to identify what differentiation is, but know please that it is not the only answers. Hopefully by reading my blog you learned something you didn't know, you didn't know today about differentiation! 

Morning Meetings: Basic Overview

Morning Meetings

I've been thinking since our first class about the morning meetings we had. Dr. Peterson taught us four main components for morning meetings and how the can be meaningful and help our class grow together. That's why I love this quote from Helen Keller:

                                 "Alone we can do so little; together we can do so much"

When we have our classes working together with us then we can make our class succeed beyond anything. If we have each of our students or even ourselves trying to do it alone, we will not get anywhere. So Dr. P gave us four important components that will helps us in our class. It's part of the Crete model and they are greeting, sharing, group activity, news and announcements.

Greeting 

Greeting is a way for each of your students to introduce themselves or a friend in the classroom. This helps your class become more bonded together when you are taking the time to do different greetings that they can enjoy and have fun with. 

Sharing

As cheesy as this sayings can be sometimes, it is also very true. When we give our students a chance to share something about themselves, they begin to build connections to others in the classroom. Students love to share things going on in their life and when you build that safe atmosphere in your class more students will be willing to share. When students begin to open up they begin to care about each other and what happens to one another-again forming that strong bond within your classroom. That strong bond can carry over when differentiation comes into play and you talk about what works for one student may not apply to other students and we should want to help all of our fellow classmates succeed. Do not let sharing time become a therapy session however. There are many different ways you can do sharing time with your class. 

You can:

- select 5 students to share something. 

-do a lightning share where everyone shares something quickly

-have a question that students can answer

-have your share related to one of your lessons for later on

-have half the class share

-have a sign up for who shares, etc. 

Group Activity

The group activity portion can be as simple as having the class as a whole do something together or breaking off into smaller groups or pairs. As long as you get students involved with each other to again build on that sense of community. We did a review with vowels for a group activity that was really neat. It took some of us helping each other out to figure out where we should go, but that's what you want as a teacher! Especially for your morning meetings. 

News and Announcement

This section is pretty straight forward. You'll share your news, announcements and upcoming events for the day. This is also where you can take care of any problems that may have arisen over the past week that haven't been dealt with by the students on their own time. You can do a day overview of the things you'll learn and why you're learning them. You can also talk about reminders for field trips, plays, homework assignments or tests coming up. This section is for the "class business" part of your day. 

This was just a small basic overview of what a morning meeting could look like. There are tons of other resources you can order, google, search amazon for etc to pull off a great morning meeting. Maybe you're telling yourself that you don't have time and that it would be a complete waste of time for the classroom. However, if you get your students into the routine of a morning meeting (which mostly likely won't be easy), you'll inspire them to build  sense of community where they care what happens to each other. When your students truly begin to have that sense of community they want others around them to succeed and it allows you to be able to differentiate more for those that are struggling and allows others in your classroom to shine as their advocates in different subjects within the classroom. Showing your students that they are all good at something is an important quality to have and one way you can do this is by building that trust in your classroom with morning meetings. Give it a shot! Try one out! What have you got to lose? If it fails it fails, don't let it define your classroom or you. If you do it and you succeed then continue to build that close bond with your students/classroom so that you may all proceed to grow together.

Here are websites that can help you learn more about morning meetings:

What is a morning meeting?
Morning Meeting for Beginners
Power of Morning Meetings
Video of a morning meeting
Morning Meeting Examples for Younger Grades

Each Day is a Revelation

Here's my second post for my differentiation class and after I posted my first postI went back through chapter one in Tomlinson's book to find out more key tips that we can use as teachers to help our classroom become more of a differentiated classroom.

      "Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn." -Benjamin Franklin

I love this quote for a variety of reasons, but one of the main reasons is because students need to be involved in the process of their learning. If we simply keep giving them the answer instead of allowing them to take part in their learning, then they aren't learning anything and will simply forget. In Tomlinson's book it states there are certain student traits, classroom elements, and metaphors that you can use to help you build a differentiated classroom and help your students become involved in their own learning.

Student Traits

If we want to be effective teachers and really make sure that we are involving our students there are traits that Tomlinson goes over to help each of us understand where a student is at and how far they've come in being ready to learn.

