Chapter 1

The first chapter explained the book’s namesake that “Fair Isn't Always Equal.”  Before I read this chapter I did have a basic understanding of how some students would need more help or might need larger font or some other assistance but beginning this book I am beginning to understand just how different differentiation can be.
The author talked about cognitive principles and their effectiveness in helping to differentiate a classroom. It is evident that teachers are meant to provide scaffolding to various topics but some students will need more assistance and more resources to use as scaffolding. Differentiation is working all students to a common goal while giving everyone as little or as much scaffolding as they need to succeed. I visualize this by thinking of a tower. Some students will be able to walk up the stairs all the way to the top. Some students will need to take a water break and others may need to take an elevator halfway and then walk the rest of the way. The top of this tower is the goal. Each child will get there eventually but it is up to the teacher to provide the support and the tools needed to succeed.
Something that was shocking and stood out to me in the chapter was the fact that students could be disciplined if they denied the differentiation that was created for them. Having another way to punish students is not what will promote affective learning. I think that with any student there needs to be an open conversation with the teacher about how they learn. If the student does not want the extra support because they feel capable it should be up to the teacher to find alternate, less conspicuous ways, of providing the support needed.


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Chapter 3 FIAE

Chapter 3 in Fair Isn’t Always Equal focuses on assessment formats and differentiated assessments. As a teacher it is important to understand that not all students will be able to succeed with what is first given to them. It is up to the teacher to change and adapt the learning to fit all students, this includes the assessment format. I liked the idea of having students know what is on the exam before the unit begins. This can ease some of the stress that students feel. One downfall of this is that some students who are in a class solely to graduate will use this information as a hint as to what they can forget and remember. Students may study to the test and not study for knowledge and growth. I think that an adjustment I would make to this would be to give an outline of the unit and have important topics that might be on the test underlined. That way students understand that a topic is on an assessment but they do not know which part or what questions will be asked. This can prompt...
Read more

MI5,6 UBD 6,7

Chapters six and seven in Understanding by Design talk about student understanding. Chapter 6 talks about responsive teaching and answers questions that teachers may have about responsive teaching practices. I like how the book went into detail about different types of learners a teacher might encounter and how those learners may be problematic toward the general lesson plan. Students may be struggling with learning material at the pace he class is going or they could be going too fast for the class schedule. As teachers we should strive for student understanding and understanding where students fall in the spectrum of learning rate. By breaking down in lessons plans and in your mind it should help teachers to understand the different teaching strategies they need to use. Chapter seven is similar because it talks about how we, as educators, can help students gain deeper understanding of topics. I think that when we have these tools to help students it allows teachers to experiment with...
Read more

UBD DI chapter 3

Chapter 3 talks about the process of building a lesson using backward design. It gives examples of lesson plans and explains the most common confusions people have about backward design. The chapter also outlines the steps to take when using backward design and explains the purpose of each step. There is a shift happening in education right now and I think this chapter does well on summing it up. Teachers are used to driving curriculum into the students without worry if they actually understand it. While curriculum is important, I believe that schools should be places to also work on personal growth and understanding. Students should be able to learn more than just the basic curriculum but with the amount of information that students need to retain it is difficult to think about personal growth in students. I think that  backward design makes teachers more aware of the outcome they want and makes them think about how to reach that outcome. Step 2 of the backward design process ma...
Read more