UbDDI+B2+Chapter+2

Synthesis - Mike Kahler
This chapter has one very universal theme throughout the chapter that everyone in the class seemed to agree upon, and that is [|differentiation] for the different students within the classroom. Teachers are in the classroom to teach their students not their subject, and that is a very important message. You must teach to their learning styles or else you are not doing your job properly. One thing that is stressed within this chapter is how you must actually take you time to get to know the students in the classroom, and their own specific needs. Your lessons cannot be geared towards a general audience. Your lessons need to accommodate the different learning styles that are in your classroom meaning that they need to be modified constantly to best suit the needs in your classroom. Also communication is important in the classroom. Not only do you have to know your students different learning style, but you have to have a decent understanding of their background. This does not mean you should go questioning them about their economic status, or their neighborhoods, or even their home lives. If you are natural in the classroom, and create a good environment your students will let you know what problems they are facing. Once you know this you can adjust assignments for them. Due dates can be extended, and assignments can possibly be altered to become more relevant to their lives. Coming on to strong will make the students feel uncomfortable, but a pleasant [|environment] will promote a healthy environment where communication will be open and students can really show their teacher what it is that they truly need.

The class all had similar ideas about how they are going to incorporate the information in this chapter into their own classrooms. Primarily we are looking to incorporate the different types of learning into our lesson plans so that we can really tailor our teaching to the different types of learners in our classroom. We also strive to truly know our students. We want them to let us know what is causing them to do poorly if they are so that we can differentiate our instruction for them. If a student’s parents are going through a divorce and they are having trouble with it we want to know so that we can alter due dates on assignments, alter assignments, or do whatever we need to keep the student engaged in class while they are going through this. We also look to alter our lesson so that they are tailored towards their interests to really get material to become something that they are interested in and want to become engaged in. Some strategies that we plan on using are journals that won’t be graded on content, having a comfortable classroom environment, and differentiating our lessons.

Megan Millette
This chapter was a focus on teachers and students. It gave the basic ideas of how we should make our teaching oriented around the needs of our students. The aspects of teaching brought forward in this chapter seem crucial to me. There is nothing more important than forming good relationships with students and making sure you know what is going on in their lives. The only way you know what is happening with students and the grades they are receiving is by talking with them and seeing what their lives are like. This book suggests that, “the student is the focal point of our work as teachers,” this seems so true to me. (Pg. 12) Our students are the most important aspect of our career without them we would be jobless. This chapter led me to many conclusions about my future job in teaching. When I become a teacher and before then as I am preparing myself for the teaching career I must do certain things. As a teacher I need to make my students feel as though they are valued in my class. I should certainly value each of my students. I should set up a climate that makes students feel secure and comfortable. This way my students can possibly become more receptive and open to learning. I need to make sure to try and connect with my students in a natural way through talking and getting to know them. It is always good to get a better understanding of my students’ backgrounds, so I know how to accommodate for their needs. As a teacher I must always be ready to make appropriate adjustments to enable my students growth and success. I have to try to incorporate what is best for my students in basic activities. Some of these activities are basic assessment, trying to teach to high end, offering more ways to seek information, teaching in different ways, allowing time to work on things either with peers or by themselves, and so much more. These are just some of the many things this chapter has challenged me to do and learn for when I become an educator.

Lauren Scheidegger
In the second chapter the issue of “What Really Matters When Teaching?” was discussed. Several different examples of student struggles were put into light. A child who once was a very successful student suddenly allowed their grades to plummet. It was later revealed to be caused by a divorce. The child believed that if they did poorly in school their parents would need to talk together about it and then eventually would get back together. A few more examples were illustrated and explained. These short scenarios show that there are countless things that can affect a students learning. Carol Tomlinson and Jay McTighes listed factors that can cause a variance in learning are biology, level of privilege, positioning for learning, and preferences. There are many categories that go into each factor, and each one contributes to a students learning. After showing how diverse a classroom truly is and can be the authors calm the reader by giving small lessons on how to reach and teach each student. I found this insanely insightful and even empowering. As I was reading all the bulleted techniques, I found myself thinking “Oh I need to make sure I do that” or “Wow, I never thought of that but that’s something that should really be done!” I could see myself creating the atmosphere of my future classrooms using the methods shown. Things like getting to know your students more and giving them more than one way to explore and express their learning are simple things, but sadly are often overlooked. After reading the second chapter I was able to hone in on how I want my classroom to feel, and that is welcoming and accepting and a place where exploration will ensue.

