Differentiated Instruction

January 31, 2018 Will Gourley Assessment, Celebrating Success, Differentiated Instruction, Feedback, General, Mental Health, Professional Judgement, wellness

The Downside

It’s a wonderful time of the year…ish. However, there are a few downsides.
Starting with the scary winter weather commutes, bone-chilling outdoor supervision at -16C, or the daily loss of at least a half hour of instructional time while students remove their winter wear or gear up for recess. Today I was convinced that a child went out for recess and returned as a snowman. It was touch and go whether we would need a lifeguard on duty once all of the snow the students brought inside began to melt.

Then, there’s the realization, that maybe, just maybe I missed assessing something for my upcoming report cards. That sent a shiver down my spine. In my mind I just wrote report cards a few weeks ago. 10 weeks is a few, right?

The end of January signals the half way mark of our instructional year and things are clicking in the classroom. We have our routines back in place, students have shown a lot of growth since September, and there is a feeling of hope in the air at times. Maybe that’s tied to the temperature rising a few degrees and for the days when the trek between the portapack and the main building does not require a Sherpa or tethering students to a guide rope. With chilly temperatures, indoor recesses, and daylight still getting longer, this time of year can sneak up on your mental health and well being to blind side you when your not expecting it.

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Sherpa_Glacier,_Cascades.JPG#file CC BY-SA 4.0

Today, a student was having a bad day. No one saw it coming. I was called into another class to provide support. The student was experiencing an anxiety attack. The entire class was genuinely concerned for them, and offered their support and kind words. Seeing this warmed my heart on a chilly day, but it also screamed about the fragility that exists in our learners. In my opinion, we never get the whole picture of our students lives. Finding time to fit it all in beyond the superficialities is difficult when deadlines and commitments loom.

Although we are in each others’ presence 6+ hours per day, we are often humans doing more so than humans being aware of one another when they are feeling sad, frustrated, or stressed. I am finding it more and more important to let students vent about what is weighing on their minds. Yes, it’s during instructional time, but it is an absolutely integral part of my classroom mental health strategy.

If my students are sharing from their hearts, they will also know they are being heard in a safe and supportive space. If we miss these chances in favour of trudging through the lessons hoping it will just go away, or that the student will get over it in time, then we are at risk of missing our opportunity to help our students when they need us most. There is a downside to this that could lead to depression, disconnection, and despair.

In his 2017 TEDxKitchenerEd Talk, Andrew Campbell shares the reason why he meets his students at the door each day. While watching him share this incredibly personal message, I wondered whether all of the other educators in the theatre wanted to be back at school at that very minute to greet their own students. I know the next day couldn’t come fast enough for me. I wanted to make sure they knew they mattered, that our classroom cared, and that even though we had just started the year, I cared too. It is only through these connections with students that I see any learning made truly possible.

The choice of whether to support, stand still, or dismiss could mean the world of difference to someone who is struggling. Choosing to connect and care over the curriculum at times may be the cure. No downside there.

January 28, 2018October 30, 2018 Deb Weston Differentiated Instruction, Learning About Your Students, Making a Difference Through Education, Special Education, Struggling Readers

The Teacher Who Couldn’t Read

It’s hard to imagine that a school board would every hire a teacher who couldn’t read. Well, if I have been given a reading test past the grade 4 level, I may not have been hired.

I am a teacher with 18 years experience. I am qualified in many areas including Reading, Technology, Math, and Special Education. I have 5 university degrees. But I cannot read well aloud past the grade 4 level, really.

I went through school with an undiagnosed reading disability called Dyslexia. When I read, words and letters move. I have a great difficulty writing and especially when I need to proofread my work. As a student, I was told I was slow … I failed grade one. I was told I made careless mistakes and I was sloppy. Spelling tests were a nightmare for me. Luckily, through lots of hard work and determination and using computers to support me in my work … I am here writing to you today as a teacher.

I’ve written a book about my challenges as a student to help students, teachers, and parents become informed of the challenges faced by struggling readers.

