Teaching is Hard

     

         Many of you who are aspiring teachers may or may not agree with this and there are some out there that are currently teachers that may not also agree with this, but this is what I've come to realize and I'll tell you why. The last two years in the UVU Elementary Education program has been hard, but it has stretched me to grow more into the teacher that I want to become. As I've gone through all of my classes I realize that most of the things I thought about teaching were out in left field. I, like many, even Tomlinson, have thought if we care enough for our students we will be able to teach them and inspire them to want to become life long learners. Although that is part of inspiring, it's not the only things that will help us become great teachers. The classes at UVU have taught me to begin with the end in mind and really take a good hard look at what I want my students to know. There are things that I will have to teach them from the common core but even within the core it's a lot of information to cover and not all students will be able to learn everything because they will be coming into my classroom on different levels in different subject areas.
 
  Being at UVU has taught me that I need to find ways to teach my students that will keep them engaged and even give lessons where the students themselves discover the topic we are discussing. I've been so used to having people tell me what to do and how to do it that learning how to teach in my own way was hard work and still is on some subjects. UVU has provided me with an opportunity during my education to grow and love learning more than I ever thought I could. I feel like most of my experience has been differentiated by process, readiness, and interest within the program because we were able to choose what lessons we wanted to write a lesson plan for. Most of us have had some experience in a classroom and that's where our readiness is differentiated because for some there were assignments that weren't as difficult to perform. There have always been key elements within our assignments and everyone has the same assignment to turn in for a grade, but getting there has been a great discovery for me and hopefully my colleagues.

    I feel like this class has helped me the most because it has helped me recognize that there are tools around me and hallmarks that embody a wonderful, differentiation oriented teacher. This class has taught me more about empowering my students by validating them for who they are and starting from that entry point. It has taught me the importance of the word succeed. Succeeding is when you are able to reach the unreachable child that other teachers haven't been able to reach because you were willing to go the extra mile and really meet them at their level. You didn't expect them to start with the rest of the class, you wanted them to grow in THEIR best way. I love how Dr. P. said at the beginning if you can help each of your students progress a whole level from where they came into your classroom then you have succeeded at reaching your students. Also I have learned that there are so many subjects you can differentiate for if you're willing to put in the work as the teacher. It may seem a lot easier to just give everyone the same assignment so that you can grade it, but are you really seeing what Johnny can do? Have you seen how well Sally does when she fully puts her passion into drawing? Now they may not seem important to you, but to those students that is their world. It's what's driving them forward and if we as teachers take that away or diminish how unimportant those activities are then our students will never grow, they will just shut down. So many

times in Tomlinson's book I read how important it is to know who your students are because you're not just teaching subjects, you're teaching human beings that have real feelings, passions, strengths, weaknesses etc. Stop and think if you were treated like you have been treating your students how would you feel in that particular classroom? Would you feel like you're being validated for who you are? Would you feel like the teacher truly cares about you as an individual? Would you feel as though that teacher wants you to succeed for you? These thoughts do go through our students' heads. Please challenge them with individual, differentiated work that fits their personality. Sure, it takes a little more work, but let's face it, you took this job knowing that there was going to be some work involved. To be a differentiated teacher you must take into account who and what you're teaching and really make an effort to help your students realize how smart they really are with the knowledge that they already have and can build on. It's also important to have all students cheering each other on in all aspects of life and really growing together as a community. Please allow the students to share the classroom with you, you'll find they are much more willing to be accountable and responsible for their actions when they feel apart of something bigger than themselves.

       Teaching is hard work, I won't lie, but it's the kind of hard work that stretches you to really focus on what kind of teacher you want to be and how you want to help those students who walk through your classroom door. Tomlinson said: "The more willing we are to take the risks, the better the lives of our students are likely to become and the greater the fulfillment we are likely to feel at the ed of the day.

