Blog #10 Reflecting on Exceptional Students

Part I

How will you approach meeting the needs of as many different learners as possible? In other words, how will you vary your instruction to accommodate to the wide array of students you will have? Keep in mind, students will remember about 18% of what they hear and see in a lecture. Yet they will remember over 90% of what they apply and synthesize. So talk about how you will use various strategies, diversify your lessons, and meet the needs of different learners each day. 

Part II

Accommodations: The most important students you will accommodate for are the ones most impacted by that day's lesson. For example, if you're doing a very sedentary activity, you need to accommodate for ADD, ADHD, behaviorally challenged kids, and maybe a child with Tourette's. If you're doing a really active lesson, you might need to accommodate a shy student, an apathetic one, an autistic child, a behaviorally challenged student, a child in a wheelchair, etc. So in your area and the kinds of lessons you know it involves, what kids will you most likely have to accommodate for? HOW will you accommodate and adapt for them? Think realistically...you won't have extra people, you won't send them to someone else, YOU have to make adaptations in your classroom. Also keep in mind that MOST of our kids have some need for accommodation. 

Part III

Website: How does creating online/having a website accommodate learners? How can this assignment be an accommodation just by itself? In what ways can/will you use the digital/web landscape to meet the needs of today's learners? Over 78% of today's K-12 students spend more time online than with their families (whether playing games, in school, listening to music, watching YouTube, on Facebook). Knowing that, how will you implement their web presence in your teaching? (Because many of you will be teaching in 1:1 classrooms!)

Address each Part in your post specifically and separate them so readers know what you're talking about. You may simply use these headers for your own post if you'd like. As responders, feel free to respond to one part or all three. Your preference. My goal is to start the conversation! Please post by Sunday Nov. 29th and respond to classmates by Friday, Dec. 4th. 

Blog #9 Diverse Learner Units

AFTER you turn in your DLU, share: 1. What was toughest for you in creating your unit? 2. How do you feel your presentation went/will go? And finally, 3. How realistic were your accommodations and how hard do you really think implementing your lesson to diverse learners will really be?
Blog by Sunday, Nov. 8th and respond by class time Wednesday, Nov. 11th.  

Blog #8 DLU Preparation and Presentations

As you create your DLU and all the components you need to prepare for (a realistic dose of what your teaching life will be like!), address each of these questions, if you can:

1. How have you made your Unit cohesive? In other words, have you made your unit fluid, do all your lessons go together well, and have you covered your unit well? If you haven't Googled your unit topic to see what practicing teachers included in theirs, do that now!

2. While choosing your three lessons, are you keeping in mind how to make your lessons fun, engaging, and relevant to kids? i.e. Will your kids be "active" and not just passively listening? Explain.

3. In preparing to present your findings, your job is to simply share your Intro, Outline, and Unit Rubric, then to do a mini-teaching of one of your lessons. What are you planning to teach and WHY?

4. Every one of us will be preparing to ask a question relevant to our own interests, so be prepared to respond to these. What is the value in adding this component to your presentations?

5. Share any other thoughts, concerns, questions you have in getting ready to present your DLU! I answered quite a few when I met with most of you this week, but your peers will have additional insights I didn't!

Post by Sunday, Nov. 1 and respond by class time on Wednesday, Nov. 4th. 

Blog #7 Backward Design and the Diverse Learner Unit

What is the value of Backward Design, what are the drawbacks, and how do you think Backward Design can play a role in your future classroom? Be sure you can make a connection between what you are learning and how you will use it in your future classes. Consult the article "Principles of Backward Design" on Moodle if you feel you need to refer to it. Blog by Sunday, Oct. 18 and respond to group mates by class time Wednesday, Oct. 21st. Remember that posting and responding on time are crucial to authentic interactions, since this is a Writing Intensive class, so stay timely with Blogs! :-)    

Blog #6 Gallery Walk and Peer Assessments

How can doing a Gallery Walk of any kind (and the preparing to do one) meet the needs of more learners than a simple "read and write about it" activity? How is it more inclusive? Or can you make an argument that it might be less inclusive for some? Be specific! Blog by class Wednesday, Oct. 14 and respond to your group by class on Sunday, Oct. 18 (note the change because I've posted late).

Blog #5 UDLs, Assessment, and How to Be Inclusive

Discuss the value of formative and summative assessment in a diverse learner's classroom. Both have a place in education, and when dealing with the needs of all learners, it is very important to know the difference and be able to implement both in your curriculum. Discuss how you plan to have an inclusive classroom with kids who are impoverished, apathetic, on IEPs for various needs, ADHD/ADD, etc. How does all of this fit into the Universal Design for Learning? Be sure to address as much of this as possible! Blog by Friday, if possible, and respond to your compass group members by class on Monday, Oct. 6th.

Blog #4 Formative vs. Summative Assessment

Discuss the differences between Formative and Summative assessment (do a little research if you need to)? If you had to break it down into more workable terms, how would you define the two? Why are both important? Discuss what you learned, how you feel this idea affects students of varying needs/learning styles/disabilities, and the pitfalls of doing too much or too little of one or both. Discuss how it has felt to evaluate one another! Blog by Thursday, 9/24 and respond by class time Monday, 9/28.

Blog #3 Assessing and Evaluating in Learning Different Environments

You have now applied various types of learning and teaching:

• Creating learning styles activities
• Jigsawing
• Whiteboarding
• Evaluating one another 

Now that you are really delving into evaluating and assessing activities and one another, consider how you will accommodate peer evaluation in your classroom. How will or did activities like learning strategies, jigsawing, whiteboarding, and even the Leadership Compass open your eyes to how differently we all learn and interact with the concept of learning? How important is it to let students play a role in assessment (whether peer assessing, creating their own learning strategy activities, or even writing their own quizzes)? 
 Blog by Sunday night, and respond to your compass group classmates by class time on Monday, Sept. 14th.

Blog #2 Jigsawing, Whiteboarding, Learning Strategies, Oh My!

Blog #2 
React to how this style of learning (jigsawing, whiteboarding, the various learning strategy activities you're creating, even the idea of small group whiteboarding before whole group sharing) could help kids of all needs. Think of various types of special needs kids and address at least 3 different types for your blog (examples: gifted kids, those who are ADHD or ADD, apathetic, someone who is visual vs. auditory, ODD, struggling reader, dyslexic, etc.). Blog by Monday, Sept. 7^th; respond to each of your compass group members by Wednesday, Sept. 9^th

Blog #1 We Learn Differently

After watching the UDL video and completing your own Learning Styles Inventories, you now have an idea that we all learn differently. No matter our level of intelligence, we all need material presented, consumed, and applied in different ways, and how smart we are does not always equal how much or how well we learn. How does that make you feel as a future teacher? What will you do to accommodate for that? How does that apply to you as a student here at WC (i.e. does it explain classes you've excelled in and/or fallen short)? Discuss!

Post by class time Wednesday, Sept. 2. Respond to your Compass Groupmates by Friday, Sept. 4th.