Journal BLOG Reflection # 5

The strategies of differentiated instruction listed in the text: discuss the benefits it holds for students in our schools today.

First and foremost we have to pause and reflect on what is differentiated instruction and its purpose. Differentiated instruction is an instructional theory that allows teachers to face this challenge by taking diverse student factors into account when planning and delivering instruction. Based on this theory, teachers can structure learning environments that address the variety of learning styles, interests, and abilities found within a classroom.

The benefits it holds for students in our schools today are numerous. In support thereof, please see the following:

·         According to Carol Tomlinson, a national expert on differentiated instruction, teachers can differentiate three aspects of the curriculum: content, process, and products. Importantly, differentiating content, process, and product for students requires teachers to know their students, their subject, and their materials. Rather than simply "teaching to the middle" by providing a single avenue for learning for all students in a class, teachers using differentiated instruction match tasks, activities, and assessments with their students' interests, abilities, and learning preferences.

·         Teachers have to provide several learning options, or different paths to learning, which help students, take in information and make sense of concepts and skills. They do not have to develop a separate lesson plan for each student in a classroom.

·         Teachers have to provide appropriate levels of challenge for all students, including those who lag behind, those who are advanced, and those who right in the middle. They do not have to "water down" the curriculum for some students.

·         Learning is maximized for ALL students through proactive planning. You'll see students working in small groups, with partners, and alone, depending on their learning needs. In partner and small-group work, students learn together—but are assessed individually.

·         Students generously share skills and knowledge through peer tutoring.

·         Anchor activities keep children working and learning on their own, giving the teacher time to work with individuals or small groups.

  And, finally technology captures and holds the attention of students at all learning levels. 

The point is to teach students what they need to learn and not what they already know—to discern when particular children or activities warrant more or less attention.

Chapter 8 Notes

What Are the Ethical and Legal Issues Facing Teachers?

“What Are the Philosophical Foundations of American Education?” brings us into the realm of what is the right way to act.

Ethics refers to a system or a code of morality embraced by a particular person or group. Law is related to, but different from, ethics. A law is a written role that members of a given community must follow.

Laws and Our Ethics:

Whereas ethics may be invisible obligations that we perceive, laws typically are statements that have been hammered out by the legitimate authority of a particular community, state, or nation and are used in court as standards by which to judge, and often penalize, the actual behavior of individuals.

The characteristics of ethical teaching:

The author delves into the teacher’s ethically complex world. Issues involving ethical judgment, we as teachers need to exhibit six characteristics: appreciation for moral deliberation, empathy, knowledge, reasoning, courage, and interpersonal skills.

1.       Appreciation for Moral Deliberation: “seeing competing interests

2.      Empathy: feeling what others feel

3.      Knowledge: knowing all the facts

4.      Reasoning: thinking systematically

5.      Courage: confronting, not evading, problems

6.      Interpersonal Skills: acting with sensitivity

Ethics and the law are closely related, but they also differ.

• Ethical teaching has six specific characteristics.

• In addition to teaching's everyday ethical dimensions, teachers can and should formulate their own codes of professional ethics.

• Teachers need to understand fully how two basic legal terms, due process and liability, relate to their work.

Laws are concrete, made by people, and usually written down for the public to see; ethics, by contrast, consists of ideas that are less tangible and observable. Most of our laws are simply the codification of what we see as our moral or ethical obligations to one another.

In reality, the teacher has a special type of power. This power arises from the fact that the teacher has an impact on people when they are still at a very malleable stage. The teacher is in command of the classroom insofar as he or she has the responsibility for what goes on.

Scholars often argue about whether humans are born with an imprinted sense of what is morally correct. Few would suggest that we are born with a full-blown, guiding moral philosophy of life. Instead, developing a strong, guiding code of ethics is one of our primary responsibilities as members of society.

Teachers do not struggle alone when they face ethical issues. Besides their own understanding, reasoning, and moral compass, they have the support of a professional group. Professional groups, such as those composed of doctors, architects, and teachers, have special obligations to their students.