              Readiness

 According to Tomlinson, this refers to a student's knowledge, understanding, and skill related to learning. We need to assess where students are at when they come into our classroom and then build from that knowledge. If we don't take the time to assess where our students are at and just begin to teach the lessons we have ready then we are setting our students up to fail and become more lost in our classroom. Readiness also takes into account your student's prior experiences, the way that they've learned and how they truly feel about school. If you have students who don't enjoy being at school and don't want to learn, you won't be able to reach them on any level until you understand why. If we take the time to have a quick one-on-one with our students then we can express how eager we are in getting to know them and see what apprehensions they have about the upcoming school year. I know that when I was in school we filled out a paper and that's a lot easier for teachers to read through, but try taking 10 minutes out of your day and see 3-5 students and truly get to know them and how "ready" they are for the upcoming school year and what you can do as a teacher to help them succeed.

          Interest

By taking the time to talk to your students individually you can also see what kinds of subjects or things they are interested in. What kinds of things do your students have a passion for? Would they be willing to share it with the class? Is it something you can use to not only involve your student in learning, but tie to your curriculum and build a close knit classroom? We all know that there are students who come into our classroom who want to share everything about their day and so maybe you take a day where students get to pick one thing to teach/tell/share with their fellow classmates that way your students know you care about their interests and are allowing them to share with the whole class.

          Learning Profile

This refers to how students learn best. Please take into account, if you don't already know this, that each of your students have a different way of learning! Not every student will be okay with just an explanation. Not every students will want to just read about it. Not every student will want to explore and discover the answer. Do not ever forget that telling them the answer doesn't help them but hurts them in the long run. Try to have various ways/strategies of teaching a concept especially if you can see that you have some struggling students who just are not comprehending what you are trying to teach them. No student wants to admit that they don't know what the teacher is talking about while he/she is giving the lesson when we ask for questions. Our assessments are a way to check for understanding, but sometimes I feel that when we give the assessment our students begin to assume we are moving on from that lesson so they don't have to worry about learning it. Please make sure they your students truly understand what you are trying to teach them in the best way possible for them. Learn their learning profile and help them succeed. 

           Affect

This ties into the other parts of the students traits and my post from before because this is how students feel about themselves. This is where you want to build such a close knit community that each of the students in your class is willing to help out a fellow classmate who may be struggling, but even more than that the classmate who is struggling is willing to accept the help that's being offered. The student takes the help because they know that there fellow classmates want to see them succeed, just like their teacher does. Your students will know that their work has value and that whatever they create will be appreciated and not made fun of. 

Classroom Elements

There are things you can do as a teacher to help draw students into their learning. These elements play a part in helping students feel comfortable in your classroom and have a better understanding of you as their teacher. 

          Content

We all know that for each grade there is a specific outline of curriculum that our students are supposed to know. This is where we want to build on what the students already know and help them to expand their thinking/knowledge to a higher level. Make sure that all students, even those who struggle at grasping the content of the lesson, know that you are there to help them succeed. I can't stress that enough and I'm sure you'll be hearing it several times in many of my blog entries.

           Process

This element refers to how a student applies what you are teaching them. This also allows you to see what the student learned from what you taught them. When the student is taking the information you taught them, this is a way to see how they are making sense and literally processing it in their head. You'll be able to see via homework or class activity/assessment how your students are processing the content you are teaching them.

          Product

This is the main assessment part of your classroom setting. This is seeing how your students show you what they know, The outcome of what you've been teaching them. There are many different ways a student can show you what he or she has learned so be open minded and vary the ways you have your students show you what they know. 

          Learning Environment

This is one huge, not that all of the other things we've talked about aren't important, but the way you have your classroom set up is going to affect how you teach and how your students learn. This element contains what your class looks like from the walls, student desk setup, what procedures and rules you have in your classroom, and even how you respond to things that may go wrong in your classroom. Every day will not be perfect, but a combination of great things can help you create a great day. Make sure that as a teacher you have clear cut policies in place that you are willing to follow through no matter what student you are dealing with. Also help the students help you by building a safe classroom environment where everyone's opinion is valued and where classmates want to help each other. If you can do that you're on your way to building a fantastic differentiated classroom. 

Each day is a revelation about your students and about yourself, especially when you involve your students in their own learning. There will be days that it'll click for both you and your students and before you both realize you as a teacher will be differentiating without thinking about it, and each of your students will be succeeding because you've both learned to listen to each other and come together to create the kind of learning environment that your student needs. Don't forget to take each day to learn something new about your students and let them get to know their teacher. Let your students see that you care about where they end up in life and just want to help them love learning as much as you do. 

Differentiation: What is it and how do I do it?