Here’s the link to a PDF download … share it with your students, their parents, and your colleagues.

Remember, everyday students come to school to do their best learning.

Collaboratively Yours,

Deb Weston

Review of The Girl Who Couldn’t Read

The Girl Who Couldn’t Read Friesen Press

December 30, 2017January 1, 2018 Will Gourley Constant Learning, Differentiated Instruction, General, Making a Difference Through Education, Modern Learning, self reflection

The destination

This is the companion post to The drive shared on December 30, 2017. I wrote it because trips are always more fun with a partner.

When I was in grade school, there always seemed to be one adult whose job it was to ask students, “What do want to be when you grow up?” For some reason, this was more of a cruel conundrum rather than a sparkling conversational point. I hated hearing this question in my day. I still cringe whenever it gets asked today. Secretly, I hope students respond with something creative like Unicorn rancher or underwater coffee shop owner – anything will do, as long as it changes the subject.

I see the question more like asking students to pick the trip of their lifetime without ever having a chance to take a Geography lesson, browse a web-site or read any reviews on TripAdvisor.¹ Even though our jobs are to provide and guide our students, we still must let our learners decide their own destination(s).

This is cause for concern because I fear we’re running out of road(s) for some of our learners. For many, the destinations are leading to dead-ends instead of their dreams coming true. If we consider the ruthless nature of the real world our graduates will face, there will be many detours, breakdowns, and accidents outside of the classroom courtesy of life. And yes there will be traffic, road closures, and potholes. This makes it even more crucial for us to be paving new roads with our learners.

It’s hard to drive.
It’s even more difficult to discover what drives us.
Then there’s always the destination where departure times depend.
Decidedly, education helps define destiny and dignity.

Over the past 9 years of my teaching journey, I have sped past a few common sites along the way. Like the repeating background of an old cartoon or the cookie-cutter rest stops that line the highway – each with the same caffeine, food, and fuel options. They are;

A. Our students are taught to worry so much about the destination that they risk getting lost or forgetting the reason for their journey all together. If all they are taught to see is a mark, then it is time to redraw the maps and reprogram the GPS.

B. There is no amount of training to completely equip educators for every iteration of classroom they will work within. Some or most of the learning will come on the job, and that’s okay. Redrawing the map required, again.

C. Worksheets are neither the solution for active engagement, nor parents who demand homework for their child. They are most likely mind-numbing disengagement exercises destined for the recycling bin if not managed. How can students be free to think when the answers are fed to them to regurgitate on a page? Maybe this paper could be used for the maps instead?

D. No matter how much teachers care for their student’s well-being, academic achievement, or future they will still be allowed to fall through the cracks due to decisions made outside of our school walls. This is hard to understand, but we have to accept it and support these students where possible inside of the system.

E. Students have voices that need to be equipped and amplified. If we are not listening to our learners when they whisper, it will be too late to help when they are screaming at us. Asking students for feedback, ideas, and improvements has been one of my favourite and frightening activities. It can hurt the ego from time to time, but can also break down barriers in the classroom that can lead to more effective and honest feedback as learning.

Destination TBA is A-OK

Over the course of their learning, students will change their minds 1000s of times. They will find something interesting one week and then something different the next. What worked to inspire them last year may be the thing that gets in their way the next. As educators, we have to consider the importance of our work in preparing students to reach their destinations not ours. We must always be creating new roads for them to travel not just maintaining existing ones. We must also be teaching our students to read and draw the maps to their own future.

There will also be slamming brakes, reversing at full speed, doing donuts in snowy parking lots, and tearing out engines for rebuilding. We will fill their tanks, provide directions, and clean windshields. Yet, as elementary teachers, we rarely get to see our impact on students once they’ve traveled further down life’s roads.

Hopefully, they’ll send an occasional postcard and maybe a map to let us know they’ve arrived at their destination.

1. I used to tell people corporate lawyer so they would leave me alone. It seemed to cover all of the bases even though I would have rather pursued diplomatic or NGO work overseas. And now, here I am – a teacher, writer, and question askerer.

