In just one week, students will enter my classroom and the 2011-12 school year will begin. This week I am busy traversing the state, teaching workshops on Differentiation. If summer vacation were a weekend, this week is the "Sunday night" of summer vacation.
I still have much to accomplish for the school year. Yes, there are the administrative tasks like printing my syllabi, making copies, and planning the opening day(s) activities. I've done most of my school-supply shopping, and my kids and I have bought shoes and jeans and all the things we out-grew this summer. Yes, in those ways I am ready.
But the workshops I teach in the summer on Differentiating Instruction challenge me to plan in ways that let me KNOW my students. How does a teacher do that when s/he hasn't yet met the kids? How do we make a plan for children who have not yet walked through our doors? And better yet, how do we make a plan for the COMBINATION of kids we don't even know about yet?
Let's start with "barometer kids." These are the kid-types that I find in almost every classroom - no matter the grade, no matter the subject. In my DI workshops and courses, I have narrowed this down to 6 kids:
*High-flyers,
*Bright but not motivated,
*Typical in most ways,
*Pain in the Butt,
*Needy (socially or academically or both), and
*significantly disabled.
Now is every kid who I teach one of these 6? NO! Of course not! Kids are all different, and many kids are a combination of these types. But if I plan for these 6 kid-types, will I probably plan enough in the way of differentiation to make it through the first few weeks!
So while I run off my "interest inventory" and my "multiple intelligences survey," I'll think about what kinds of books I have on my shelf for those 6 kids, and about what kinds of writing I'll plan to have them do on the first few days of school. Oh, yes...and I'll dream about making my classroom a place where they are all welcomed and celebrated and valued.
Bring it on!
I still have much to accomplish for the school year. Yes, there are the administrative tasks like printing my syllabi, making copies, and planning the opening day(s) activities. I've done most of my school-supply shopping, and my kids and I have bought shoes and jeans and all the things we out-grew this summer. Yes, in those ways I am ready.
But the workshops I teach in the summer on Differentiating Instruction challenge me to plan in ways that let me KNOW my students. How does a teacher do that when s/he hasn't yet met the kids? How do we make a plan for children who have not yet walked through our doors? And better yet, how do we make a plan for the COMBINATION of kids we don't even know about yet?
Let's start with "barometer kids." These are the kid-types that I find in almost every classroom - no matter the grade, no matter the subject. In my DI workshops and courses, I have narrowed this down to 6 kids:
*High-flyers,
*Bright but not motivated,
*Typical in most ways,
*Pain in the Butt,
*Needy (socially or academically or both), and
*significantly disabled.
Now is every kid who I teach one of these 6? NO! Of course not! Kids are all different, and many kids are a combination of these types. But if I plan for these 6 kid-types, will I probably plan enough in the way of differentiation to make it through the first few weeks!
So while I run off my "interest inventory" and my "multiple intelligences survey," I'll think about what kinds of books I have on my shelf for those 6 kids, and about what kinds of writing I'll plan to have them do on the first few days of school. Oh, yes...and I'll dream about making my classroom a place where they are all welcomed and celebrated and valued.
Bring it on!