For my first lesson I did a review of the chapters of The Giver that we had read so far as a class. The review was structured around the fact that I had noticed that the students had a disconnect between the text and questions they were asked. It seemed that the students did not really understand that when a question is asked it is often directly stated in the text especially when it is a content related question. Or the students simply did not want to look to the text. Regardless I designed a review activity to deal with both issues.
The review activity was that students had a set of questions that were on slips of paper in a bag in the middle of a group of four. The students also had a chart that had question numbers and then corresponding page numbers on which the answer would be found in each box on the chart. The students had too choose a question and then find it's number on the chart and then turn to the corresponding page in the book to quote the answer from the text. As the students worked, I traveled around the room to assist in their small groups.
Observations from 7B Video Recording:
I noticed that I smile a lot when I am talking to the students. I also either kneel or sit in a chair at their group so that I am on the same level as them thus giving a sense of working together rather than instructing. The students enjoyed the competition of searching for the answers and demonstrated this by encouraging each other to work faster. The students would say things like OOOHHH I found it, middle of the page! This was encouraging for me. The students demonstrated their engagement in the material by completing almost the entire chart. I noticed that at the end of the lesson I did some sort of weird voice intonation increase that is very unlike me and I need to not do because I believe it would be highly annoying.
Observations from 7A Video Recording:
I noticed that this class was much more against the assignment and showed by dramatic eye rolling and comments such as "But we've already read this." that they were not thrilled about returning to the text. There were several instances in the class where a student called me over to argue a point with them or a wording of a question. I think that my responses to the students were successful because instead of arguing back with them I just asked them more questions and got them to realize the detail they were actually looking for. It was nice when the students saw the "AH HA" moment and realized that they were arguing just to argue. The lower level students required more guidance and I could hear them getting off track until I came around to them on the video tape. This explains why the higher performing groups were able to finish their material and self-focus.
Observation from 8B Warm-Up Recording:
I had begun using the strategy Cold Call with the students. I noticed that I tend to call on the same students and that I call on students whose names are easier to pronounce. So, I ultimately reverted to just calling on the students who raised their hands. I remember feeling nervous about saying the students' names wrong. This was evidenced in the fact that I would gesture somewhat shyly toward the students who raised their hand or make eye contact with them when I was unsure of how to say there names. I did however intentionally state that "I need a volunteer" rather than requesting one. The Cold Call strategy did work in the fact that I was able to call on students randomly and they responded. I need to improve my confidence in pronouncing the students' names.
Monday, October 17, 2011
Thursday, October 13, 2011
Wanted to share a link to my published article: @TeachPaperless.blogspot.com
To Have a Digital Soul
Margaret Roth is a secondary school teaching intern in Baltimore City Public Schools. An MAT candidate at Johns Hopkins, Margaret is interested in leadership and all sorts of avenues of education beyond the traditional classroom. This piece came out of her work in my Paperless Classroom course at Hopkins; it's context is Baltimore, but the theme is pretty universal. I thought it would make a good fit in the pages of this blog, and so I offer it to you. To read more of Margaret's writing, check out her blog: teachingdaisies. -- Shelly
Is there a place for 21st Century Technology in Baltimore City Public Schools?
This is a stupid question. Of course, there is place for social media and digital technologies in Baltimore City Public Schools, maybe not that there is a place, but there should be - there has to be, and we, as educators and parents, have to make it.
I have spent the last five weeks of my life in a class titled “The Paperless Classroom.” Day one I was told to make a Twitter, a freaking Twitter. At first I freaked out and I grasped for remnants of my pre-college too-cool-for-Facebook-MySpace-
Yet, this digital world is being made inaccessible to our students.
This is a stupid question. Of course, there is place for social media and digital technologies in Baltimore City Public Schools, maybe not that there is a place, but there should be - there has to be, and we, as educators and parents, have to make it.
I have spent the last five weeks of my life in a class titled “The Paperless Classroom.” Day one I was told to make a Twitter, a freaking Twitter. At first I freaked out and I grasped for remnants of my pre-college too-cool-for-Facebook-MySpace-
Yet, this digital world is being made inaccessible to our students.
