Standard Overview:
The teacher demonstrates knowledge of the underlying principles of how students develop and learn and creates an environment that supports the learning of all students. The teacher sets high expectations based on a conceptual understanding of what is developmentally appropriate for all students. The teacher establishes a learning culture that allows all students to be successful while respecting their differences in learning styles, as well as socioeconomic, cultural and developmental characteristics.
The teachers understanding of the unique characteristics of the learner is evidenced in the design of learning activities which are developmentally appropriate and differentiated to engage all students in the learning process.
Relevant Description:
The self dubbed "Pioneer Club," met once a week over the course of about ten weeks to engage 4 students in differentiated instructed designed to meet their specific "learning differences." The activities always involved a doing or creating activity. One activity the students engaged in was building an "astrolabe" that was going to be theirs to keep and be used in several other activities. The general description of what astrolabe's were and are used for was better demonstrated than explained. The first activity the students used their own astrolabe on an activity designed to show the dramatic changes between height at a distance (a pre-teach of Pythagorean Theorem). In this activity the students used the retractable tape to measure 3 distances on the floor, (5', 10', 15'), the white board had 5 different elevation lines drawn with a "X" to use as a siting point. While one student sited each elevation line the other students recorded the angle from the astrolabe, this continued at each distance. The students were able to make an instant connection between the amount of degree change in relation to the distance change. Even though this connection was made it was difficult to help them make the bigger connection of "triangle theory." This could have been solved over time and with further discovery.
The interaction with students in the small group setting was ideal for the activities and re-teach opportunities that presented themselves. Having the flexibility to allow for student discovery let the students themselves guide the learning by them asking the questions they needed the answers to first and not the facilitator trying to predict where to scaffold learning. This process requires a great deal of patients on the part of the facilitator, which involves students trying to figure it out on their own and possibly failing a few times before they seek guidance, this is hard, but an intricate part of self-development and learning. Students can and do learn adaptive skills this way and generally gravitate toward the learning style that provides them with the greatest amount of success. That is to say when left to figure something out the process of discovery is part of the learning and over scaffolding leads to learned helplessness. If this occurs then students will become reliant on someone else to provide the answers rather than seeking the answers themselves. Knowing how much struggling and muddling the facilitator should allow is dependent on many different independent variables and should be handled case by case, frustration and mild failures lead to resiliency and stronger self-concept when learning is properly scaffolded. Learning the timing of these events is the greatest asset a facilitator can possess. Al Young, wrote a poem in the Herbert Kohl book, Discipline of Hope, and the last line of that poem was, "Remember to fly." This struck me as a very powerful phrase that relates well to the discovery process of learners, as a facilitator of learning we should remind students that they should fly. This phrase never implies that the facilitator needs to teach this skill, just remind the student that it is already within them and they need to remember to fly! There is power in words, especially when those words are of encouragement and praise, which B. F. Skinner says, " The way positive reinforcement is carried out is more important than the amount."
Reflection Analysis:
The activities that I designed for the students were all designed for multiple outcomes and cross-curricular learning. I wanted to help these students take abstract learning and make it concrete and relevant. Understanding that their learning differences require a more diverse delivery of content material by presenting and organizing previously learned concepts in differing mediums. The constructivist ideology in some of these activities that I planned for these students allows them to develop their own ideas about what the answers to the problem might be. When constructing their learning a facilitator must ensure fundamental principles are connected. The student's varied strengths and experiences allowed them to scaffold each other through some of the activities, which built a stronger community of learning for them into other classes.
Plans for Improvement:
There are many things I would do the same and many things I would change, and the single largest factor that needs to change is the needed amount of time. I am finding that culturally responsive teaching with diversified learners requires time to re-teach fundamentals to close skill gaps while at the same time front loading the new skills. Most of this just takes more time not significant changes to the activities. The more hands-on the activity, the greater retention and relevant learning that takes place, so greater emphasis must be placed on gathering present- levels of learning in order to better develop the activities to accommodate the modifications needed. These specific changes are going to be individually determined, but based on my experience with these "pioneers" the greatest need is in the area of organizing processes. Getting them to the level of understanding required to move on was sometimes a mult-stepped process of re-presenting the same idea or content material in different organized patterns (note the patterns for presenting were not usually the same or predictable).
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