December 30, 2017January 8, 2018 Will Gourley Challenging Topics, Constant Learning, Differentiated Instruction, General, Making a Difference Through Education, Modern Learning, self reflection

The drive

Hands up if you’ve ever wondered what goes on in the minds of the drivers on the road around you?

Recent commutes to school and to shopping feel more like scenes out of a Mad Max movie, except with snow storms instead of sand storms. Vehicles speeding, tailgating, weaving, cutting one another off, and then there were some drivers who provided visual proof that not all birds have flown south this winter. However, none of this reflects anything close to the spirit of kindness and giving this season is supposed to celebrate.

Lately, a combination of work-life/Geo-political stress, an over-abundance of festivities/holiday cheeriness, and wintry weather have made people significantly more interesting. And by interesting, I mean disagreeable, distracted and sometimes dangerous. Being easily distracted myself, I started thinking about self-driving cars and how an autonomous vehicle would handle this time of year?¹

Then came a realization that our current cohort of elementary students could be among the first to have self-driving cars by the time they get their driver’s licences. Will this be a good thing or will a Neo-Luddite backlash prevent this particular advancement in technology from coming? What about education? Could classrooms become more autonomous too?

Why hasn’t all of this happened sooner when it could be better and safer for everyone? Are there Edu-Luddites at work trying to preserve exhausted and traditional systems? As education ploughs into this century, will it keep pace with a modern world that is changing at the speed of learning? Will broke down dogmas of teach, test, report, and repeat finally be traded-in, repaired, or left on the side of the road? Is this why NASCAR is so popular?

Getting somewhere

Speaking of NASCAR, I wondered whether everyone travelling at the same rate was a good idea. Did you know there is something called a restrictor-plate? Isn’t that what’s happening in our classrooms already? Students race through their learning based on birth years, circling the track over and over until all of their age appropriate laps are completed, and then they’re towed or driven off at the end of Grade 12.

But what if they need to stop along the way? Are there pit-stops/provisions in place to support students who do not fit the factory learning model or who prefer a different pace? I get that special and alternative education options are already available, but what if more students need them and they are not available? Think of a racer who needs tires and gas at a pit-stop, but only being able to choose one. It’s only a matter of time before frustration and failure become the outcomes.

In my next post I want to continue driving home this theme, but will shift gears to consider where we and our students are heading. Please read my companion piece The destination to continue the journey.

Thank you for reading. I hope you enjoyed it. Please share and take time to comment.

1. Did you know that Tesla’s autonomous vehicles are logging over a million miles of data per day?

December 22, 2017December 22, 2017 Tammy Axt Differentiated Instruction, Diverse Learning Needs, General

Modifying music for a student with special needs

I have been working with the amazing ERF Ms. B to develop a program for one of my students with autism who is in my mainstream grade four classroom. This student has so many talents and I feel that the program that we have developed for him is allowing him to show his talents to us and his peers. He is very limited verbally, so we have focused on playing the xylophone and recorder and using technology, which he is excelling at. The predictability of the routine has also supported him in his success.

The period is broken down into four parts for him.

Part One- Warm up

All of the students in grade four have been working on playing the recorder in November and December. At the beginning of every period, we sit together and do some simple warm ups with the notes B, A, G, E and D. My student with autism joins us for the warm up and, with assistance from Ms. B, plays at the same time as the rest of the class but not necessarily the same notes. This warm up is usually just a few minutes long.

Part Two- Independent Work/Peer Assessment/Creation Time

All of the students in the class are working on a variety of songs at their own level. At this point in the class, I am giving individual students feedback, pulling small groups for guided instruction and assessing the students’ ability to read and play a variety of pieces of music. Ms. B works with my student to play the same songs as the rest of the students. His music just looks a little different.

Each colour represents a bar on a xylophone and the black bars are for rests and extended notes. The little notes are for eighth notes so that he plays them more quickly. You can see below him working with Ms. B.

In addition to playing for Ms. B, we have also recently done peer listening assessments in my class. The students were required to play for five other students so that they could listen to feedback from others. You can see how I have modified the assignment from the recorder to the xylophone for this student.

