KathyC

2009-10 - Year Two

Tuesday, May 4, 2010 What is your understanding of the non-negotiables Supportive Learning Environment: I feel comfortable in this area. I enjoy talking to and listening to my students. I have almost always started my school year asking students to write an essay introducing themselves to me. I keep a copy of this essay and find that I refer back to it quite often. By the end of the school year, I feel that I would be able to add to their essays to give more information about the student. By knowing my students, I find that I can understand where they are coming from and it helps to explain why they do some of the things that they do. It creates a warmer, safer classroom environment, even when some students work to upset that environment.

Quality Curriculum: The ideas behind DI and UbD and the brand new curriculumS for middle years have blended together so well this year. I feel much more comfortable creating new units when I include UbD and the other non-negotiables into my planning. I think that I am now able to know where I need to go, how I can get my many students with their many more varied learning styles to that goal, and what I have to do along the way.

Continuous Assessment: I have not made as many changes in this area. I still look at almost every piece of work that students do. I provide feedback on almost every single piece of work that they do. I am still assigning marks to what they do - although I would like to get away from that somewhat next year. I have always allowed students to redo assignments (except on the ones that are just too easy to copy) and I permit students to retake exams or to make corrections to exams. I like the idea of taking the mode for a mark rather than the average, and I have had my eyes opened to that concept this year because of DI. I need to put more thought into not giving a zero when there has been no, absolutely no, effort shown. I think I could use the concept of I (incomplete) but I would really need to change my reporting practices then, including the report card.

Flexible Grouping: I like the idea of mixing the students up rather than having them choose their own partners each time. I know that I will need to spend more time teaching them how to work in groups, and I will need to spend more time preparing the group work activities so that students have roles and responsibilities. I will also need to spend more time conferencing with students.

Respectful Tasks: I believe that I have been trying to use respectful tasks for quite some time when I was trying to give students options for illustrating their knowledge of a certain outcome. I will look more closely at the actual tasks now since I have learned so much more about them. I will need to explain to students in more detail that fair is not always equal as well.

Describe our journey into DI. I guess I have always been looking for ways to help each individual student succeed in my classroom. I have always felt that there must be something more that I could do. Learning about DI gave me a lot of "aha's" to try in my classroom. I also had a few moments where I thought that "Yes, I do that!" and it made me feel much better about some of my practices.

I found that meeting with this DI group and discussing the ideas presented by Carol Ann Tomlinson really helped me to understand the practices better. I really like the practice of discussing and trying the different teaching strategies right here in the workshop and then being able to take them back to the classroom to try them. The conference in Houston inspired me a great deal - I was ready to head back to the classroom as soon as I returned from that conference. It was invigorating. The work that we had done previous to going was exactly what was being promoted at that conference, and it felt really good. The workshop in Saskatoon with Wormeli also gave me a lot to consider, and I know that I still have more to learn and understand from his point of view. The book club has been very interesting - I enjoy reading other people's perspectives as well.

My classroom practices have changed over the past two years. I am much more attuned to what my students are interested and how best they learn. I know that I spend more time on learning about their profiles. When I start to plan lessons, I think more about the students than I did before. I really, really like UbD - it was introduced at the perfect time with all of our new curriculums. I have talked to other staff members about UbD, and we felt that I had an advantage with the planning because I did have the new curriculum rather than trying to use the old one. I am much more aware of my grouping practices now. I usually allowed students to choose their own groupings to prevent any other issues that may, and usually do, pop up. Now I can see how I need to teach more about how to work in groups with people other than a best friend, how important it is to work with someone who has like interests, and how ability grouping can be the better fit when trying to learn new concepts.

I know that I need to really think and, hopefully, change my reporting practices. I believe that I will need some more time to fully implement the suggestions that I have been reading about. The way that I have been reporting to parents and students has always bothered me because I felt that one lone mark just didn't represent a student's learning well enough. That is an area that I need to work on more. I don't think that I explained enough about DI to my own students. I know that I would mention a few times that I wanted them to try a different approach to learning, but I am not sure if they would be able to tell someone else that "My teacher uses DI when she teaches!" I am hoping that they have seen a difference in the way I teach as opposed to what they have witnessed in the past eight years, but I am not overly confident that they would have.

Tuesday, March 23, 2010

My belief re: DI I believe that DI is a valuable way of teaching that helps students to reach their full potential. As a teacher, I believe that DI will help me reach more students, will help students to learn to the best of their ability and will help me get to know my students better. I am able to adapt the DI strategies into my regular teaching patterns without a lot of disruption of the way I used to teach. It has confirmed to me that I was on the right path before but I needed to tweak a few things to better understand my students, their needs and how I can meet them. DI has helped with my unit planning and assessment of my students as well.

