I Can Totally Do This!

Each of these articles has given me something to think about. As my mind is whirring from both the reading and thinking back on my own teaching practices (can substitutes be said to really have a teaching practice?), I am seeing many of these things called differentiated instruction, I already know, I just didn't know I knew! My reaction to each of the articles are separate and as follows:

Cool book today...

It seems as though, while Davila and Patrick make a point of doing all the research and presenting all the statistics about what children like to read and why they like to read it and all the influencing factors that may contribute to these likes and dislikes, what they end up saying at the end is all these things may matter today, but tomorrow the kids may change their minds about what they like. I realize that was a lengthy sentence, but why would someone go through all the work to figure out what kids like just to say that interests change?

I posit that kids probably like series of books for the same reason I do (here read "adults"): They like the style, the language, the nuances of the writer that become familiar and are noticeably different from author to author. It's a little like the reader gets to know the author while reading his characters and his plots (I say "his" because most of my favorite writers are men, Stephen King, Charlie Huston and Jeff Somers being my top three favs).

I was also very excited to see the mention of audio and multimodal books, though I wonder about the books with corresponding on-line content. Twenty years down the road when a student wants to share that story with their child, will the content still be available? Or maybe it will just come with a disc for future readers. And hey! Do audio books count as reading?

"What the child is able to do in a collaboration today he will be able to do independently tomorrow." Lev Vygotsky

Lev Vygotsky

This quote by Vygotsky in Smagorinsky's article reminded me of the Chinese proverb "Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime." From the article, I see that Smagorinsky has a deep affection for the Vygotsky. I was just commenting last week how weird it is to be able to relate to an article written 45 years ago and here Smagorinsky does the same thing. I feel he's pulling us back to our roots in education. Roots where we used to teach and learn as much smaller communities. Smaller communities where all children learned in the same classroom and were maybe not promoted based on age alone. 

I especially liked how Vygotsky thought of speech as oral writing. I think it's true that both processes will have a better end result if students are allowed to make their thinking out loud and work toward a final goal. I  have been remembering that it is the message we want to hear from students, not judge the way it is delivered.

Stahl is telling us that learning styles don't matter. At least, teaching to various learning styles will not help students improve their learning, especially since their learning styles may be ever-changing. I do think it would be natural for a teacher to notice, for example, that Edgar really loves to put his hands on things while Esther prefers quiet solitude. From this article though, I have learned that those are learning preferences, a personal way of thinking and going about one's learning rather that what is called a learning style. 

Learning style and differentiation seem to have become a little muddled in my mind. This article did nothing to clear it up. I am glad I did not read this one last because it would have left me confused. 


Santangelo's article helped me see what DI really is. I feel I've been floundering a bit here in class wondering if I'm the only one... What I keep coming up with is teach the same stuff at different levels. A great quote Santangelo put in from Tomlinson, "When in doubt, teach up." I love that that attitude will give a teacher and a student so much better results than dumbing something down. This article helped me to formulate a question that has helped me define, for myself, what differentiation is. "How do I promote the success of my students?"

I always go back to my own kids. They teach me so much. Over the summer, we do school. We do math and writing, we go on field trips and to the library. We do science experiments... I notice that in every instance, I teach the same thing to everyone who attends summer school at my house. This year, we ended up with four total, two of mine and two of the neighbor's. They are in three different grades but each one was given a lesson at a different level. I was differentiating without even knowing it. Is this what it means to be a good teacher? To see what your students need and go in that direction? How do I know I'm doing this for as many of my students as possible? Is it possible to meet the needs of every student?

Please note: The giraffe and Vygotsky captions are links to cool things...as are the names of my fav authors.