Recorder

Xylophone

During this time, students are also required to write some of their own music. I have simply written out some blank squares and had this student colour in some choices and play it for me.

Part three- Rhythm Games

On my iPad, I have loaded some rhythm games for my student to play. The game below is Rhythm Cat, which many of my students really enjoy playing. Ms. B uses a timer so that there is a visual cue for the time allowed on the iPad. The rest of the class does some sharing during this time.

Part Four-Tidy up and celebration

This year I have made a celebration wall to acknowledge the achievements of my students. My students have signed the coloured paper that coordinates with the song they have successfully played. By playing the xylophone with colour coded bars, my amazing student has passed the first three songs and is working on the fourth, which is right on par with his classmates. He has signed his name happily and his classmates have cheered him on every step of the way!

December 12, 2017December 12, 2017 Deb Weston Differentiated Instruction, Diverse Learning Needs, Math, Resilience

Math Instruction for Struggling Readers

$42d13283546edcd4684f24d2297a9257--math-books-reading-books$

As a learner, have you ever felt really frustrated because you know you can do the work but you just have a barrier that prevent you from moving forward?

This is how struggling readers feel when they try to complete their math assignments and assessments but cannot read the words. Did you know that most content area text, including social studies, science, and math, are written several reading levels higher than where the students are at in reading? Did you know that most students are introduced to 1000 to 2000 new vocabulary words per each year? (Harmon et. al., 2005).

The reality is that in order to do math, students need to be relatively good readers.

In order to put you, the reader of this blog, into the perspective of a struggling learner, I’ve included some simulations below.

Try them and experience what your struggling student readers experience when doing their math work!

Reading Issues Simulation

Experiencing Math Issues

Experiencing Attention Issues

Experiencing Organization Issues

Experiencing Writing Issues

So, as a teacher, how do you support students with struggling readers in math? In order to support struggling readers, teachers need to understand their students’ deficits and strengths!

Math challenges faced by students with reading disabilities

Understanding the math questions due to weak phonemic awareness and decoding strategies
Dealing with math vocabulary
Movement and/or reversals of text & numbers
Remembering dates, names, numbers, list that lack context (i.e. random)
Processing during tests & assessments
Limited executive function due to brain function being used to read text
Challenges with rote learning such as math facts

Strengths of students with reading disabilities

Curiosity, gets new concepts linked to meaning
Enjoys puzzles & building models
Excellent thinking skills in comprehension, reasoning, & abstraction
Excellent listening memory
High success with practicing reading in subject-area vocabulary
Often excels in subjects not linked to reading such as math, computers, visual arts, science, and other conceptual subjects

By understanding students’ deficits and strengths, teachers can build on this understanding to help struggling readers excel in math.

Supporting students with reading disabilities

Use decodable, easy to read, text and sight words in math problems
Engage students curiosity so they can explore the meaning of new concepts
Use puzzles & show models to solve math problems
Teach math through discussions and group work to take advantage of excellent listening memory
Explicitly teach and support math vocabulary with a visual math wall and math dictionary
Extra processing time during class work and assessments
Take advantage of students’ excellent thinking skills in comprehension, reasoning, and abstraction
Support learning with assistive technology (e.g. Google Read/Write & Open Dyslexic font)

As I am a teacher with a reading disability (i.e. dyslexia), colleagues have often asked what it it like to be dyslexic … well, I found a website that simulates dyslexia. After showing colleagues my world of reading, I explain that I have developed strategies to read like reading words as pictures and reading conceptually. Students will develop their own strategies through hard work and resilience.

Check Out the Dyslexic Reality Here!

Using an adaptive font can significantly help students to deal with word and letter reversals. I use an Open Dyslexic font on my web browsers and in my word documents.

OpenSource Dyslexic Font

As a teacher, I ask you to be patient with your students who are struggling readers because with work and effort, one day they will become strong readers …. because not all students are good readers … yet!

