In my experience, most educators "differentiate" instruction for the individual learner, but have different definitions of what this means. Here is an excellent article from Edutopia about differentiation--defined and applied. I recommend a review of the comments as well as this article, as some of the blog's readers had excellent suggestions, too.
Click here to access the article.
Remember gifted learners as well as struggling learners when differentiating instruction.
Saturday, July 31, 2010
Wednesday, July 28, 2010
Teachers as Mentors
Choice Literacy posted an article recently by Douglas Fleming for mentor teachers about building effective partnerships with apprentices. I find a myriad of parallels between guiding apprentices and teenage students.
Fleming recommends ten goals for mentors who want to create productive relationships with their apprentices. I think that we as teachers of teenagers may improve student productivity and satisfaction by emulating his recommendations. In today's blog entry, I've considered his second recommendation:
2. Be supportive of each other. Concentrate on achieving your mutual goals, not showing off your individual competencies. It's a partnership, not a competition.
With teaching teens, I say out with the adage, "give them an inch, and they'll take a mile". Instead, let's abide by the Golden Rule.
* demonstrate additional effort on an assignment than they did earlier in the year
* listen and contribute actively to a class discussion
* hover at your desk before or after class to talk about what's new in their lives
Perhaps these small but important examples can be achieved through other teacher-teenager relationships, but I find my goals are achieved as well as students' when such milestones occur in the classroom.
On building a partnership rather than a competition--perhaps you're thinking, "What teacher would try to compete with a teenager?" I have found myself goaded by teen students to demonstrate (or even defend) what I know or to shift from a relevant topic to an extraneous one. While it's not outright competition, the relationship between a teacher and a student can become adversarial--the warm and welcoming classroom can degrade into a figurative battlefield.
The way I interpret competitiveness when considering the teacher-student relationship has to do with sagacity and demonstrated knowledge more than a scenario of besting a teen (though I wouldn't say the latter is out of the question).
In my formative teaching years, when a student asked a question that stumped me, I would feel something close to both shame and self-doubt about my chosen profession. If I did not have all the answers for every student, then how could I call myself an educator? While I occasionally regress into this pitfall, I can mostly appreciate that
1. I still have years of learning in front of me and,
2. I do not need to be a walking-talking Encyclopedia (have we evolved to the point where that idiom should use the word Wikipedia, instead?) to be a good teacher.
Fellow teachers, I hope you appreciate that, too. I think back to times when I did not have an answer and felt I should, and my personality would switch from relaxed, confident, and approachable to tense, insecure, and aloof. This defense mechanism made me a standoffish classroom leader rather than the consistently warm and open educator I strive to be. It is okay not to know (what a wonderful lesson for students to learn!). It is even better to have them discover the answer rather than tell it to them as there can be more meaningful learning therein.
I trust my prolixity presents at minimum some food for thought for you. If you have questions, comments, or your own ideas, share them in the comments below!
* listen and contribute actively to a class discussion
* hover at your desk before or after class to talk about what's new in their lives
Perhaps these small but important examples can be achieved through other teacher-teenager relationships, but I find my goals are achieved as well as students' when such milestones occur in the classroom.
On building a partnership rather than a competition--perhaps you're thinking, "What teacher would try to compete with a teenager?" I have found myself goaded by teen students to demonstrate (or even defend) what I know or to shift from a relevant topic to an extraneous one. While it's not outright competition, the relationship between a teacher and a student can become adversarial--the warm and welcoming classroom can degrade into a figurative battlefield.
The way I interpret competitiveness when considering the teacher-student relationship has to do with sagacity and demonstrated knowledge more than a scenario of besting a teen (though I wouldn't say the latter is out of the question).
In my formative teaching years, when a student asked a question that stumped me, I would feel something close to both shame and self-doubt about my chosen profession. If I did not have all the answers for every student, then how could I call myself an educator? While I occasionally regress into this pitfall, I can mostly appreciate that
1. I still have years of learning in front of me and,
2. I do not need to be a walking-talking Encyclopedia (have we evolved to the point where that idiom should use the word Wikipedia, instead?) to be a good teacher.
Fellow teachers, I hope you appreciate that, too. I think back to times when I did not have an answer and felt I should, and my personality would switch from relaxed, confident, and approachable to tense, insecure, and aloof. This defense mechanism made me a standoffish classroom leader rather than the consistently warm and open educator I strive to be. It is okay not to know (what a wonderful lesson for students to learn!). It is even better to have them discover the answer rather than tell it to them as there can be more meaningful learning therein.
I trust my prolixity presents at minimum some food for thought for you. If you have questions, comments, or your own ideas, share them in the comments below!
Look for further installments about Fleming's other recommendations soon. In the interim, read Fleming's complete article here.
Friday, July 23, 2010
Contribution by a Reader -- on Parenting Teens
The key to success for parents is figuring out what exactly it is that you do to annoy your teenager. Once you know, you can either:
a) step it up a notch to ensure you'll have the next two hours in quiet solitude, or
b) knock it off....a strategy best employed when you need the bathroom cleaned or the backyard mowed.
Defining exactly what is annoying is an elusive task....today it could be just your tone of voice, tomorrow it could be the shirt you are wearing.
Say you are trying to help your teenager solve a financial crisis and are prepared to offer the money required. "Would $50 help you?" could be your initial offer. If you said it with the right tone that cash will be flying out your pocket before you blink (and if the moon is full, and no one is honking the horn outside, you may get a thank you in return).