Why do we send our children to school, if we are not going to let them learn to breathe on the outside? If we send students to school to lock them up in a building, to take away their phones, to restrict them with web filters, to forbid our teachers from forming relationships with them, what are we teaching them?
Nothing.
Nothing but to be afraid of the rest of the world, that the rest of the world and the digital universe are only there to hurt them. We are cultivating ignorance by fueling our students with disconnect and starving them with a lack of resources.
Right now we have the opportunity to give students a global classroom, to connect them with the rest of the world, all of our history, and all of our future. If we don’t make changes and get our students connected to this digital world, we will leave them behind, without a chance of changing. Students in this city have enough problems when they start out, they are already dealing with things that no child deserves to face. How can we knowingly deprive them of the resources to make themselves better?
Our students have the right to extend themselves and we have the responsibility to give them the tools to do so. To extend themselves they need to have an understanding of digital technology, they need to create and have an ownership of their digital soul.
Right now we have the opportunity to give students a global classroom, to connect them with the rest of the world, all of our history, and all of our future. If we don’t make changes and get our students connected to this digital world, we will leave them behind, without a chance of changing. Students in this city have enough problems when they start out, they are already dealing with things that no child deserves to face. How can we knowingly deprive them of the resources to make themselves better?
Our students have the right to extend themselves and we have the responsibility to give them the tools to do so. To extend themselves they need to have an understanding of digital technology, they need to create and have an ownership of their digital soul.
We need to start acknowledging the fact that what we do and experience digitally defines us just as much as the things that we do in our sensory life; that the comments we leave on a website, or photos we upload, are a digital record of ourselves - they are the ultimate journal, a record of our thoughts, saved universally, something that we can never loose, showing how we grow, and pending disaster, never erase. We need to embrace the fact that there is nothing wrong with this - we need to quit teaching our children to be afraid of this.
The digital soul -- the record of ourselves and the redefinition of our personal space -- may be the most important advantage of social media and digital technology.
But due to the culturally created fear and the resistance of our current school policies to change, we have limited not only our own lives but the opportunities for the success of our students. Unless we enable them to move into the 21st century classroom, we are locking them out of success in our rapidly changing world, we are leaving them on the wrong side of a rapidly rising wall - a wall that they can not even see.
Baltimore City students see enough walls. We have to give them the tools to build a place in the digital universe where their digital souls can be just as real as the ones we see dreaming inside of them.
Permanence - the state of being of remaining unchanged forever
Why are students afraid to write?
Permanence
What has made students afraid to write?
I was searching around for good educational blogs to use as a model and of course stumbled across the Edublog awards. This one won for most Influential Blog Post and reminded me of something I had been fighting with last week. http://fnoschese.wordpress.com/2010/08/06/the-2-interactive-whiteboard/
Permanence
What has made students afraid to write?
I was searching around for good educational blogs to use as a model and of course stumbled across the Edublog awards. This one won for most Influential Blog Post and reminded me of something I had been fighting with last week. http://fnoschese.wordpress.com/2010/08/06/the-2-interactive-whiteboard/
"The Stirrings" - A comment on maturity
My co-teacher and I seem to have a particularly, how do you say this, young in their maturity, group of seventh graders. If you read this title and knew immediately what "The Stirrings" are, then you knew that we are reading Lois Lowry's The Giver. If you didn't know this, I will briefly explain.
The Giver is a story about a boy who lives in an allegedly utopian society. In this society that are tons and tons of rules and strange regulations that the people follow. The people in this society also have a "cure" or prevention medication for virtually everything, including what they call "the stirrings" - what we know as the first throws of puberty and simply being attracted to others. In the novel the main character has his first stirrings in the form of a dream. In the book the character has to describe his dream in detail to his family as part of a morning ritual. He describes his desires and feelings for a friend of his, a young girl, to take off her clothes and get into a bathtub so that he can bathe her. She laughingly refuses.