Patrick Hurley
Curriculum choice plays a big role in the classroom. One needs to constantly be learning new things about the subject. Another important thing is knowing you students. You can’t properly teach if you don’t know your students. You are going to find that you have some students who have a hard time learning in the same way as everyone else, you need to make sure you are able to adapt to fit that persons specific learning style. Having a good student teacher relationship makes for a better learning environment, making the students more receptive. You cant single people out, you need to be able to accommodate all students with the same lesson plan. I can picture many situations in a classroom where I could use the information from this chapter. Students all learn differently so I would first have to get to know the students and figure out what kind of people they are and how they learn best. Then I would have to make plans that would be useful to all the different types of learners, whether that be giving them choices on essays or giving them the choice to work in groups or alone. One thing I am nervous about is the student teacher relationships, I know I can get to know the kids but I am nervous that I will accidentally over step a boundary by asking the wrong question or something along those lines.

Rachel Joiner
Following this chapter, I have gained several pieces of good insight into how as a teacher I can better serve my students. I found it interesting that the chapter discussed some of the barriers that students may face to their learning such as a personal barrier, like a divorce, or a learning problem. The book discussed several different students who struggled due to various hindrances in their lives. I thought this was important to learn, because as teachers we need to be aware and look for these things in our students. After reading this, I feel better prepared to understand different problems that could be facing students. I thought it was great how the book discusses how the teachers tried various things with each student in order to facilitate their learning. This affects me, and my classroom, because I now know different ways in which I can try to help a student who is struggling. I also learned that responsive or differentiated teaching includes varying the curriculum based off each student’s individual needs. I thought it was great when the book discussed following a pattern for students. As a teacher, we cannot teach to each individual need, but rather design lessons around patters of needs, that can target several different groups of students who may be struggling with similar problems. I found it helpful when the book suggested letting students learn the best way for them. I thought this was helpful, because if we do not let students learn their way, they will never learn. I found this chapter to be extremely helpful to the classroom and myself.

Emily McGee
Tomlinson and McTighe explain the importance of understanding whom you are teaching and the many learning barriers they may face (ie. personal problems, identity roles, learning disabilities, idiosyncratic learning needs). They also recognize variation among students, including biology, degree of privilege, positioning for learning, and preferences and the implications these differences have on student learning. They explain that a responsive teacher is attuned to their students needs and will make the appropriate modifications to guide students towards acquiring essential ideas and skills. The authors describe expectations of the responsive teacher as building relationships that allow an environment to form that may build a context for efficient student learning and the basic approaches to responsive teaching. It is important to understand the role of effective, responsive teachers in order to be able to implement and truly take up that position. I want to be the most motivating, engaging teacher possible, because I want to help students learn by guiding them to find the skills and ideas they need. I think in order to truly motivate students though you have to have an understanding of who they are, what they aspire to, and how they learn. All of those factors are influenced by factors such as biology and privilege, so in order to understand the students as individuals and as a whole you need to understand their driving forces. I think the ways of approaching responsive teaching that Tomlinson and McTighe talk about are good pointers that should absolutely be considered by all pre-service teachers.

Mike Kahler
Learner variance heavily shapes the style of teaching in the classroom. Teacher’s curriculums are subject to change at a moment’s notice when in the classroom because every student needs to be treated a little differently in most cases and in some cases they need to be treated very differently. The discovery of a learning disability in a student is one thing that can affect their learning, and it is the job of the teacher to adapt their lesson plans to accommodate their disability. Another thing which affects student learning is variation in learning style. Whether a student is an auditory, visual, or kinesthetic learner factors into the way that a teacher needs to plan their lessons. Students need to have enough variation in their lessons so that they can pick up key concepts in a way that is easy for them. Also personal home issues have to be taken into account. For example a student whose parents are going through a divorce is going to be distracted, and that is going to turn learning into a bit of a struggle for them. Distractions in the lives of your students become important because they affect their ability to do work for your class. Sometimes a teacher is going to need to vary deadlines, and give out alternate assignments to students in different home situations. In my classroom I will do everything that I can to accommodate for different students and their situations. I will teach to all of the learning styles incorporating kinesthetic, auditory, and visual material into lessons. Also I will do group activities as well as solitary ones. Also I will be understanding of particular struggles in a student’s life, and adapting my assignments to them will happen. Even my student’s personal interests will be used to make lessons more interesting for them.

