Well, duh...

So, I'm kinda of having a duh moment right now. After reading these articles, I first, don't have a whole lot to say because, well, duh...

I just had to...

Duffy's article says to me that teacher adaptation and thinking are one of the best things that can happen in a classroom and that teachers who are compliant, either in curriculum or how the classroom is run, may end up being non-thinkers. Too bad everyone is trying to implement a "perfect method" that would render teacher pretty much useless.

And here's my duh comment...We should all just stand back and let teachers do what they do best!

That is, give them the reins and let them change and adapt and teach how they see their students needing them to. Does this mean all teachers can do this well? Does this mean all teachers care about their students? Does this mean all teachers will adapt and change according to their students' needs?
No. To all. But I believe the majority of teachers can, will and do whatever they can to help their students succeed.

Totally had to

Parsons' "reaction vs. differentiation" was helpful to me. It helped me see that planning is the biggest part of differentiation, not just letting your kids run the show. The clothing analogy has bee very helpful
both in class and in reading.

Here's one of my main beefs with public education: So many rely on state or official test scores to tell how students are doing. I hate this. I (and my boys) suck at test taking. Soooo many different factors can affect the scores: Have I learned how to take this test? Have I had a good

Where's the beef?

breakfast, a good night's sleep? Am I feeling out of it today? Am I bored with sitting in one spot for so long? Is the stuff on the test too hard or too easy for me? Have we even studied this stuff? Am I a good reader, or maybe not so good? Is my neighbor kicking me under the table the whole time? Do you see where I'm going?...

Language, Alive!

Blank Stare

First, the math video was boring and not very helpful. Initially, this was a dry tutorial to be given to adults that want a different way to use fraction manipulatives and wound up on this video by accident. Fine. Don't show this video to a kid. He'll die of boredom and probably confusion. In addition, the first example was a fits-well-together one where the two denominators smoothly fit when combined. The second example was fourths and sevenths (!) with no tutorial on how to first convert the fractions so they could even be combined. I even tried to find another video or something that would be better than this one. I couldn't find one and I won't even bother to put a link here. I don't want you to die.

On the other hand, Kelly's article was illuminating, joyful and enlightening (I did that just to make Kelly smile, but seriously, I enjoyed the reading). By comparing the collaborative translation/language groups with guided reading groups, I had a platform on which to build my understanding. Putting students into groups of the same level of learning with some of the same interests will help foster the translation process. I loved how I could see the groups talking back and forth, volunteering their expertise on different parts of the process. Is this typical of any ELL group or just Latino students?

I also liked that the boys and the girls were divided into groups. After bringing them together, I think this can foster an even further collaboration when the two groups come up with different translations for the same passage/chapter. Why do we not do this with other types of groups or other subjects in our classrooms? Is language translation the only thing that works well with this type of grouping? I noticed they used different words in translation that may have meant the same thing in a dictionary, but used connotatively, were pretty different.

I have read some about English language learners before and find myself encouraging students to go ahead and use their native language if they "get stuck" while reading in English or if they can't get just the right word while writing in English. Do native English speakers go through the same process when learning another language they've been immersed in?

Question: Where can I use this kind of collaboration in my teaching?
                Will it work with any age group, or only those that have already learned to collaborate?
                How can I translate this knowledge into other subjects?

Superfluous

This is not for class. Just for showing off some of my stuff...

Tigerlilies. 6'x4'

Snapdragons 4'x4'

Dragonfly (sold!) 2.5'x3.25'

no title, 5'x6'

Impotent 6'x4'

 No title (but, yes, that's what it is...)   3'x2'


By the way, the pics are all crummy, but I thought I'd show them off anyway! They all look much better in person and I have a ton more...

Thanks for looking!

Backward

Watching these videos was torture. Better to turn off the video and just listen...

Hmmm...I wonder if we teachers should think of ourselves more as coaches of the Game of Life. Maybe this will help us incorporate or diversify our differentiation techniques. Never having been part of a sports team, because I suck at sports, I never thought of coaches as being great differentiators. Thinking about it though, it does seem natural because you can't have half your team sitting out because they are not getting the point of the game.

The point I remember most from all of this is backward design. I've been in a class now for one and a half weeks with the same amount of time to go. The teacher (very thoughtfully) carefully laid out three week's worth of lesson plans for me. What I was unable to find, was the ultimate goal for the students during my three weeks' time with them and the lessons were not making sense to me. They were out of context. She also might not have considered the fact that, even with a guest teacher the students are familiar with, there will be (are!) management issues that sometimes hold the kids back and lessons will have to be reinforced (read: re-taught). Is this where the coaching comes in? Couple this with the fact that I can't see a connection between the lessons I'm giving and the independent math work stations the students are doing. Also, these math lessons are very scripted giving the teacher little wiggle room for presentation and with such a strict schedule that the writers (and

Math

people who advocated for the purchase of this program) must think all teachers are either geniuses and can get the points across with the written script, or so stupid that the only thing that will come across is a scripted math lesson!

So, what to do? I look to the end of the unit, figure out where I'm going and try to teach to that (whew! Alliteration!). When I figured out where the goal was, I had a better idea of how to get there (though I still don't see the connection between lessons and stations...).

With this in mind, I really connected to McTighe's idea of What is the ultimate goal of school? To paraphrase Thomas Jefferson, if children are uneducated, it will cost us in the long run. He hit the nail on the head. Bear with me... I think in terms of backward design when educating my boys. When I say educating, I mean more than subjects taught in school. I teach them everything from monetary responsibility to the consequences of kindness without cause. My ultimate goal, of course, is to mold them into awesome men that are productive and contribute to their society - hopefully the goal of all parents and teachers for all the children they come in contact with. And we bring this goal all the way down through school to kindergarten in teaching them cooperation and not to yell or hit each other: The ultimate backward design.
backward designing all the way up from high school or beyond.

And where does this leave one who is a coach of the Game of Life? Always looking forward and thinking ahead, of course! What I want my students to know tomorrow, I must scaffold on today and what next year's teacher wants them to know will have to grow on what they can learn from me this year. Funny, when you think about it, how a successful adult may partly owe her success to her kindergarten teacher (and her parents!!).