This description caused an uproar of discomfort and horror in some of the students, let me change that to nearly all of the students. Mind you, these students are between the ages of 11 to 13, you would think they would know about these things, or try to act cool like they know about these things, or just do something other than cringe and say how "messed up" and "disgusting" it is. This rose a question - Is this saying something about their group morality or their group mentality?
Personally, I have concluded it is the latter. These students are in a unique situation. They attend an elementary/middle school where the majority of the students have attended the same school since it open when they were in the second grade. If you have known your classmates for the last six years, I feel that the sexual interest in the community would be rather low, and from what I have noticed there is not much discussion of crushes, boyfriends, and girlfriends.
I think that due to the fact that these students have not had the forced maturity increase that is caused by moving to a new school environment for middle school, or the experience of having new students, and therefore new opinions and expectations, brought into their learning environment, they have never had to change very much. Their maturity is only affected by each other and the teachers they see. This likely has an impact on why they dislike it when a teacher has higher or just different expectations of them than from the previous year. They have not had to change or mature very often.
It would be interesting to find out if this is true in other schools, I highly doubt it is just this one. I believe that maturity is a function of new interactions and change. When your youth is limited in these types of influences, it is hard to mature yourself, I think it is good to remember this when someday I am expecting a great difference from my students than their other teachers may have expected in their past.
That is the point right there isn't it - THEIR PAST. This is what influences and changes a student's learning style, what they can handle, what they will listen to, what they won't freak out about. I hope that we are able to move through "the stirrings" and they begin to understand why this is so controversial.
One other thing - it was impossible to make it through a paragraph where the word naked was used without fits of giggles or horror. It was hysterical. I am really glad that it happened to be my turn in my reading group when we got to that part. I think to hear a teacher say it made it even more crazy for the students. The students are just so funny.
The Giver is a story about a boy who lives in an allegedly utopian society. In this society that are tons and tons of rules and strange regulations that the people follow. The people in this society also have a "cure" or prevention medication for virtually everything, including what they call "the stirrings" - what we know as the first throws of puberty and simply being attracted to others. In the novel the main character has his first stirrings in the form of a dream. In the book the character has to describe his dream in detail to his family as part of a morning ritual. He describes his desires and feelings for a friend of his, a young girl, to take off her clothes and get into a bathtub so that he can bathe her. She laughingly refuses.
This description caused an uproar of discomfort and horror in some of the students, let me change that to nearly all of the students. Mind you, these students are between the ages of 11 to 13, you would think they would know about these things, or try to act cool like they know about these things, or just do something other than cringe and say how "messed up" and "disgusting" it is. This rose a question - Is this saying something about their group morality or their group mentality?
Personally, I have concluded it is the latter. These students are in a unique situation. They attend an elementary/middle school where the majority of the students have attended the same school since it open when they were in the second grade. If you have known your classmates for the last six years, I feel that the sexual interest in the community would be rather low, and from what I have noticed there is not much discussion of crushes, boyfriends, and girlfriends.
I think that due to the fact that these students have not had the forced maturity increase that is caused by moving to a new school environment for middle school, or the experience of having new students, and therefore new opinions and expectations, brought into their learning environment, they have never had to change very much. Their maturity is only affected by each other and the teachers they see. This likely has an impact on why they dislike it when a teacher has higher or just different expectations of them than from the previous year. They have not had to change or mature very often.
It would be interesting to find out if this is true in other schools, I highly doubt it is just this one. I believe that maturity is a function of new interactions and change. When your youth is limited in these types of influences, it is hard to mature yourself, I think it is good to remember this when someday I am expecting a great difference from my students than their other teachers may have expected in their past.
That is the point right there isn't it - THEIR PAST. This is what influences and changes a student's learning style, what they can handle, what they will listen to, what they won't freak out about. I hope that we are able to move through "the stirrings" and they begin to understand why this is so controversial.
One other thing - it was impossible to make it through a paragraph where the word naked was used without fits of giggles or horror. It was hysterical. I am really glad that it happened to be my turn in my reading group when we got to that part. I think to hear a teacher say it made it even more crazy for the students. The students are just so funny.
