Teaching Matters by Beverly Falk

Author:Beverly Falk
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781595587121
Publisher: The New Press

SECTION THREE

Inside Differentiated Teaching

One teacher is usually responsible for the learning in a classroom of about twenty-five children. In some schools, especially urban schools, this number can be even higher. In one classroom there may be children who begin the year advanced in many areas of the curriculum while others are in need of tremendous support. The diversity of learning abilities, styles, and needs can range from children who need help understanding English, children who need assistance staying organized, or children who have special academic, social, or emotional needs.

How can a teacher provide an environment that ensures every child learns to the best of her abilities? In this section three urban teachers explore this question. Their stories offer a nuanced picture of the complexities involved in making a single classroom serve the needs of children who have many different kinds of needs. Neurys Bonilla presents an account of the challenges of teaching in a multiaged dual-language classroom, where students range in age from five to seven and have varying proficiency in two languages. Travis Sloane describes his exploration of how to differentiate his teaching to support the science learning of both “special needs” and general education students in a second grade classroom. And Carol Castillo shares her search for strategies that are effective in supporting the literacy development of the English-language learners in her kindergarten classroom.

Together, these stories demonstrate the careful work of effective teaching: observing and documenting how children learn as well as what they know and can do, reflecting on the information, and then adjusting instruction and shaping curriculum based on the new understanding gained. This ongoing cycle of assessment and teaching requires teachers who not only have solid content knowledge but also possess deep knowledge of how children learn, of how to collect and use evidence from children’s work to make informed decisions about next steps for teaching, and of how to craft a curriculum that embodies needed knowledge and skills in a manner that is effective for each and every learner. This is highly skilled, nuanced work—very different from the commonly held conception of teaching as simply “delivering” curricula in a “one-size-fits-all” manner and then evaluating it through standardized tests that determine whether or not students will move on to the next grade. Teachers who possess these professional skills use knowledge of how people learn to shape and guide their teaching in ways that respond to the ever-changing needs of the children in their care. Teachers like these are effective at preparing students for the critical-thinking and problem-solving skills required for success in our twenty-first-century, globalized world. Their complex and complicated work is described in the stories that follow.

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