Tiering Is A Way of Differentiation

Tiering is another differentiation strategy you can use to help you in your classroom. We will always have students who are not as strong in some areas as the are in others. We may not always have the time to divide students up by their abilities, but tiering gives us the opportunity to help them more by grouping them with students who are more on their level. If we are looking at a typical classroom, most of us would agree that this picture shows a good representation of the levels of tiering we would need within our classroom. These groups respond to the students differences and allows for temporary instruction depending on how a student responds to the lessons being given within that tiered group.  The same concepts and skills are taught within each group, which is part of differentiation but the pace may be slower or faster than what students are normally projected to do. The picture below is a featured picture giving more of percentages of students and how we can respond to them before things slip through the cracks. This goes back to being proactive as  teacher and noticing the groups that are needed and how to make sure you flexibly group students who need the same concepts retaught or introduced in order to succeed within your classroom. 

 There is a handout we received that has a great quote on it that I'd like to share. It reads, "Tiered instruction is a differentiation strategy in which all students are taught the same essential concepts and skills at different levels of complexity in reponse to diagnosed needs" Sometimes I know as teachers we don't have time to have small group time for the things we want to have, but if we don't adjust ourselves and our schedules to tier for our students then we won't be able to help them at all. Every time I write one of these posts and think about how truly everything is connected and goes back to knowing your students individually it amazes me. It amazes me because we need to teach human beings/children and not just teach the subject matter and when we truly know how to tier for our students and how to group them in such a way they will be able to see that one, they are not dumb because there are other people struggling with the same things they are; two, that it's okay to need a little extra help and practice from the teacher especially if you're not understand the concepts; and three everyone learns at different paces and if you are able to move to a different tier because you simply got a little more help in small group time that's excellent and a great way for all students to share in that celebration of learning!

Here are some websites to help learn more about tiering and differentiation: 

Challenge by Choice/Tiering

Dare to Differentiate

Tiered Instruction

Tiering to Avoid Tears

Curriculum and Instruction

In Tomlinson's book she states that "curriculum and instruction is the vehicle for addressing student needs." Teachers must agree to form a bond with the student and it becomes a contract that as a teacher I hope you want to fulfill. In a previous post I talked about tools you can use to help you differentiate with because as teachers we are meant to teach! That's our job, that's what we are supposed to do. However that doesn't mean that we don't have other job descriptions that get grouped in with what a teacher actually becomes for all of his/her students. We have specific tools of our trade though and that's curriculum and instruction.
     We all know that there are things are students must be taught because we have a common core to teach from. Most, if not all states, have come up with a state core that they want their students to know based on the grade that they are in. In order to teach this curriculum to our students we must know them so that we know how to instruct them. Through all these posts I've written, are you catching the drift that it's IMPORTANT to KNOW your students?

Tomlinson goes on in this chapter stating that she had teachers that knew the curriculum well and knew the subject they needed to learn, but only one teacher took the time to teach her as a student and not just teach the subject that she knew. When we really teach to who our students are Tomlinson said: "curriculum and instruction become the medium through which the teacher shows students the power of knowledge, the power of self, and the inextricable links between the two." Isn't that powerful? Don't you want to be that kind of teacher? I know I do! I want to inspire my kids to believe in the power of knowledge that they are gaining. I want them to know that they are smart in their own way and that I will help them in whatever way possible achieve a high level of knowledge than they previously had.

