Thursday, May 12, 2016

Chapter 7 "Preparing Students and Parents for a Differentiated Classroom"

"Successful partnering between teacher and parents is based on proactive communication."
The beginning of the school year is the time to initiate positive dialogue with parents and students. I really like from this chapter the way Mr. Wade uses different developmental accomplishments of early childhood to illustrate that every student will also be at different academic stages of accomplishment. This is a of taping into Parents and Students prior knowledge and experience to parallel it to what will occur throughout the school year.


I think another way to help parents understand why their child has "more challenging work" is to look at sports or other physical activity. The only way to improve one's ability is to continue to work hard and train under a level slightly more advanced. In sports, the best way to improve your "game performance" is to play someone who is "better than yourself." This parallels the academic growth in school. For a student to improve their current proficiency level, they must be involved with assignments that are just above their comfort zone. The teacher must also provide "a support system that leads to success and growth."


Its my job to help the parents and the students set goals for the school year. We work together to re-evaluate these goals throughout the year. We set new goals based on each student's progress as needed. Through "reaching an attainable goal" the focus is no longer on "this work is too hard." Now the focus becomes "How Can I Improve!"  

Chapter 7 looks at the reasons why some parents and students might be uncomfortable with students not all working at the same level and pace. 

Using the suggestions in the chapter as a starting point, on your blog post how would you address the advanced student and their parent(s) about the reasons you are providing the student with more challenging work than other students are having to complete?

1 comment:

  1. I like how you bring in the examples of a physical activity, it really helps to fully understand why it may seem like someone is getting the "harder" work.

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