** DI Action Research **

Participation in DI Supportive Learning Environment research and theory Reflections on your class and your own teaching values and beliefs
 * Coming to the Question **


 * //Question:// **
 * How can using pre-assessments help my teaching and students’ learning? **

Activating personal knowledge and experiences – pre assessments test students level of understanding of the material that is going to be covered in the next unit. Pre assessments need to be done enough in advance to allow time to adjust the unit to better suit where the students are at. Conversations with others Collecting information from books and online sources – I googled a few sites that discussed pre assessments in math and gave suggestions. I read Wormeli’s and Carol Ann Tomlinson’s and Jay McTighe’s books that discussed their views on pre assessment as well.
 * Reconnaissance **


 * Action and Data Collection **

Describe something that you did differently- what, when, who Before starting my last unit in math (Rates and Ratios), I did a pre-assessment and activating prior knowledge with my students.
 * What do I experiment with? What action will I take? **

Choose your before and after data collection tools – survey, questionnaire, interview, etc.
 * How will I collect data? **

The activating prior knowledge was a prepared worksheet from the math teacher resource book that came with examples and then questions. Students were asked about 8 – 10 questions that went with the examples shown. This page was two sided. The pre-assessment was made by me from the final test that is also provided in the teacher resource book. I did change the questions (the numbers anyway) so as not to use the exact same question. I may not do that next time – I may actually use the same questions exactly – but I am not sure yet.


 * Reflection **

Collate and organize the data
 * What does my data say? (analysis) **

What does the data tell you?
 * What does it mean? (interpretation) **

The results of these two worksheets/tests showed that I needed to back up my unit to review percents, decimals and fractions with the students again. I chose to teach students how to do fractions on the calculators this time. I had spent several weeks in the previous unit working on fractions without calculators, so I decided to forgo that pain and show them how to use the calculator to do the same work. Students were still given the option of not using calculators, and I did do extra review with students who chose not to so that they could be successful as well.


 * AHA! **

Insights into your students, the strategy experimented with, and your own practice Reflect on assumptions you made, surprises and roadblocks encountered Apply insights and reflections to changes you will make to your practice.
 * What does this mean for my practice? **

Well, I am still concerned about the lack of understanding students still have with fractions. I have been concerned about this for many years and I am still not seeing a growth in this area. I will still continue to look for ways to improve the understanding of fractions, decimals, and percents. This seems to be a weakness in students. I think that the pre assessment helped me to understand students' abilities better. It helped me to find a starting point with the new unit. The students had trouble doing this assignment without asking for a lot of help from myself and the EA in our classroom. I had to remind them several times that I wanted to know what THEY knew, not what I could help them with or what the EA could help them with. This was a different frame of mind for the students.

I am still not sure whether I will use the test questions in the next unit that I plan. I would be concerned about students simply memorizing the answer and not learning the material. Pre assessments do help me in the classroom and do not require very much time or effort to do.

__Reflection on Quality Curriculum and UbD__

My ability to provide quality curriculum to my students has improved with the use of UbD during the past year. I have been able to unwrap the curriculums better (there is still room for improvement) and then insert the outcomes into my unit planning with more understanding which makes it easier to do the planning. I like that UbD is cyclical in nature meaning that I can go back and revise as I create my unit to make sure that everything fits together.

I know that I need to and want to do a lot more work with UbD. I like what has been happening so far with my unit planning. I find that UbD makes sense to me and, once I finished writing the unit, it does flow better than what I used to use. I know that I have lots of room to grow - it will be a work in progress at all times - but I feel better prepared for a new unit and I think that I am better able to meet students' needs. Knowing what I want to accomplish, what the students need to accomplish and, especially, how students will accomplish the goals makes teaching easier. I have the summative assessment finished before I start so I know where students need to be at the end of the unit. I am better able to guide students to that end goal when I know in advance where they need to be. There seems to be less fluff along the way as well. By knowing my students better, I am also able to plan better as well.

I haven't taken the time to go back to do any reflections on the units I have created, so I am hoping that my memory will not fail me later on. I know that I could make revisions to the units to make them better for next time around. I also know that I will be working with a totally different group of students next year, so I will need to update and change my units regardless. But I think that that will be an easier task since I am using UbD.