We need to teach curriculum that is important, focused, engaging, demanding, and scaffolded. We know what we have to teach because curriculum has been mandated but the way you do it is up to you. You want what you are teaching to be things that students will be able to use outside of school and inside of school to build on concepts they will learn later in different grades. Also you want the instruction you give to be focused and by that I mean specific! Going back to the hallmarks you, as the teacher, need to know what you're teaching and teach with clarity. Knowing that we have to know what we are teaching also affects how we are going to teach it. We need to find everything we teach our students exciting as well, even if we are not that thrilled about it. Students can tell when teachers are unsure about what they are teaching or when they don't find the subject that exciting to learn about. We as teachers want our students to be engaged as we are teaching them. The more they are engaged, the more they actually learn! However after a while if you just have engaging "fun" work your students begin to become bored. So we have to add the element of demanding where it challenges our students in just the right way so that they are stretched to grow, but not pulled too far. Of course when keeping all of these things in mind we don't want to try and feed all of our students with a fire hose. We need to remember to scaffold for all of our students. Even the students that are more "advanced" are not going to appreciate everything being poured down their throat at once, but if we scaffold for our students on their level and allow them to be challenged with engaging work that is specifically tailored to them, you'll have some amazing turn outs! Don't forget that curriculum and instruction is the vehicle, but you're the driver and you need to do what's best for your passengers on the journey with you.

Here are some websites that can help you with curriculum and instruction:

Differentiated Instruction
Meeting Students Where They Are
Supporting Continuous Growth
One Size Does Not Fit All

R.A.F.T.s in Your Tool Box

My group got this tool box strategy to report on and I really loved that we did. When we were first discussing different aspects of this tool, we were trying to think of all the ways you could differentiate with it and there are so many ways you can! RAFT is an acronym that stands for role, audience, format, and topic.

In this strategy students take on a role, develop a product for a specific audience in a certain way on a specific topic that connects back to that role. The nice thing about this tool is that it can be completed at home or at school and that you don't always  need technology to make it succeed. The most common thing that it differentiates for, according to Tomlinson, is readiness, interest and learning profile.

My group decided to pick the topic of literacy and more importantly the story of Goldilocks and the Three Bears and we developed our own raft for students to choose from. Below is the link to the RAFT we created.    RAFTS

What I loved about our RAFTS is the products were different depending on the role they took on. Processes were also different depending on what they chose to do. What I also love about RAFTs is that students don't have to stick with exactly what's written, they can come up with their own and even add to the list that teacher has already made and that's when truly learning and differentiation takes place!



Here are some websites to help you learn more about RAFTS and the ways you can use them:
RAFTS Strategy
RAFT in the Classroom
Learning Through Listening
Math RAFTS

Tool Box Strategies

So there are strategies that you can use to help with differentiating for your classroom that you should have in your "tool box". Dr. P had us each take and report on one of them. I'll talk about mine in another post because there are a lot of ways to differentiate with R.A.F.T.S. and I'll explain further what that is.

So some tools you can differentiate with are:

Pre-assessment: these strategies can be used to differentiate for interests and readiness. There are several different pre-assessment sheets you can use for students that can be as simple as smiley faces, sad faces, or indifferent faces to see how your students feel about reading, writing, or any subject really.  

This first link is for readiness beginners with just simple pictures and statements on the first two pages.

The third page is a more ready individual student that asks the same questions but at a more advanced level.

The fourth page is one of the higher levels with no pictures and simply asking questions that may provoke multiple answers.

Pre-Assessment Sheets

There were more pages in this document that I haven't provided here because there were a lot of things you differentiate for and I just wanted to give you a taste


Journal entries and note taking.

      We know taking notes is important because that's how we got through high school and college (hopefully), but did you know that 75% of information is forgotten if we don't write it down? However there are also many different ways you can take notes. I like the presentation on this one because I didn't realize that there were different ways to take notes and do a journal entry because I wasn't taught any other way. I simply wrote down pretty much everything the teacher/professor said and then when writing a journal entry I simply just wrote from one prompt.

With our students however you can take one book and have multiple questions that can prompt a journal entry. There are also different ways you can organize a journal entry which will tie into other tool box strategies such as graphic organizers. A journal entry or taking notes does not have to be a full page of words about the subject. We want our students to get the main idea from what they are reading and supplement it with details, be able to analyze and then simply what they read based off of their information.

The link will show an example of different journal entries students can choose from for interests and readiness.

