“My kids are very diverse. Be a constant for them.” That’s one of the thoughts my teacher associate shared during the Educational Partners Orientation Program (EPOP) held before I headed into his classroom as a student teacher for my first professional semester in the Faculty of Education. I never thought that the first recommendation he wrote that morning would be one of the final things I’d ponder at the end of the five-week practicum.
I don’t have a lot of classroom experience as a student teacher, but I don’t imagine this group of 26 students is out of the ordinary. There’s the socioeconomic diversity, which is easy to spot: Look at students’ shoes. Some students wear top-of-the-line brand-name ones while others wear runners on their last legs. What isn’t as easy to detect is the learning diversity.
This Grade 4 classroom includes students struggling to learn the English language as new Canadians, and reading levels well above and below grade level. We touch on differentiated instruction on campus before heading out into classrooms but I am left feeling it was only a taste of the topic. The wide range of students’ abilities from the ones who struggled the most to those who picked up the lesson and ran with it surprised me. I never imagined that 26 students in one room would differ so significantly in abilities. I feel confident that I have the tools to teach at grade level, but in PSII I plan to further explore differentiation so I create in my lesson plans multiple paths of learning to support students’ individual differences. I want my lesson plans to offer students learning tasks appropriate to their educational needs instead of just the grade and subject I teach. I also intend to read Carol Ann Tomlinson’s work as was suggested during culmination day.
Another area I plan to explore in PSII is making my lessons pass what I call the “So What?” test. I originally thought about focusing on student motivation but I think linking my lessons to life outside of the classroom will not only engage my students but help them invest in their own education, too. I watched my TA teach fractions several times during my practicum. Each time, he linked the lesson to real-life examples. No student could honestly say, “So What?” concerning why they were learning fractions; he made fractions relevant to their lives. He clearly communicated the importance of mastering fractions, for example, when making a decision about a birthday party’s activities where X number of guests you plan to invite enjoy swimming and Y number of students enjoy playing hockey. I admit that coming up with attention-getting hooks is an area that I need to polish but I want students’ attention for an entire lesson, not just the first minute or two. I want my lessons to foster in my students a curiosity about the world outside of the classroom — with the ultimate goal of establishing a love of lifelong learning.