Morgan Ware
In the chapter we learn about how different factors affect learning. This chapter starts off by talking about the different mediums of teaching. One is what we ought to teach and the second is whom we teach. It also states that the best teachers are aware that teaching is judged by successful learning. Students will respond well to teachers who start the year off with a sense of direction and purpose because the journey of learning is shared between a student and a teacher. Also good teachers need to have a well laid out plan that are subject to change when it’s necessary. There are certain aspects of every day life that affect learning. One student thought that if she did poorly in school her parents would get back together. While other students have to deal with identity as a barrier. Also students have to get help with their learning styles in order to succeed. Teachers need to create curricula that go with their students learning styles to help them succeed in their studies.Students come to the classroom to feel welcomed and to belong. They want to feel accomplished in the work that they do. Quality lessons play a key role in meeting the needs of students. Students also differ in way that they learn or how their lives will affect their learning.There is a lot that teachers can do in order to make their learning fair. They need to make sure the teacher-student relationship is healthy because it helps the student learn better. They can also make sure that the climate of their classroom is comfortable and welcoming. Teachers need to keep in mind of students’ backgrounds. Teachers need to attend to not only the students who are ready to learn but to the students who are shy about learning. There are also many other things that teachers can do to make sure that their students are welcome and comfortable in their classrooms and with learning.

Matt Roy
Overall I enjoyed this chapter much more than the first chapter. In the first chapter I found the axioms and corollaries to be almost annoying rather than helpful. In Chapter 1 I felt that the axioms and respective corollaries were making stretches to connect the material. Conversely, Chapter 2, in my eyes, did a much better job of connecting the idea they were trying to convey with a real life story from the classroom. Additionally I felt that the tips provided were extremely insightful and caused the reader to think about the material and how to approach potential learning issues in the classroom. One part of this chapter that really jumped out at me was on page 15 when the author wrote: “like all humans, [students] are looking for a sense of their own meanings, roles, and possibilities.” I’m glad that the author took the time to make a specific note that high school students are at a crucial crossroads. As a high school student I always felt like the bar was constantly being raised and expectations were constantly on the rise as I prepared for life after high school. My high school has an extremely high matriculation rate to college so it was assumed that I was going to college, I did not really have to consider the other options that were available to me. I think it is important for us to note that college may not be for everyone so we need to find a way to make our subject matter still relate to those students who do not wish to pursue higher education (because it still does matter).

Samy Tracy
In chapter two, the authors explain mostly about different ways that are successful in teaching many students and to get them more excited to learn. Many of these techniques I would use because I feel like they would have helped me when I was in high school. Sometimes I felt like the work was too easy for me and I felt like I was not learning anything and if that teacher had read this book and “Learn[ed] to teach to the high end,” (20) I probably would have felt more like I was actually getting something from that class. I think one of the most important pieces of this chapter was also the fact that the authors mentioned, “Learning happens //within// students, not //to// them” (22). If many other teachers, and other people for that matter, realized that I think education would be far more advanced than it is now. It also shows how important students truly are, even though many people do not acknowledge the fact that children that young can actually make a difference. This chapter also explains that just because a student does not do so well in school, does not mean that they are stupid and will never learn the material. There are many instances where some cannot figure out who they truly are, they are trying to fit in, have some personal problems, and so on. That rang true for some of my friends in high school because they were actually very intelligent but they could not actually make the effort to do homework because they were facing other issues that hindered them.

Alyssa Amari
In teaching, lesson plans will never be perfect; they will not always fall into place, into the way that they were originally planned. In Chapter two of Understanding by Design and Differentiated Instruction, I came to understand that a curriculum is subject to many changes due to high variability of the students in a classroom. Every student plays a major part in the lesson planning of a classroom; each student has several aspects of their life that will likely affect the classroom, and this will greatly affect their learning needs and capabilities. Before having a properly designed curriculum, it is necessary for teachers to understand what the core-needs are for each student. Affirmation, affiliation, accomplishment, and autonomy are what students seek when entering a classroom, and a curriculum should be designed in such a way that it meets these core needs of students.

Student success is not solely self-accomplished; educators should help to guide a student through carefully planned opportunities for success. Many of these opportunities for success are created when a teacher can continuously modify and vary their instruction to meet the diverse learning needs of the students in a class. A teacher has to be responsive to learners individual needs, as a result each student will have an opportunity for maximum success. Although every student is different and they will each have their own learning needs, it is important to know that a teacher cannot always fully meet each students needs. This is why it is a necessity to teach with patterns and procedures to reach students who have common needs.

This chapter impacted me because it posed as a relief; I know now that I may not be able to fully meet each students needs, but I will learn to meet a majority of them. This is important in my classroom because every student deserves an opportunity for success, and this is not always easy for them to accomplish on their own; it is my duty to adjust my lessons and curriculum to meet the varied needs of my students.

