REACH 108 Strategies

These chapters had so much information that I had to read a few pages at a time, stop, and then pick up and read again another day. The chapters listed a lot of different strategies, and I hope to talk about them more in depth during our sessions to get a better idea of how each one works because after reading, I don't feel I completely can envision what each one of these strategies looks like actually being implemented. I guess that says something about the kind of learner I am. I need to actually see things being done to fully understand them and be able to do them myself. The reading mentioned stations, agendas, complex instruction, centers, tiered activities, compacting etc. I really found it difficult to take this all in and make direct applications to math based on the examples that the reading provided. I can understand the concept of centers and stations as this is a target area for me to begin implementing very soon. I have already discussed with this with our coach and a little with our principal, and I am waiting to figure out maybe in which specific direction I can go with it. I have implemeted centers when I taught in another district, and the program we used required a minimum of 7 centers around a specific theme or unit of study. I think centers is the one strategy listed that I feel most comfortable and knowledgeable about. Jason, I know you finally implemented your centers this week, and I wanted to know how that worked out for you and the students. Based on your reaction the other day, it sounded like you had a considerable amount of success with it. I have wanted to ask for some collaboration time for us math teachers just to bounce some ideas off of each other in terms of differentiation, and I hope we can get the chance to discuss and make our math program even stronger. I guess one of the questions, I have for you would be which other strategies mentioned in this reading assignment do you feel would be most effective for math. I liked the compacting one as it relies on encouraging and emphasizing teachers to assess students at the beginning of a unit and those students who get at least three-quarters correct would not continue work on what they already know. I feel like I have made the grave error of falling into the trap of teaching it anyway even if they know it and I want to set this as one of my goals and start using those assessments in a better way to organize and structure my instruction for different groups and levels of students. I am sure I probably bored them a bit, but my rationale was well it will be good review or reinforcement for them. Another idea that I liked about differentiation is providing opportunities for children to make choices. I think this goes back to 105 and our discussion about how people learn, and choice is definately a piece of that. I am struggling a bit right now with the huge difference between the really high groups and the lower ones that are still struggling with number sense or number recognition. I hope we can have a deep discussion at our next session about issues we have and how we see differentiation working to as the author wrote, " the goal is for the teacher to meet a student where he is in knowledge, understanding, thought, planning, and presentation, and then to help the learner push forward." That was the quote that summarizes what we as teachers are trying to learn more about right now in this course.