Monday, October 10, 2011
Response to a Class Discussion
There were several ideas discussed in today's class that I were particularly drawn to and it is interesting the ways in which they melded together in seemingly unintentional ways. We first took a personality type style “teaching philosophy” test. This test was designed to calculate our teaching style. The part that was particularly interesting was the way in which we were able to first negatively react to our results and then have the opportunity to analyze three different teachers execute and perform their teaching style in their own way as they taught us throughout the class. I also thought that it was interesting how again we discussed the idea of “start with the end in mind.” This brought us to a discussion of our portfolios that we will have to make by the end of the year. The point of the end of the year is what actually struck me. Is that really “the end” we should have in mind? This led me to realize that by saying that the end of the year is my goal, the inherent value of a course is lessened. It should not be about reaching a time point but rather a state of mind. It is the same with our students, the end is summer break. Wrong. The end should be college, grad school, the workforce, what you want to do with your life. We as students and teachers do not know what the end is, what it is supposed to be, what it is personally. We need to be able to identify that, so that the goal is not “next fall” but something bigger. Brandon seemed to wrap this up in a shell for us at the end. He left us with a stunning point, of course he was talking about how long until the Common Core will show positive results and really start working, but a stunning point none the less – that we have to wait for enduring understandings, that we have to be in this for the long haul.
Sunday, October 2, 2011
Notes on Graphic Organizers and RTI
Educational Alternatives Connect the Dots #3: Responsiveness to Intervention
Margaret Roth
September 28,2011
Reading Assignment for Connect the Dots #3 includes:
Chapters 4 and 5 from Inclusion: Effective Practices for All Students
What We Need to Know About Responsiveness to Intervention (and Shouldn’t be Afraid to Ask)
Is Response to Intervention Good Policy for Specific Learning Disability?
Assignment: Discuss the two methods of identification of learning disabilities and how a shift to RTI has changed practice in schools. Which characteristics of learning disabilities might present the biggest challenge to you in the classroom; discuss why and which effective teaching strategy you would choose to address the issues.
Response:
It seems that the overall reaction to the shift to RTI in regards to the way it is instituted in schools, the success of students with disabilities, and the effect on the teachers and students in the general education classroom has been positive. Even through there are many different challenges that may arise with the inclusion of students with disabilities in the classroom, the overall results are extremely beneficial for all parties involved, including the teacher and the students. With conscientious attention and an open mind for creativity and challenges, RTI and inclusion practices can have great impacts for all aspects of the educational system both inside and outside the classroom.
There are two methods of identifying leaning disabilities - Severe Discrepancy and Response to Intervention. The first has been generally replaced by the second for many reasons. The Severe Discrepancy method is defined as a determination of disability through the “severe discrepancy between the student’s expected achievement level and actual achievement level (Inclusion 82).” In general this method utilizes elements like student performance on class tests and standardized tests in comparison to other students in that grade level to determine if there is a severe difference in a student’s performance. If a severe discrepancy in academic performance is identified, other factors including other disabilities, culture, truancy, language issues, poor quality teachers, or low economic status, can be eliminated as causing the discrepancy then the student can be identified as having a learning disability. The major problem with this method of identifying a learning discrepancy is that a student has to fall severely behind their peers before their learning disability can be identified. An additionally issue is that that this method is not necessarily as quantitative and universally applicable as professionals would like them to be and therefore there is not a generally accepted and systematic way of identifying a learning disability with this method.
The second method of identifying a learning disability is the Response-to-Intervention approach also uses the principle of identifying learning disabilities through unexpected low academic performance. However, in this method prevention is at the forefront of the teacher’s minds from the beginning of their experience with their students. Teachers try to identify students who are struggling at the beginning rather than waiting for the accumulation of test materials. When a teacher identifies such students they attempt to reach the students using more small group instruction, structured teaching, tutoring, and other accommodating methods. If a student is still struggling with these accommodations, they receive “intensive, individualized interventions using highly effective instruction and fr equent monitoring of student progress (Inclusion 84).” If none of these methods work, other causes have likely been eliminated and then the student is reviewed for identification with a learning disability. This approach enables an individualized approach to the identification of learning disabilities and prevents students from falling behind and potentially ruining their educational opportunities.