Not sure which page I should put this on so I put it on both pages - please delete from the day 1 if it should not be there!

Kathy Chomey - I am going to try to do something with Celebrating Success. I am currently creating a survey for my students and will see how that goes.

Survey

2008-9 Year One of Workshop

Hi Kathy

Differentiation means learning about students strengths, weaknesses, and interests. Then I use that information to create ways to meet the curriculum objectives in ways that meet their needs. Differentiation means using the various strategies available to meet the objectives of the unit. The strategies used vary from student to student and from unit to unit.

Research for differentiation K (know)fact/definition/content: Differentiating instruction means creating multiple paths so that students of different abilities, interest or learning needs experience equally appropriate ways to absorb, use, develop and present concepts as a part of the daily learning process. It allows students to take greater responsibility and ownership for their own learning, and provides opportunities for peer teaching and cooperative learning (from: http://members.shaw.ca/priscillatheroux/differentiating.html )

U (Big Understanding) It is important to offer students learning tasks that are appropriate to their learning needs rather than just to the grade and subject being taught. This means providing 3 or 4 different options for students in any given class (not 35 different options). Readiness (ability), learning styles and interest vary between students and even within an individual over time. In a differentiated classroom all students have equally engaging learning tasks.

http://www.highlandschools-virtualib.org.uk/ltt/flexible/differentiation.htm - interesting site that lists the research that has been done about differentiation learning and teaching. d (do skills)

In preparation for differentiating, the teacher diagnoses the difference in readiness, interests and learning style of all students in the class, using a variety of performance indicators. For the teacher who is beginning to differentiate learning in the classroom, differentiation may begin by varying the content, processes or product for each group in the class. As the teacher becomes more proficient using these techniques, differentiation can occur at all 3 stages of the process for some students. This is especially appropriate for the more able students. The essential curricula concepts may be the same for all students but the complexity of the content, learning activities and/or products will vary so that all students are challenged and no students are frustrated. http://members.shaw.ca/priscillatheroux/differentiating.html four ways for differentiating

http://www.teachers.tv/video/2748 - a video from England discussing ways to differentiate in secondary science and English - talks about different areas to use differentiation

Summarizing what we heard from the articles that we read: -knowing our students is very important -pre assessment is a key tool in establishing what students need to learn -student interests and abilities are also key -teachers need to be flexible in their planning, in their groupings -students need to be involved in their learning and assessments -we need to know our own teaching styles and be aware of where we need to improve or adapt. -we need to create realistic expectations of our students -students need to be able to redo assignments and tests to show that they have mastered the concepts.

November 17, 2008

Is Differentiation just another educational buzz word? No! It is a buzz word, but we need to identify what the idea and process is so that we can put a term to the process. Calling it "just" is not just! I believe that the majority of teachers are doing differentiation already, maybe not to the degree that we should be, but we have never given it a buzz word before.

Assessment **for** learning: The teacher is the assessor. This happens continually throughout the unit and the day. It looks at student progress during the unit, and allows for differentiated instruction when flags pop up for individual students. Teachers can look at what they are doing and what needs to be done.

Assessment **as** learning: The teacher and the students are the assessors. Students reflect on what they have learned, what they still need to learn and how the learning possess is going. Teachers reflect on how they taught, what needs to be retaught or reemphasized and then plan accordingly for the next day.

Assessment **of** learning: This is what the teacher wants the students to learn and is the teacher assessing the learning that has/is taking place. This is what the teacher evaluates.

Reflection on learning/teaching styles - handout of a list of things we do in the classroom and check off the top five that we use. Reflection in our journals!

How comfortable am I with learner profiles,whether I will use them or not and where the school is at?

I feel fairly comfortable with learner profiles. I believe that they help me a lot when programming for students and when planning my lessons and units. I think that when students show a lack of interest or a reluctance toward a certain unit or concept that I plan differently for that unit than when students show a sufficient level of interest in that unit. I do not have a formal written profile of each student at this stage; the majority of my profiles are "gut reactions" or bits and pieces that I have accumulated during the course of the year. I realize that some students are very hesitant about some activities and try to accommodate those students and I try to plan to "discourage" the negative atmosphere that others bring into the classroom.

Many staff members at our school do learner profiles, but not all are done on paper. Therea re constantly inpromptu and informal meetings going on among staff members about learners. I do think that there could soon be a revolt if we require all staff to do this on paper along with all the other activities that are required. We really need to start dangling carrots (incentives) to staff to encourage participation in these new activities.

What are the principles of differentiation and how does it relate to all of my students?