I teach students soon to be elementary and special education teachers, and they are often surprised to discover that their students are not “one size fits all”. The phrase has been around for decades and ...
“If you know the content, you can teach.” How many of us have heard this sentiment before? How many of us believe it ourselves? It is easy to assume that a content expert is automatically qualified ...
A recent issue of Outside magazine recounts Charles Bethea’s attempt to run a sub-five-minute mile. At age 35 and fit, though not an elite athlete, Bethea’s goal is far short of the world record of ...
College teachers love techniques. If you’re invited to lead a teaching workshop, you can expect to be asked, “Will you share some good techniques?” Suggest them in the workshop and watch lots of smiling participants ...
Good teachers care about their students. We all know that, but sometimes over the course of a long semester, it’s easy to forget just how important it is to show our students we care about ...
A quote from my June 3 blog post appeared in the October 18 issue of the New York Times. I was thrilled until I read the beautifully written op-ed piece. It proposes more lecture and ...
The list of concerns was compiled from a qualitative analysis of 10 years of graduate teaching assistants’ online discussion posts. The 120 students wrote the posts in a three-credit course that prepared them to teach ...
An email query about teaching personas reminded me how much I haven’t figured out about our teaching identities. I’m still struggling with very basic questions and wondered if a conversation here might not get us ...
Three new teachers at the front end of academic careers, about to face their first classes as teachers, want to know from somebody at the back end, “What’s most important for new teachers to ...
I teach students soon to be elementary and special education teachers, and they are often surprised to discover that their students are not “one size fits all.” The phrase has been around for decades and originally implied that a particular piece of clothing would fit everybody. Now, in my experience, the one size fits all scarf works for pretty much everyone, not so much for the one size fits all pair of pants or leggings.
For my new educators, “one size fits all” implies that all the students who walk into their classroom are basically the same, and this is simply not true, whether in a grade school classroom or a college classroom. Students come with varying academic backgrounds and with different skill levels. They represent a range of economic levels as well as diverse family backgrounds, cultures, and ethnic heritages. Finally, students have a range of academic abilities. Some are gifted; others may have a specific disability.
Dr. Carol Ann Tomlinson writes in How to Differentiate Instruction in Mixed Ability Classrooms that differentiation of instruction simply means “the teacher assumes that different learners have differing needs” and teachers should have plans responsive to their learning needs. To do that, teachers must not only have an in-depth knowledge of the content, they must have the same level of knowledge about their students. They must know student backgrounds, academic levels, and learning preferences. This does not mean 30 individual lessons for each concept being taught in the classroom. It's more a conscientious or focused effort to address the scope of learning abilities and needs, not assuming that a course with nothing but lectures will adequately meet the learning needs of everyone and if it doesn't, well, that's the students' problem.
Effective teachers at every level should continually assess students both formally and informally in the classroom. That's how to determine the differentiation needed to ensure the mastery of content and skills by all students. This too, is a difficult concept for new teachers (and perhaps for some not so new). The new teachers I work with often believe assessments are the means we use to give the student a grade at the end of the grading period. However, assessments are most effective when they are used to inform instruction. Assessments should address the following: What did the student learn? What additional areas of instruction are needed? What are the next steps for instruction? Teachers can use the information gained from informal assessments to make adaptations to instruction in “real-time” so that student learning is further enhanced before those final assessments. The goal for all teaching is optimizing teachable moments within the classroom.
Assessment and differentiation of instruction go “hand in hand” as educators work to ensure all students are learning at high levels. What teachers learn from informal assessments helps them develop a toolbox of instructional strategies that they can then use to successfully navigate the learning of each student. To concretely illustrate how that might work, consider how a portfolio can be used to assess student learning. The teacher can describe a variety of ways the material can be learned—through a collection of readings, by watching a set of videos, listening to podcasts, or through some relevant activity. The student uses one or several of these approaches to master the material and demonstrates that mastery in the portfolio. There ends up being multiple ways the student can demonstrate that they understand and can apply course content. Their portfolio might be the traditional paper and folder method or it can be presented in a digital format.
Successful teachers understand the connection between assessment and the planning of differentiated instructional next steps. It's those connections that ensure that all students regardless of their learning differences have a meaningful and engaging learning experience. In doing this, the classroom becomes a positive learning environment for all students. “One size fits all” may work now and then in the world of fashion, but it's a totally unrealistic expectation in the world of education!
Carol Bartlett, Indiana University Southeast, can be reached at carbartl@ius.edu.