Teach-NOW Journey

Multiculturalism in the Classroom at Heights Charter I teach in a very culturally homogeneous suburb of San Diego. Our school is close to 77% white (3 times greater than the state average), 12% Hispanic (1/5 the state average), 2.5 % Asian (1/5 the state average), 2% black (1/3 the state average), and 2% American Indian (3 times the state average due to our proximity to three local reservations). The school is nearly 100% Christian. Students at our school don't get to interact with children very different from themselves with any regularity. Because of this, it is important to expose them to multicultural themes as much as possible. I think that a goal of an educator is to get students to see that the world they live in may not be the same world as that someone of a different race, religion, or socioeconomic status.  It is important to build empathy and understanding in students that something that is not seen as an obstacle to success by them, might seem insurmountable by...

Differentiation What is Differentiation? The basic idea of differentiation is that while learning objectives don’t change, instruction can be tailored to meet individual needs.   Differentiation can take place in four areas: content, process, product, and learning environment.   To differentiate in content, teachers can manipulate what students need to learn and how they access the information.   When differentiating by process, teachers can manipulate activities students engage in to obtain mastery.   To differentiate by product, teachers can manipulate the projects they ask students to create to show their mastery.   Finally, teachers can manipulate the way the classroom looks and feels to differentiate the learning environment. Differentiating for a Student with ADHD and Dyslexia One of my 6th grade students has ADHD and dyslexia.  I work closely with our resource teacher and school psychologist to execute his IEP.  In fact, I have sa...

So, we've planned objectives, now what do we do?  According to backwards mapping, we now need to look at what types of assessments we will use to reveal if learning is actually taking place.  Two kinds of assessments we will use are formative and summative assessments. Formative assessments are low-stakes ways to gather data on what students know and if lesson activities are meeting learning objectives.  If gaps are discovered in student learning, instruction can be modified to address areas of deficit. Formative assessments can be entrance/exit tickets, quizzes, class discussions, observations, etc. Summative assessments are evaluations given at the end of a chapter or unit of study to see if learning objectives or standards have been met.  These are high stakes, graded assignments that hold a large weight in marking student achievement and progress.  Summative assessments include California's Common Core aligned Smarter Balanced Assessment, end of...