I get very encouraged when the things that I learn whether that is in class or just life in general is directly applicable to what I am currently doing with my life especially when it is something that I love. During my CSL at Henry Munro I have been able to see differentiated learning done to a high level and they reminded me of specific situations that helped me during school, not realizing what was happening at the time it was great to read about it In Coopers chapters 5 and 6. For me differentiating learning takes many forms and I have experienced a few that I would like to share, first would have been in my gr.7 English class where we assigned to one of three reading groups for our final report based on the strength or weakness displayed over the school year. The three different groups all had separate books to read based on these skills but still all wrote the same report. I was in the middle group and our group was assigned The Giver, which to this day is still one of my favorite books and at the time it was challenging but not to the point where I got frustrated. Cooper talks about the need for teachers to plan ahead with the approach that some students are going to struggle with the readings and if you plan with this in mind you will save yourself and the students a lot of frustration. He also states that it important for teachers to understand that in order to improve students current skill levels you may have to use below grade level texts, and just because the texts might be different doesn’t mean your rubric has to change. What changes is the difficulty level of the reading material that the students are assed on. I am thankful that my gr.7 English teacher was able to use some of these principles with me.
As some of you might know growing up I had a learning disability that went undiagnosed till high school. The problem was that if I was speaking from memory I was strong but if I was reading from a sheet in a pressure situation the words all looked like a jumbled mess. Dr. Kitchen helped me throughout gr. 9 and 10 with different ways to make the word more clear when I had to read aloud. I transferred high schools in gr.11 and I was nervous about starting at a new school with teachers that did not know about my difficulty reading out loud. My gr. 11 English teacher Mr. Wallace thankfully was very understanding, we were going to be reading Hamlet in his class and so he got two different copies of the text ones with regular sized font and ones with bigger font and he allowed students to pick what book they wanted so I didn’t feel singled out for needing a book with a bigger font. He would also let the class know ahead of time when we would be reading to the class and who specifically would be reading and what parts this gave me time to go home and practice my lines so I was a lot more comfortable with them this way. These are just a few ways that teachers can differentiate learning for students to feel included in the class while keeping everyone equally engaged. In chapter 6 Cooper talk about assessment for learning and the difference between assessment of and assessment for learning. Early on in the chapter we are given a list of what assessment for learning looks like and I got me thinking about my gr. 12 Geography teacher Mrs. Anderson. Now hopefully by now you can tell I am a very positive person and I enjoy reflecting on the positive things that have shaped me but unfortunately not all my experiences in school were positive. Now Mrs. Anderson was an old school educator, the type that has been referenced in the text before. The ones who believe a high school teachers job is to prepares her students for university. Now while her heart undoubtedly was in the right place the class lacked a clear direction and I am sure if Mrs. Anderson was able to access this resource chapter 6 would help her students become more successful. The 6 strategies outlined in chapter 6 would have been extremely helpful for me and my classmates back then.
We were never communicated what we were supposed to be learning and that often lead to a lot of confusion and below average work. There were a lot of guess work going on between students and we often would go to classmates who scored highly on an assignment to figure out what was expected of us to try to improve upon our work for the next assignment. A lot of the class struggled and some students asked for make up assignments unfortunately she did not believe in them. While eventually we all survived Mrs. Andersons class we could have been a lot better prepared for the world ahead if the class was structured differently.
1 Comment
Linda Radford
10/1/2015 08:55:21 pm
Thanks Brandon for sharing your stories of learning. They are really informative and certainly shed light on the importance of differentiation! Sounds like Henry Munroe is going well :)
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