Collaboratively Yours,

Deb Weston

References

Harmon, J. M., Hedrick, W. B., & Wood, K. D. (2005). Research on vocabulary instruction in the content areas: Implications for struggling readers. Reading & Writing Quarterly, 21(3), 261-280.

What it’s really like to read with dyslexia

November 30, 2017December 1, 2017 Will Gourley Celebrating Success, Constant Learning, Differentiated Instruction, General, Modern Learning

Learning to swim

https://www.flickr.com/photos/eviltomthai/5129962638 CC By 2.0

I remember laughing when our teacher taught us that fish swim in schools. You know how kindergarten students think, right? Naturally, I wondered which classroom at my school held the aquarium? Would dolphins be there too? Then came the cruelest lesson of all; dolphins are not fish. Why was I even there?

All these years later, I understand that we were the fish in that educational ocean. We were taught to swim in a school at school zigging back and forth as if in a constantly choreographed current. Sit here, read this, write this, stand here, go there, eat, play, run, think, solve this, and repeat.

We were learning to swim in our little school to survive life. Zagging in and out of the doors and halls from class to class like small fish between coral reefs and vegetation.

We swam for all of our might and soon discovered 2 things; the current kept getting stronger, and that danger was always lurking in the water. Without learning to swim, we were at risk of being singled out, devoured, or even worse, drowning. Yup, fish can drown…kinda.

The reality that fish can drown(suffocate) makes me think that even when students seem like they are swimming along fine, they could still be at risk. How we teach our learners to swim and navigate the waters comes with equal parts skill, frustration, and grace too (thanks to the Tragically Hip). So are we teaching our students to swim for their lives, or are we over fishing them to death with rote lessons, busy work, and too many assessments?

When Giovanni Caboto, aka John Cabot, and his crew discovered the rich stocks of cod fish off of the Grand Banks he told the King of England that there would be enough fish to feed the kingdom until the end of time.

Little did he know that within a 500 hundred years, the Grand Banks would become over fished and the cod population was nearly decimated. The lessons learned over the past two hundred years in education are caught in a similar net.

Our students are over tested. The system has cast the same catch-all nets for too long. They feel too much stress, and they see the world of their future as a total mess. The oceans they’re inheriting are clogged with the debris left behind by their predecessors. Remember, these are the same people who gave us standardized testing, drill and kill Math, regurgitated learning, and grammar police state nightmares in both official languages.

Ironically now, there is also a figurative and literal garbage patch to clean up thanks to current education systems and its ancestors. What was once a thriving home full of opportunities and diversity is now a murky, polluted, and estranged place. Insert image of bleached coral here.

What I fear the most is that our students’ reasons for learning are disappearing like the cod on the Grand Banks. Without an intervention, the desire to learn that is coded into our youth faces extinction too. Can we revive this generation of learners by teaching them to swim, by cleaning their waters, and providing the safe habitat for them to thrive?

October 22, 2017October 22, 2017 Deb Weston Differentiated Instruction, Diverse Learning Needs, Planning

What 21st Century Learning Looks Like in 2017

While considering what 21st Century looks like to teachers, students, and in classroom, my Primary/Junior Math AQ colleagues, Ms. Sicondolfo, Ms. Hawkyard and I, developed this summary.

This summary has helped me consider how modern learning looks in 2017.

What 21st Century Learning Looks Like in 2017 chart

This work was inspired by Peel District School Board’s Empowering Modern Learners #peel21st.

May 2, 2017 Mike Beetham Assessment, Challenging Topics, Combined Grade Classes, Differentiated Instruction, Diverse Learning Needs, English As Second Language (ESL), General, Math, Professional Learning and Growth, Resources

Overcoming Math Phobia

A phobia is defined as an extreme fear or aversion to something. This can often be associated with mathematics both by students and teachers alike. Human nature is such that when we feel we are not good at something, we therefore can’t be successful at it and we tend to avoid that what we will fail at. This self-fulfilling prophecy is often alive and well in a teacher’s or student’s thoughts.