Chapter 7 Notes

What Should Teachers Know About Technology and Its Impact on Schools?

The use of technology in the classroom has gained attention as an issue in education. As our society continues to embrace new forms of communication, networking, and computer technologies, our schools are scrambling to keep up.

As this example demonstrates, teachers are not being replaced by computers. In fact, teachers have an expanded role in this technologically enriched environment, through this role differs from the traditional one associated with teaching.

A Brief look at education’s technological past

Today people usually equate educational technology with computers. But technology in a more general sense is by no means new to education.

In the early 1800s, a technological innovation was introduced to classrooms and had a profound impact on teaching. Schools had to encourage use of this new technology by preparing training manuals with step-by-step instructions to help teachers integrate the device into their lessons.

What was this technological wonder? The chalkboard!

In the old one-room school houses, where students of different ages worked on their own individual lessons, the function of a chalkboard was not immediately apparent. During the nineteenth century, orientation to the graded classrooms we know today.

Similarly, in the 1980s, when microcomputers became affordable, many software products were introduced to drill students on basic skills, and some educational visionaries predicted the end of classroom instruction and the end of the teaching profession as we know it. Of course, this forecast turned out-to-be no more correct than Edison’s overstatement.

Once a technology enters the classroom, the uses to which it is put are affected by what we might call the technology’s level of maturity. In education as in other fields, new technologies tend to go through three stages of application: 1 in the first stage, the technology is applied to things we already do. 2 in the second stage, the technology is used to improve upon existing tasks. 3 in the third stage of maturity, the technology are used to do things that were not possible in the past.

How are schools being pressured to change?

No wonder, then, that schools are feeling pressure to increase their use of technological tools. This pressure is coming from many sources: 1 parent is placing pressure on schools to use technologies in the classroom. 2 students are placing pressure on schools by knowing more about which technologies are currently available and how to use them than do many of the teachers. 3 teachers are placing pressure on schools because they need both accesses to technology effectively. 4 businesses are placing pressure on schools and governmental agencies to adequately prepare future employees. 5 the perception that the United States is falling behind the world in educational attainment has increased the pressure on schools and teachers to bridge this gap. 6 governmental agencies have moved to support federal, state, and local initiatives to ensure access to technology for K-12 students.   

Chapter 5 Notes

Baseball, debating, reading, and biology are all learned in school, along with love and tolerance, independence and frustration, mathematics and dramatics, values and ceramics, woodshop and poise, history and boredom, and computer science and leadership! Some are learned intentionally and others incidentally.

Whites and people of color, and many other groups grapple to ensure that their beliefs and perspectives are represented in the school's curriculum.

The language arts program seeks to develop in children the skills of reading, writing, speaking, and listening, as well as knowledge of culture as represented in literature.

Mathematics at the elementary level emphasizes the use of hands-on manipulatives to aid students in learning about patterns in mathematics and the base-lO system. Mathematical reasoning and problem solving, rather than the teacher's authority and the textbook, are emphasized. Teachers are being urged to focus on conceptual mathematics understanding before introducing procedural rules.

Science in the elementary grades takes advantage of children's natural curiosity about the world around them-plants, seasons, light, sound, and animals.

Two major questions drive science education reform: "Where will the next generation of scientists come from?" and "How can all students be prepared to make informed judgments about such critical and science-based issues as environmental pollution, energy sources, and biotechnology?"

Advocates of Civic learning or civic education call for courses that will acquaint a racially and culturally diverse student population with the heritage common to the American democratic tradition.

Students are given information on exercise and nutrition so they can understand how to balance caloric intake and maintain an appropriate body fat level.

Many health educators express frustration that health is not identified as a critical component of the K-12 curriculum and that questions about health do not appear on high-stakes tests. Because health is not tested, it is not stressed in schools as much as health educators would like.

The United States is number one in the world in one category-the size of the textbooks-which tend to be encyclopedic rather than focused. A telling example is this text book, where one chapter usually takes up about 30 to 35 pages on average.

The individual teacher, of course, is a major variable in what students actually learn.