T.J. Hebert
I knew as I was going through school that people learned in various ways but did not realize that there were so many different ways of learning. The teachers rarely (if ever from what I could see) would adapt to someone that learned in a different way. For example, the kid Noah in the book always moved around in class or paced while doing work. He was a strong kinesthetic learner and he knew it; however, in traditional classrooms the students are to sit and pay attention and could be subject to discipline if they do not adhere to those rules. Noah was labeled as a “bad” student because all of his teachers except one did not understand him. When I was in high school and still today, I know that I learn better through application. Despite knowing this in high school, I still tried my best to learn as much as I could in classes that required little application. A majority of my college courses have been based on application and I have thrived as a result. One of my favorite aspects of this chapter is getting to know the students immediately and consistently throughout the class. It can give a teacher a head start on determining potential differences in learning styles among the students, the student’s interests and can help with the student-teacher relationship. This is something that I will definitely use in my classroom. I also like the idea of students keeping something like a journal that is not graded based on content but effort. Weekly checks of the journals can help the teacher to better understand the students and adapt as necessary. I also like working in groups because it allows the students to use their own ideas and creativity and develops a better understanding of what is being taught. I plan to use all of these strategies in my own classroom.

Simone Thiry
The second chapter addressed the most important component of classroom learning: the students. In this section, I learned about ‘responsive teaching’, a practice that I have often observed, but have never been able to name. In the student examples, I learned how teachers with the best intentions might inhibit student learning, by forcing students to conform to an overly structured classroom, or by refusing to acknowledge the emotional forces that drive an academic problem. The practice of responsive teaching is founded in understanding and accommodating the needs of each student. I now understand that this is important for many of the pillars of successful learning, including student-teacher relationships, energy, context, connections, academic growth, motivation and efficiency in the classroom. An approach that really stuck out to me was the idea of teaching to the high end, which broadened my understanding of how to cater to all students. I would have thought that teaching to the high end would alienate the slower-paced students, but I now understand that this can raise the energy level in a classroom, and is not destructive when used concurrently with a flexible and responsive approach to pacing and assessment.. My ability to teach responsively will impact my classroom because it is imperative that I consider the students in each step of lesson planning, curriculum development, and classroom implementation. The students are the pivotal piece in this puzzle, and student learning is the ultimate goal.

Lauren Breton
Chapter 2: What Really Matters in Teaching? (The Students) This chapter explored the impact that students have on teaching. During this chapter, the increasing amount of student diversity in the classroom was discussed. Examples of diversity in the classroom in terms of curriculum and teaching helped me to understand how different learning needs can be met within the structure of the classroom. Through the examples provided of students with identity problems, learning problems, personal barriers, and different learning needs, I began to realize just how diverse classrooms truly are and how teaching/learning has to be coordinated so that all students are able to succeed. Before I had read this chapter, I imagined my students being diverse in areas such as race, gender, ethnicity, religious affiliation, etc. as opposed to having students who were diverse learners. This chapter helped me to realize

that although I would have students who are diverse in personal ways, I would also need to coordinate my curriculum to ensure that my students were able to receive the education that met their diverse learning needs. The text also explored a variety of ways to incorporate different teaching patterns that would help many learners, as opposed to tailoring education to each individual student. The way that this chapter was structured was very beneficial for my understanding of how important Understanding by Design and Differentiated Instruction are to learners. After the chapter explored the difference in learners, I felt overwhelmed. The text remedied this overwhelming feeling by offering teaching patterns that would benefit multiple students at once. This not only restored my comfort with the ideas of combining Understanding by Design and Differentiated Instruction within my classroom, it also gave me ideas to ensure my students’ success when I plan my own lessons.

Kevin Lind
This chapter focuses heavily on the idea that teachers are meant to serve students. If the students are able to learn, then the teacher is successful. Understanding by Design and Differentiated Instruction both show this idea because both make it easier for students to gain from their education. This chapter shows a variety of different factors that can effect the way a student learn. For all of the different factors, teachers can give some help to make learning easier.

 This brings up the important point that their is no exact way of saying what kind of help a student will need. Two different may need help with their ability to learn using the visual learning style, but also need two different methods in order to develop the style. Also, the problems may be more complex. One student may have trouble developing ideas using verbal skills, while another may have problems at home that are hindering is or her abilities.

 The numerous ideas for allowing students to show their best qualities make sense when it comes to learning about students and how they learn. By giving them options, such as working by themselves or in groups, teachers can see the environment where students feel the most comfortable. I also really like the idea of using multiple learning styles while teaching a lesson. This allows students to learn in the way that is most suitable for them, while not forcing their classmates to learn the same way.