For my differentiation class I have decided to write this blog showing my journey on this path to discovering how to build a differentiated classroom. I plan to share in my blog a quote either from the chapter or a quote that I've found that I think ties into each of the posts I'm going to share with you. In order to know how to build a differentiated classroom you have to know what that means. We are reading a book called "Fulfilling the Promise of the Differentiated Classroom" by Carol Ann Tomlinson and so far this is what I've learned from the first chapter.

           "I can't believe in you until I know you believe in me."

This quote came from the first chapter's reading and I love it! Students need to know that as their teacher we believe in them. They need to know that no matter what their journey looks like through our class we will always believe they are able to succeed and we will help them find a way to understand. As teachers, especially first year teachers, we may become overwhelmed trying to find a way to fit in all of the curriculum, classroom management, mini side lessons (character building), testing etc., but we must make sure that each of our students know that we do believe in them and that we are not just telling them this. We need to truly show each student who walks through our door that we do believe in them and that they are capable of anything they put their mind to. 

Teachers Must Take into Account Who They are Teaching as Well as What They are Teaching. 

Along with the quote above we need to realize that unless we know our students and how to best help them, it won't matter what material or lesson we need to give them. When students come into our classroom we know that we will have 25-30 new personalities all interested to see what their new teacher will be like. We, as teachers, will have our core curriculum that we have to teach them, but if we don't get to know our students then it won't matter what we are trying to teach them. Tomlinson states in her book "the goal of a differentiated classroom is to plan actively and consistently to help each learner move as far and as fast as possible along a learning continuum. (pg 2)" I like how she states that it's our goal to help EACH learner. As teachers, especially first year teachers, will be struggling trying to make sure we get our classroom set up and get the hang of teaching the grade we are in. However students need to know that we are here for them. We want to see each individual student succeed, not just teach to the middle of where the class is and hope that we've reached everyone. My professor, Nancy Peterson, talked about how important it is for each student who walks into your classroom to have a full year's worth of growth and learning despite what level they came into your classroom at. If you have a 3rd grade student who is reading at a 1st grade level, help them to achieve a 2nd grade reading level by the time they leave your classroom. 

I loved one of the analogies it gave in the book about The Little Prince and the Fox. For those who don't know there is a story of a little prince who begins a journey and meets several people along his path. He comes across a fox and the fox tells the little prince that they won't remember each other unless the prince "tames" the fox. The fox tells the prince unless you do this I will just be another fox you crossed along your way and you will be just  boy walking through the forest. The application for teachers is that we will have lots of students over the years that come into our classroom, but we must be willing to "tame" or adapt to getting to know the individual student in order to help our students grow. There is a statement in her book that I love and plan to have posted where I can see it every day in my classroom, it's one that I started out with today. It says, "I can't believe in you until I know you believe in me. (pg 9)" Each student needs to see that you care for him/her and that you truly believe they can succeed no matter what their circumstances in life are. Please never give up on your student even if it seems like nothing is working to reach them, it just means you haven't tried everything yet. Part of the reading that I read also helped me to understand that because I will have 25-30 different personalities in my classroom I need to realize that not all of them will learn the same. I need to find out what the best way is for them to learn and help them that way. Even as adults we know that I am going to learn differently than other class members, but it doesn't mean that I am any less important than those in my class. The feelings that are felt going through college or any type of school are the same things that your students are going to be thinking. Think back to when you were in school and you were confused or didn't understand the concept being taught. How did your teacher help you? Did he/she go out of their way to help you understand it? If so, how? If not, put yourself in their shoes and think how would I have wanted to be taught? 

So What? 

My definition of differentiation from what I've learned so far would be teaching each student in such a way that they are able to grow a full year in learning from where they came into your classroom, whether it was below grade level, at grade level, or above grade level. I am not the expert by any means, but I hope my blog helped you to understand what differentiation is and how you can succeed at helping the students that come into your classroom. As for how do you do it, it's a process where your students need to know that you believe in them and truly want to help them succeed and are willing to do whatever is necessary to help them achieve their true potential. There isn't just one magical, neatly packaged answer that will help you become an expert on differentiation. Teachers need to be willing to try different strategies to help challenge each and every student so that they can progress and learn to keep pushing themselves to further their knowledge. I hope someone was able to take away something from what I wrote today, but if I had to point out one major take away it would be to remember the quote I started out with. Students can't believe in their teacher until they know that their teacher believes in them.