The shift to RTI has had many impacts on school systems and the general classroom. There are many additionally services provided to students as a result of RTI, many classrooms have more adults in them through the positions of paraprofessionals and special education teachers thus benefiting all students, more students are identified with a learning disability at an earlier age thus receiving a more tailored education, learning experiences are more engaging and are designed to incorporate multiple intelligences, and most importantly it has made teachers and administrators more accountable for the education and inclusion of students with learning disabilities into the schools.
There are many possible issues that could arise with learning disabled students in the general education classroom. The main issues include but are not limited to “oral expression, listening comprehension, written expression, basic reading skills, reading fluency skills, reading comprehension, mathematics calculation, and mathematics problem solving (Inclusion 86).” These issues are based in the cognitive deficits of memory problems, attention problems, and metacognitive problems, or in social and motivational problems which students face when they have a learning disability. The characteristic of learning disabilities that will likely pose the greatest challenge to me as an English Language Arts Middle School teacher is the characteristic of problems with reading comprehension. This is due to the fact that reading comprehension, at least the way I see it, is the basis of Language Arts material, as demonstrated by curriculum, standardized tests, the general concepts of literacy and literature in the English language, and most importantly (as having an eye on the end game is) acceptance to college and higher education for all students. Reading comprehension not only enables students to understand specific texts and materials, but it enables students to reach higher into the body of academic and life knowledge. Without being able to successfully comprehend what they read, students will not be able to answer questions and make connections to the world in their readings, let alone excel in their academic pursuits.
Through my personal experience both as a student, a teacher, and a learner, I believe that the best way to help students improve their reading comprehension is by utilizing graphic organizers and concept maps. Through these visual aids students are able to associate not just a picture or image with a text or story but a sense of flow and connection with the material. By creating the graphic organizer the students are able to have a feeling of tangibility of the material, and associate a process with the material. As students use the form or review the graphics over and over again they develop an imprinting of the skills and the process in their minds. For students who excel at writing, they are also able to take an active role in creating their graphic organizer. Most importantly, this method is extremely effective due to the fact that the brain is designed as an organizational system. Therefore, by initiating this organization using a tangible and active methodology, student reading comprehension can be increased and all students will benefit. Personally, I believe that (and have every intention of implementing this belief in my work with my students) using graphic organizers is not just about having a visual to associate with the text, and this is where the strategy can fall short into ineffectiveness. I believe that it is more about figuring out ways to effectively replicate the brain’s organizational pathways and nuances into a physical form so that the two can be aligned in processing and thus aligned to facilitate comprehension. It does a student no good if they are trying to remember material and trying to learn a new way of structuring material at the same time. This is where further discrepancies and confusion can and do occur. Therefore it is essential that graphic organizers are designed with great attention to detail and flow and with the students’ mind and capability levels in mind. Through every step of the process.
Additionally, I believe that a great challenge is reaching the student with ADHD in a constructive way and helping to incorporate them into the learning environment. I think that in many ways students with ADHD are put to the wayside and disciplined unfairly due to the fact that teachers find it easier to ignore them than to try to reach them. I see it as a personal challenge. I think that it is not only essential in order to reach ADHD students by keeping things moving and interesting and physically engaging, but that ultimately the rest of a class of students will be more engaged and excited about learning if these kind of accommodations are made.
Ultimately, I believe that the inclusion of students with learning disabilities ultimately helps the entire learning environment because it forces teachers to mix it up - to change the way they do things - to be innovative and try out things that the students have never seen before. I see it as nothing but beneficial if a teacher is willing to take on the challenge.