GRAPHIC ORGANIZERS
When you differentiate for your students you are not changing the quantity of work, just the quality of work by allowing them to complete an alternative assignment that is still teaching the same content. We all know that there are tons of graphic organizers out there for one single subject and finding these will help all of your students learn on their level and progress in the best learning environment and style possible. Here are a list of sites that were provided that have different graphic organizers you can look through to see more about differentiation.

http://www.graphic.org/goindex.html

http://www.enchantedlearning.com/graphicorganizers/biography/

http://www.enchantedlearning.com/graphicorganizers/storymap/


These are just a few tools you can use to help you differentiate for the students in your classroom.
There are more that were listed such as think tic-tac-toe boards and choice boards. You can have spelling be the subject and have students do a variety of things that can help them learn their spelling words. Some examples to put on these boards would be-to write words with blue vowels and red consonants
-write words in all capital letters
-write words 3 times each
-do rainbow words 2 times each
-circle the words in the newspaper or magazine
-cut out letters and form a word from various places
-type words on a computer
-write each word in a complete sentence.

There are also Think Dots and Cubing

-differentiated for readiness. If you have a blow up dice or even a cube you can make write different questions on there to help students answer them based on their entry leader. 

There are a lot of tools out there that you can use in your classroom, but not all of them will help you accurately differentiate for your classroom and even some that do may not be able to help the class that you have. So please really look into what you are using for your students to make sure it really is directed towards where they are at and how it will help them progress and build on the things they are learning. Be the kind of teacher that is willing to do what it takes to help all students and find the right "tool" for them. 

Hallmarks Part III: Proactivity, Grouping, and Materials

So these are the last of the hallmarks, hopefully you’ve found something you can improve in your teaching as I have for mine. I like these last three because they relate fairly well to planning more with your students and the environment that they are in.

Hallmark #7: Proactive thinking and planning for different pathways.

As a teacher many of you know that you need to think on your feet.
Yes there is planning involved (hopefully), but there are things that come up that make us rearrange how and what we were going to teach. Being proactive helps us to try and foresee those problems and plan for them. If we are constantly assessing our students and we know them so well we can be proactive in planning for any hiccups that may arise when we teach. We also need to plan any different pathways we may foresee with any of our students

Hallmark #8: Flexible Grouping:

We as teachers are grouping our students into many different groups academically most of the time. What if you found different ways to group them? Students begin to recognize after
a while what kind of group they're in. They know whether they are in the advanced or struggling group. So with the hallmarks there is a way to group them on various different things. You can group them for interests, readiness, process, and products. The way you group your students can be random. It could be as easy as saying those who have brown eyes and brown hair are in one group.

Hallmark #9: Flexible use of time, space, and materials. 

This hallmark is all about the extra work that the teacher is willing to put into gathering materials needed to help students understand a concept. There are a lot websites that have tons of different worksheets to help students demonstrate the knowledge that they have, but you need t determine which worksheets are really good and will benefit their students in the best ways. Also the way you set up your classroom plays a
big part in differentiating for your students. Every class you have will be different in the needs that they have. Some classes may need more group seating assignments verse single seats or partners. Some may need partnerships or some may not work well in group seating assignments at all. Make sure that your students are aware of the items in their classroom that can help them in the subjects that you're teaching. This also ties back into grouping. Allow students to be in groups with others throughout the school year just by changing the seating arrangement and having several different groups.

These hallmarks give you a glance into how you can use your classroom environment and the students alone to help differentiate for each and everyone of them. When you're classroom is set up to allow for students to feel like it's part of their classroom, they will take part in their education. I know I've said this before, but I really feel that all of these things together can really help each of your students grow to meet their OWN personal potential. It's so important for kids to know you WANT them to succeed at their pace and not yours! Yes as teachers our "goal" is to get everyone to where they should be by the end of the year and that's a lot of information they've got to know! If we try and force all of the curriculum down their throat instead of really trying to identify how to best teach them we are missing the point of educating children. So I hope you've learned more about how to differentiate more for your classroom. I know that a good teacher does some of these, but a great teacher who differentiates does all of these! 

