Classroom Atmosphere

I enjoyed that the articles this week since they focused on more than just the “average” or typical “struggling” student. I also like they somewhat focused on the atmosphere of the classroom rather than solely instruction.

The Winebrenner article was nice to read because it brought many options to the table. It was also nice to see an article broken down into steps and sections instead of long laborious chunks of reading. When it comes to gifted learners, people seem to automatically assume that the person must be gifted in many areas. While for some this is true, for most, I don’t believe it is. I’ve seen this throughout my own life and continue to see it in children I work with. While I was placed in gifted writing/reading or English and History courses throughout my K-12 education, I have struggled with math throughout that same education.

This was the first time I have seen or heard of Brain Gym, other than during my student teaching. My master teacher liked Brain Gym and used different exercises with the class. We often did them with students as a way to refocus them or before an activity to focus their attention in the first place. There was an alphabet of movements on flashcards which I tried to find online but was unable to. I liked the discussion of physical movement over all, including using squeezable objects such as Kush balls. I saw Kush balls used in fourth grade classrooms I subbed in at one elementary school. They called the game Sparkle and it was to practice spelling. Students would sit on their desks and pass the Kush ball from neighbor to neighbor as they each spelled out the next letter in their spelling word. If it got to the next student and there were no letters, they had to say “Sparkle” and sit down. Ultimately there was one winner.

I liked that this article addressed having a respectful and supportive learning environment. It is not too often that a published journal article about DI addresses bullying and teasing. “Teachers and schools must enforce polices that simply do not allow teasing, name calling or other harassment practices that demonstrate rejection of kids for any reason.”(Winebrenner, p. 134). On a lighter note this reminded me of a bit from the new Aziz Ansari special on Netflix which discusses bullying. He talks about bullying and does the majority of the bit in this clip:

The Tobin article described DI pretty simply: “A key emphasis in differentiated instruction is placed on respectful tasks, flexible grouping and on-going assessment and adjustments for all students.” I appreciated that this article recognized that some struggling learners would need direct or explicit instruction. To me it seems like this is almost completely glossed over in DI discussion and the majority of people dismiss it because they think it is boring and doesn’t encourage students to love reading. While I agree with both of those statements, it’s also hard for students to love to read when they completely lack the ability to do it. This article also discussed the importance of relationship building in the classroom and how the teacher’s language can impact students. “Empowering and considerate teacher talk shows a commitment to student’s academic growth. The teacher serves as interactional gatekeeper facilitating the student’s acceptance as a valuable member of the learning community.”(Tobin, 2007).

The subject of Tobin’s study does talk about how she used literacy centers but realized as she worked to bring DI into her classroom, centers were not differentiating because all students were required to do the same thing at all the centers. Questions I had from this article regard her flexible grouping strategy. It mentions exploration or enactment groups. I’m guessing enactment group means students act out a text, but what does an exploration group look like? I’m sure it depends on the student’s age, but how much help do you provide for research?

I think she brought up some good points about encouraging students to explain their own learning. I felt like, "Why didn't I think of that?!"

- Writing key phrases on the board

- Repeating back part of the student's questions to them

- Asking students to create yes/no questions

- Establish discussion routines

The Tobin case study was very long and I felt like it took a long time to explain something that could have been explained pretty succinctly. The different types of teaching also could have been described in simpler ways. “Three themes emerged: learning support within the co-teaching structures, explicit teacher-instigated literacy support and interactional inclusion,”(Tobin, 2007). This also addressed co-teaching. I don’t have any experience co-teaching beyond student teaching. I’m currently working with a para-educator and we work on tag-teaming students who have questions. Later on in the year we will both be working with student small groups. Does anyone have experience co-teaching?

Tobin, R. (2005). Co-teaching in language arts: Supporting students with learning disabilities. Canadian Journal of Education, 28(4), 784-801.

Tobin, R. (2007). Differentiating in the language arts: Flexible options to support all students. Canadian Children, 32(2), 11-18.

Winebrenner, S. (2003). Teaching strategies for twice-exceptional students. Intervention in School and Clinic, 38(3), 131-137. 

Individualized Tasks and Gifted Education

Hello All! It has been a crazy last couple weeks with my after school program starting this past Monday. This first week we are focusing on relationship building activities and drawing them in, hopefully they’re not in for a rude awakening when the really academic stuff starts. Probably should use the word “stuff” as a teacher of literacy but that is where my head is at tonight.

First off I really enjoyed the Donna Wederich article on individualized responses. This was a very practical way to get students involved in reading and also includes a small way to assess their comprehension or interest. It repeated throughout the article that the entries included were from very high-level students and that was part of the reason the teacher was able to open such a strong dialogue. Do you think this method would be as effective with “average” or “low” students?

I think the assignment could be tailored (there it is again) down or up depending on the student. An average-level student should be able to complete this assignment. I would perhaps give more prompting questions to students on the lower half of the spectrum, rather than letting them have free reign over the letters and journal entries. I also wondered about doing an assignment like this with younger students since the students in this study were in middle school. I think it could easily be done with upper elementary or even 2^nd/3^rd with a lot of prompting.

What struck me from the Herzog article was how different differentiation form looks like for gifted students. I think it is especially hard for teachers who are so used to teaching to the middle, or even the bottom half of the middle, to include those higher order thinking activities. Activities that would be completely out of reach for over half of the class. I think this is why gifted education has taken on criticism or hostility for being “elitist” as the article mentions. I wonder if I as a teacher or if the whole new workforce of teachers is as prepared to teach a gifted student as we are to teach one who is below benchmark? Obviously this is just a part of the big spinning wheel of the push for standardized tests and raising test scores.

Examining gifted education makes me think back to my own. I went to enrichment classes in elementary school which was a pull-out program. Also my 4^th/5^th grade class was relatively small (our teacher looped with us) and the majority of us were very high achievers. Most of the people in my class ended up being the same people I was in honors courses with all through high school. I wonder looking back how much of this was based on intrinsic vs. extrinsic factors. Most of these students were from middle to upper middle class families, most had parents who had college degrees themselves and stay at home moms. Our teacher was also very involved and really nurtured our want to explore higher level thinking. I know for myself that even as a child I was perfectionist, who strived to do my absolute best anyway, even without my parents or teacher pushing me. This is a totally different ball game but how much of a child’s performance at school or even ability level do you think is just luck of the draw based on factors completely outside of their control?