Margaret Roth
September 28,2011
Reading Assignment for Connect the Dots #3 includes:
Chapters 4 and 5 from Inclusion: Effective Practices for All Students
What We Need to Know About Responsiveness to Intervention (and Shouldn’t be Afraid to Ask)
Is Response to Intervention Good Policy for Specific Learning Disability?
Assignment: Discuss the two methods of identification of learning disabilities and how a shift to RTI has changed practice in schools. Which characteristics of learning disabilities might present the biggest challenge to you in the classroom; discuss why and which effective teaching strategy you would choose to address the issues.
Response:
It seems that the overall reaction to the shift to RTI in regards to the way it is instituted in schools, the success of students with disabilities, and the effect on the teachers and students in the general education classroom has been positive. Even through there are many different challenges that may arise with the inclusion of students with disabilities in the classroom, the overall results are extremely beneficial for all parties involved, including the teacher and the students. With conscientious attention and an open mind for creativity and challenges, RTI and inclusion practices can have great impacts for all aspects of the educational system both inside and outside the classroom.
There are two methods of identifying leaning disabilities - Severe Discrepancy and Response to Intervention. The first has been generally replaced by the second for many reasons. The Severe Discrepancy method is defined as a determination of disability through the “severe discrepancy between the student’s expected achievement level and actual achievement level (Inclusion 82).” In general this method utilizes elements like student performance on class tests and standardized tests in comparison to other students in that grade level to determine if there is a severe difference in a student’s performance. If a severe discrepancy in academic performance is identified, other factors including other disabilities, culture, truancy, language issues, poor quality teachers, or low economic status, can be eliminated as causing the discrepancy then the student can be identified as having a learning disability. The major problem with this method of identifying a learning discrepancy is that a student has to fall severely behind their peers before their learning disability can be identified. An additionally issue is that that this method is not necessarily as quantitative and universally applicable as professionals would like them to be and therefore there is not a generally accepted and systematic way of identifying a learning disability with this method.
The second method of identifying a learning disability is the Response-to-Intervention approach also uses the principle of identifying learning disabilities through unexpected low academic performance. However, in this method prevention is at the forefront of the teacher’s minds from the beginning of their experience with their students. Teachers try to identify students who are struggling at the beginning rather than waiting for the accumulation of test materials. When a teacher identifies such students they attempt to reach the students using more small group instruction, structured teaching, tutoring, and other accommodating methods. If a student is still struggling with these accommodations, they receive “intensive, individualized interventions using highly effective instruction and fr equent monitoring of student progress (Inclusion 84).” If none of these methods work, other causes have likely been eliminated and then the student is reviewed for identification with a learning disability. This approach enables an individualized approach to the identification of learning disabilities and prevents students from falling behind and potentially ruining their educational opportunities.
The shift to RTI has had many impacts on school systems and the general classroom. There are many additionally services provided to students as a result of RTI, many classrooms have more adults in them through the positions of paraprofessionals and special education teachers thus benefiting all students, more students are identified with a learning disability at an earlier age thus receiving a more tailored education, learning experiences are more engaging and are designed to incorporate multiple intelligences, and most importantly it has made teachers and administrators more accountable for the education and inclusion of students with learning disabilities into the schools.
There are many possible issues that could arise with learning disabled students in the general education classroom. The main issues include but are not limited to “oral expression, listening comprehension, written expression, basic reading skills, reading fluency skills, reading comprehension, mathematics calculation, and mathematics problem solving (Inclusion 86).” These issues are based in the cognitive deficits of memory problems, attention problems, and metacognitive problems, or in social and motivational problems which students face when they have a learning disability. The characteristic of learning disabilities that will likely pose the greatest challenge to me as an English Language Arts Middle School teacher is the characteristic of problems with reading comprehension. This is due to the fact that reading comprehension, at least the way I see it, is the basis of Language Arts material, as demonstrated by curriculum, standardized tests, the general concepts of literacy and literature in the English language, and most importantly (as having an eye on the end game is) acceptance to college and higher education for all students. Reading comprehension not only enables students to understand specific texts and materials, but it enables students to reach higher into the body of academic and life knowledge. Without being able to successfully comprehend what they read, students will not be able to answer questions and make connections to the world in their readings, let alone excel in their academic pursuits.
