Hallmarks Part I: Assessment/Instruction, Clarity, and Shared Responsibility

Ah the treasured hallmarks. I wasn’t sure how fast I was going to get to these since they were mentioned in our class. I wanted to catch up on a few draft posts that I had before I really devoted my time to these. Now there are not very many, however I think it will take a couple of posts to really cover what I want to say about these wonderful tools.

Dr. P handed us our “golden ticket” of hallmarks and had us read over them in class. We then had to choose ones that we really wanted to pick apart more and understand on a deeper level. When I was first doing that I thought, how can I pick just three? There are so many that I want to learn about that could help me become a better teacher that differentiates in my classroom. As we were discussing these in class a few weeks later though everything began to click where you can’t just have one or some of them. You must have ALL of them in order to be a differentiating teacher. Now once again my request may sound like a lot because teachers do have a lot of stuff going on ALL the time, but I promise you like Dr. P has promised us, if you do these things your job will get a little bit easier. I say that in a sense of you’ll be better prepared and you’ll know how to truly help your students. These hallmarks are principles from several of Carol Tomlinson's texts. 

Hallmark #1: A strong link between assessment and instruction.

Now as teachers we know how important it is to assess our students and we need to be assessing them all the time to see where they're at. That however, doesn't always mean a paper test with a pencil to have students show what they know. A key part to this is you can't differentiate if you don't know what you're differentiating for! Assessment helps us as teachers really know where our students are and how to best reach them. Someone in my cohort came up with a great analogy, "Assessment and instruction are like best friends because they evolve and grow together and help each other to help a student evolve into a better learner!" Assessments help us know what readiness, learning style, and process our students have and this is so important to know so that we CAN differentiate! 

Hallmark #2: The teacher's own absolute clarity about what he or what she wants the students to know, understand, and e able to do-about what is truly important to learn in this unit. 

Being a good teacher means that you determine what your students truly need to know, especially when you take the tie to allow students to discover their own learning! I know you feel as though your students most know everything, even I felt like that at one point, but then I discovered it's just not possible! There are too many things that the core has for your students to truly know, understand, and be able to do! It's important to know what you are teaching them and how these concepts work in order to truly help your students learn what they really need to know. 

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

This is one of my favorites because it's important for teachers to know your classroom won't really succeed and be a community if you don't allow your students to feel like it is truly their classroom too! They need to know that they are just as responsible for the learning that takes place within the classroom. I love this because you can truly build a great community classroom by doing this. Some ideas I took from our discussion were:

-Allow students to organize the class library in a way that makes sense for them. 

-Give them activities that participate in how the room is run after guidance has been shown by the teacher. 

-Let them participate in picking their leaders for different jobs or volunteering for jobs within the class. 

 These first three hallmarks link together some important information that allows us to become great teachers who are able to differentiate for our students! When we as teachers assess what our students know and plan our instruction to meet those needs we are also clearly sure WHAT we need to be teaching in order to help our students. A big part of that is really getting to know your students and clearly know what they HAVE to know. What information in your core do they need to know because future grades will build upon the stepping stones you are creating now? What standards will they get again and again that majority of them have mastered? How can you extend that for them? Think about how you can help differentiate for your students based on the informal and formal assessments you are constantly taking. Let the students be a part of their learning, talk with them. Inform them of what you've seen so far and ask them if they have any ideas on goals they want to have by the end of the grade you're teaching. Celebrate in the successes of each student and learn from the failed attempts. When we share the responsibility of the learning with our students it gets them more interested in WANTING to learn which in turn makes them life long learners. Isn't that what we want, students who never stop growing and learning even all the way through adulthood? Become the teacher that constantly assesses and modifies her/his instruction to fit the needs of their students and be clear about your teaching so that you are able to make your classroom for everyone.