Here are some websites to help with pro-activity, grouping, and materials:
Ways to Group Students
Flexible Grouping
Proactive Teacher for Classroom Behaviors
Teaching Tips for being Proactive
Differentiated Worksheets
Differentiated Materials

Hallmarks Part II: Growth, Varied Pathways, and Engaging Work for ALL

This is part two of talking more about the hallmarks. These are just too good to have on one post so I decided it would be better to break them up and discuss them individually or in smaller parts to really get a feel for what they can help you do.

Hallmark #4: Individual Growth is Emphasized as Central to Classroom Success. 

This is tied in with number three where students and the teacher need to share responsibility for the classroom success and making goals to gain that success together. I remember when we first started my differentiation class and Dr. P mentioned
that differentiation is helping each student individually grow one full year from whichever point they enter your classroom at and I was just mind blown because that is exactly what I want to do. I want my students to come into my class and to know that wherever they are starting from is okay with me because I'm going to help them progress on their level and help them want to grow and build on the knowledge that they already have. When students feel good knowing that their teacher is willing to help them grow no matter where they are at, they are going to have a better outlook on life and help others around them. These things will then lead to a successful classroom where everyone feels important and valued.

Hallmark #5: A "Way Up," Usually Through Multiple and Varied Pathways, and Never a "Way Out." 

This is the one I had and I compared it a class I had taken my first semester in the program where we had to each go across the floor
doing some movement that applied to us and not copy our neighbor. There wasn't a time limit per say on how long so some students could have chosen to go really, really slow although many of us completed our journey across the floor fairly quickly. When moving across the floor you could use different level high where you were straight us, medium where you were crouched, or low where your body was on the ground. You could move slow, normal paced or fast to show different pathways. All these things show different ways toward the same goal: getting across the floor. Another girl compared it to a corn maze which was really creative. We all have the same end goal, but sometimes students need to take different paths to get there. Please be the teacher that helps their student find a way to succeed that is best for them and not the easiest for you.

Hallmark #6 Respectful and Engaging Work for All Students

It's important for all students to be engaged in the work they are doing. Sometimes as teachers we fall

into the habit of having "fun" or engaging activities for our fast finishers while our struggling students have to sit and do the worksheet version of what we are teaching. I've noticed this in a few classrooms I've been in and it makes me sad. I had one girl say to me, "I never get to go to the grab and go math folder." I want her to want to get there, but because she is always one of the last students finished her teacher has not let her get there. So as I work with her I try to help her stay focused on getting to grab and go in math. Also let your students know why they are doing the worksheets they are doing or what they are practicing or learning from the tasks you are giving them. Make it personal and fun to them, even if it is "just a worksheet."

When you help students individually grow and help them see how far they come, they will love you a lot more for it. I know it will be a lot of work trying to get each student to a new level, but imagine how much more you'll do for a child when you incorporate that. Let them see how far they've come, celebrate with them, let them share it with the class, show them that they are awesome and very bright, and you'll be amazed at how much they want to show you how smart they can get. In order to allow them to show you how smart they are or how they know it a teacher must be willing to try different pathways to help their students rise and not just give up. It's important to take into consideration that some students may start from the bottom and have very little to no knowledge of the subject and that's okay. As soon as teachers realize that there is no one right way to teach something to someone they are able to open multiple doors for all of their students with engaging work that they like to do and can still be learning from. Sometimes as teachers we do get caught up in just giving worksheets to all the students and those who finish fast seem to get "rewarded" even when it's just extra practice. For those who struggle to read or focus all they see the worksheet as is a punishment. Find ways to can show you the information that they know by providing different ways and you'll see your students WANT to do better.