Through my personal experience both as a student, a teacher, and a learner, I believe that the best way to help students improve their reading comprehension is by utilizing graphic organizers and concept maps. Through these visual aids students are able to associate not just a picture or image with a text or story but a sense of flow and connection with the material. By creating the graphic organizer the students are able to have a feeling of tangibility of the material, and associate a process with the material. As students use the form or review the graphics over and over again they develop an imprinting of the skills and the process in their minds. For students who excel at writing, they are also able to take an active role in creating their graphic organizer. Most importantly, this method is extremely effective due to the fact that the brain is designed as an organizational system. Therefore, by initiating this organization using a tangible and active methodology, student reading comprehension can be increased and all students will benefit. Personally, I believe that (and have every intention of implementing this belief in my work with my students) using graphic organizers is not just about having a visual to associate with the text, and this is where the strategy can fall short into ineffectiveness. I believe that it is more about figuring out ways to effectively replicate the brain’s organizational pathways and nuances into a physical form so that the two can be aligned in processing and thus aligned to facilitate comprehension. It does a student no good if they are trying to remember material and trying to learn a new way of structuring material at the same time. This is where further discrepancies and confusion can and do occur. Therefore it is essential that graphic organizers are designed with great attention to detail and flow and with the students’ mind and capability levels in mind. Through every step of the process.
Additionally, I believe that a great challenge is reaching the student with ADHD in a constructive way and helping to incorporate them into the learning environment. I think that in many ways students with ADHD are put to the wayside and disciplined unfairly due to the fact that teachers find it easier to ignore them than to try to reach them. I see it as a personal challenge. I think that it is not only essential in order to reach ADHD students by keeping things moving and interesting and physically engaging, but that ultimately the rest of a class of students will be more engaged and excited about learning if these kind of accommodations are made.
Ultimately, I believe that the inclusion of students with learning disabilities ultimately helps the entire learning environment because it forces teachers to mix it up - to change the way they do things - to be innovative and try out things that the students have never seen before. I see it as nothing but beneficial if a teacher is willing to take on the challenge.
That first breeze...
This past Thursday I left school at about 5:30. I had originally started heading out at about 4:25 as my after school group wound down and I walked the students out of the building. As I was signing out at the front office, I noticed that the Assistant Principal's office door was still open and I thought "Well, I may as well stick my head in and say hello."
This turned into a forty-five minute conversation with the Assistant Principal of my school. We discussed my action research project in detail, and my after school program that I want to really develop. Then we got into a long discussion where she shared advice and insight about many of the students that I work with and many gems of knowledge as I start my teaching career. We even got into a discussion about my experiences and beliefs and the things that I have done outside of my teaching work.
As I walked out of her office and out into the street with a chill breeze and the first notes of fall swaying in the trees, I was exhausted. But, I couldn't help letting a smile creep across my face. I realized how extraordinarily lucky I am that I have had the opportunity to start my teaching experience off at a place where not only did I just have a personal conversation with my Assistant Principal, but at a place where my Assistant Principal even knows my name. My first name, not just my teacher name.
This is invaluable. And again, I am blessed to have these experiences.
This turned into a forty-five minute conversation with the Assistant Principal of my school. We discussed my action research project in detail, and my after school program that I want to really develop. Then we got into a long discussion where she shared advice and insight about many of the students that I work with and many gems of knowledge as I start my teaching career. We even got into a discussion about my experiences and beliefs and the things that I have done outside of my teaching work.
As I walked out of her office and out into the street with a chill breeze and the first notes of fall swaying in the trees, I was exhausted. But, I couldn't help letting a smile creep across my face. I realized how extraordinarily lucky I am that I have had the opportunity to start my teaching experience off at a place where not only did I just have a personal conversation with my Assistant Principal, but at a place where my Assistant Principal even knows my name. My first name, not just my teacher name.
This is invaluable. And again, I am blessed to have these experiences.
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