If you use the wrong tone (oh, I should mention this is the moment when you need to realize you have no clue whether your tone is right or wrong?) you will be $50 richer and receive more of a gutteral response rather than a word in the language in which you are familiar. Best of all, that warm feeling of extreme confusion will envelop you once again, making you wonder why on earth you even offered in the first place.
Tomorrow, if you are lucky, you start with a clean slate. It is possible that no matter what tone you use you could receive extreme enthusiasm (if so then you go high five yourself in the bathroom RIGHT AWAY). However, don't get too cocky. When you walk out of the bathroom your world could collapse once they see your shirt/jeans/hair or your shoes.
I love my teenagers dearly. They make me examine things about myself I never knew existed, and perhaps some I've never had. Parents who are able to silently hum inside their head while imagining their teenager with a pineapple on their head are the successful ones. I'm still working on the silent part of humming with a smile.
a) step it up a notch to ensure you'll have the next two hours in quiet solitude, or
b) knock it off....a strategy best employed when you need the bathroom cleaned or the backyard mowed.
Defining exactly what is annoying is an elusive task....today it could be just your tone of voice, tomorrow it could be the shirt you are wearing.
Say you are trying to help your teenager solve a financial crisis and are prepared to offer the money required. "Would $50 help you?" could be your initial offer. If you said it with the right tone that cash will be flying out your pocket before you blink (and if the moon is full, and no one is honking the horn outside, you may get a thank you in return).
If you use the wrong tone (oh, I should mention this is the moment when you need to realize you have no clue whether your tone is right or wrong?) you will be $50 richer and receive more of a gutteral response rather than a word in the language in which you are familiar. Best of all, that warm feeling of extreme confusion will envelop you once again, making you wonder why on earth you even offered in the first place.
Tomorrow, if you are lucky, you start with a clean slate. It is possible that no matter what tone you use you could receive extreme enthusiasm (if so then you go high five yourself in the bathroom RIGHT AWAY). However, don't get too cocky. When you walk out of the bathroom your world could collapse once they see your shirt/jeans/hair or your shoes.
I love my teenagers dearly. They make me examine things about myself I never knew existed, and perhaps some I've never had. Parents who are able to silently hum inside their head while imagining their teenager with a pineapple on their head are the successful ones. I'm still working on the silent part of humming with a smile.
Tuesday, July 20, 2010
Facebook hacking
I'm home sick today (who gets sick in July?!...then again, who teaches in July?! Why, this cat!). The students are completing a problem-analysis assignment using Facebook to post ideas on a group page (they're going to be on Facebook anyway, so why not utilize it as a venue for learning?).
After an extended nap, I logged in and discovered this note posted on my FB profile:
Ms. Miller,
You should really log out of facebook at school before you turn your computer off. Otherwise, your students, being the delinquents they are, might get on and post something totally innapropriate.
-Love
Jace and Levi :)
Sorry Jace and Levi--delinquents neither spell words like "delinquents" correctly nor use words like "inappropriate" (albeit spelled incorrectly) at all, nor do they pass up the opportunity to be logged into their teacher's Facebook page and ONLY post this to her profile.
I guess you two remain the smart scholars I keep trying to tell you that you are, after all...
After an extended nap, I logged in and discovered this note posted on my FB profile:
Ms. Miller,
You should really log out of facebook at school before you turn your computer off. Otherwise, your students, being the delinquents they are, might get on and post something totally innapropriate.
-Love
Jace and Levi :)
Sorry Jace and Levi--delinquents neither spell words like "delinquents" correctly nor use words like "inappropriate" (albeit spelled incorrectly) at all, nor do they pass up the opportunity to be logged into their teacher's Facebook page and ONLY post this to her profile.
I guess you two remain the smart scholars I keep trying to tell you that you are, after all...
Welcome
My uncle had my “star chart” created the day I was born. He promptly called my mother and asked whether she would permit him to be my agent when the time was right…
My mother told me this story when I was surviving the throes of pre-teen insecurity. I promptly took up acting, assuming I would fulfill my birthday horoscope’s prophecy as a superstar…
Today, I’m neither an astrology fanatic nor a superstar (not yet, anyway). I am a daughter, a wife, a mom, a friend, a Labrador Retriever owner, an outdoor enthusiast, a knitress, a sushi fanatic, an even bigger ice cream fanatic, a former Facebook fanatic (self-demoted to contented FB participant), a lifelong student, a cancer survivor, and a general enthusiast. And I am a teacher…
I’m likely not the smartest, most creative, most experienced, nor most ambitious colleague you could find at your (or your child’s) school. So why look to me for ideas and advice about working with teens? I suppose I have a knack for working with teens, for lighting them up. People tend to like me. Teenagers tend to like me. I like people. And I simply love teenagers (even days that I can barely stand them…perhaps especially days that I can barely stand them).
I have close to a decade of hours clocked with teens. From this, I present to you ideas and advice about interacting with and (ideally) engaging teenagers–whether they are your students, your children, or yourselves!
Prolixity aside, I am quite certain that, in those moments I know I have engaged a teenager–when I have pushed through her barrier of fatigue, his barrier of indifference, her barrier of frustration, or his barrier of incredulity–I feel like a superstar. So, Uncle Frank, perhaps we should be talking about this agent bit, after all!
In the meantime, please write or comment with your questions, concerns, and words of wisdom about every facet of teaching teens…
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