"In our work with teachers, we have found that they do not always agree with one another - or with us - on how tasks should be organized." (pg. 345, Smith & Stein)
This is a great insight to the notion that all students are different, therefore they learn differently. All tasks might not work for all students. This is something that I have been thinking a lot about because of the fact that in my classroom, a textbook is used. Although that might limit some teachers to only using the text giving, my teacher has so many resources that she pulls from to allow high level math students to perform tasks at their level specifically. It's only the 3rd week or so, and she has already sent home alternate homework that she thinks would better suit the students, explaining that the homework given in the teacher book is far too easy for these students to get anything out of it.
I am a little skeptical to see how she makes this work throughout the school year when the students levels will really begin to differentiate and they will be learning something that might be a little different than other students at the same time, being tested at the same time, and still be at a third grade level. I didn't realize that my teacher would send home alternate work so early in the school year, but these student so far have really proved themselves to be at that level, finishing the homework faster than I ever expected.
I think if we learned one thing through all of our TE classes the past 4 years it is how important it is to differentiate instruction. Every student is different from the next and it is important to acknowledge that and also use that in your teaching. My teacher does a great job at using differentiation in her teaching. I still find it hard at times myself. One thing she does is during our Book Clubs, students are placed in a group where they are reading at "their just right level". Students know that they need to be picking books at their right level. She helps guide them to books that are appropriate for them if they are picking books that are too hard/easy for them. I haven't seen her send home any homework that is different yet. We just gave our first math unit 1 test yesterday so she said she will use their scores to help differentiate in math. The students who did poorly on the test will be pulled in a small group and she will reteach the information next week. We use Everyday Mathematics in our school but I was surprised to see how many other places my CT pulls information from to supplement the program.
ReplyDeleteOne thing I also noticed just from looking over the "Everyday Mathematics" curriculum is that there are a few different worksheet options to offer students for the same lesson. It also helps that both my CT and I are able to work with groups of students during math workshop. I have been challenging the group of students that seem to easily comprehend the materials we are studying, allowing him to work with the groups of students that do not.
ReplyDeleteI was able to download the teachers guide electronically onto my computer and there are 3 or 4 worksheets that specifically correspond to each lesson depending on the level of understanding of the individual student. I really liked that and thought that was completely different than before when teachers had to come up with something different everyday.
It is inevitable in any class that there will be students who are at vastly different levels of ability in math. My 3rd grade class also has several students who are fairly high achieving in math, but there are several others who struggle to keep up the work at their grade level. Others are competent in math, but tend to rush through their work and make mistakes that would not have happened if they took their time and worked more carefully. On some of the pages in the Everyday Mathematics Student Math Journals there is a "challenge" section below the regular assignment. My CT always encourages her students to do the challenge problems if they have time. This allows the students who struggle more to take their time and work on the standard problems at their own pace, while more advanced students can have extra problems to extend their thinking beyond what they already know.
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