I will be the first to say that at an earlier stage of my career I was very uncomfortable and unsure of myself when teaching mathematics. Sure I knew how to do math, but did I know how to teach something I was not very comfortable with. I had to do something to ensure that my skills and pedagogy were improving. Thus began a voyage of self-learning or self-guided professional development. Now, twenty-five years later I am still on that journey of learning about how to best teach mathematics so that my students learn and are engaged in their world that is so filled with math.

As with anything else you must find the right tool or vehicle for learning. I attended as many workshops as I could on mathematics. The Waterloo Region District School Board offers a wealth of learning opportunities for their teachers as does ETFO and the Ontario Association for Mathematics Education (OAME) (http://www.oame.on.ca/main/index1.phplang=en&code=home).

These are several key areas where you can start your journey of learning. I would like to share three key resources that have helped me become a more efficient and knowledgeable mathematics teachers. The first is the work of Dr. Catherine Twomey Fosnot. Her work and approach to the instruction of mathematics is the number one influence I attribute to my growth in mathematical instruction. I attended several of her sessions as well as visiting her site in Harlem. I would highly recommend her series ‘Young Mathematicians at Work’ as a classroom resource.

The second most useful tool I have come upon is the series entitled Super Source. There are many reasons why I like this resource. The first is the rich problem solving tasks that are in each book. There are a variety of tasks and each task is connected to an area of mathematics where it can be used like number sense or patterning. There is a book written for each type of manipulative (Base 10, Pattern Blocks, Tangrams etc…). The most valuable asset of this resource is that there is a section where the mathematics behind each task is explained to the educator (the big ideas) as well as suggestions on how to bring out the math in your students. As with any resource this provides a jumping on point where a teacher can then adapt the task to meet their needs.

The final resource I would like to share with you is one of the many works of Van de Walle. I used this resource as a teaching tool for myself. It helped me understand the concepts I was teaching and how to bring out both a level of engagement as well as a deeper understanding of mathematics in my students. I hope these resources prove to be as valuable a tool to you as they are for me in my teaching of mathematics.

April 21, 2017 Mike Beetham Challenging Topics, Classroom Management, Differentiated Instruction, Diverse Learning Needs, Learning About Your Students, Learning in a Real Life Context

Emotions, Context and the Reluctant Writer

One of the biggest challenges I face is getting my students to enjoy and take risks with writing. Too often they get bogged down with the fear of not knowing what to write or nervous about experimenting with vocabulary they do not know how to spell. There are two critical approaches I take in helping my very reluctant writers to engage in the writing process. The first is to help them understand the stages of writing (Idea, Plan, Draft, Edit/Revise, Publish and Share). Each stage is explored and its purpose discussed and demonstrated in multiple ways. Once a student understands that the edit/revise stage occurs after you are able to get your ideas, thoughts and/or feelings into print form they become more likely to take risks in getting their ideas out. When they give themselves permission to let their ideas free flow without word-by-word critiquing, the quantity and quality of their work improves. A completed draft version allows them to separate I have good ideas and can write from I need help in making sure my writing is correct and ready to share with others. I also experience a huge drop off in the question “How do you spell _____________”. That focus typically grinds the creative process to a complete halt.

The second element that greatly assists me in helping my reluctant writers is to as often as possible design a writing focus around an event relevant to their life. This may be something going on in their school community like writing a persuasive writing piece on allowing students to wear hats in school. It may be a news event from their community or a global situation that will help connect my students to a bigger audience.

Several years ago when the Chilean mining catastrophe occurred we had taken time to have it as a part of our morning circle conversation. That lead to a brainstorming session on what might we do to help out. The final decision was that we could write letters of support to them. I found the address to the Chilean Embassy in Ottawa and we mailed our letters to them. The power of the contextual relevance automatically tapped into their emotions. When emotions are involved in the learning process the lesson, the message, the focus becomes more consolidated in their cognitive realm. A magical bonus on this project was that my class received a letter from the Chilean Embassy acknowledging our letters and honouring the efforts of my students. Our next writing unit was accepted with little or no resistance.