Differentiation

            The articles I had to read for this weeks differentiation blog included one about gifted students and another that discussed making the switch from higher level suburban schools to lower ses schools.   Both of the articles provide insight as to why differentiation is so pivotal in the classroom.  The dilemma in the first article by Wilkins described how most gifted students are not challenged enough.  Wilkins stated, “The goal of framework is to make it easier for elementary teachers to provide challenging activities for students working above their grade level in mathematics without having to plan a separate every” (2006, p. 70).  I think this a great point because I think a lot of the time teachers don’t know what to do with gifted students, and they are usually just passed along to help out other students that are struggling.  There is also the issue that sometimes gifted students don’t know how explain their thinking because a lot of them time they do everything so fast in their head they can’t keep track of how they figured the problem out.  Another problem Wilkins posed was that gifted students might need extra motivation, so this is why teachers still need to be involved and not leave the gifted students alone (2006, p. 12).  Now in regards to the other article, the teacher in this piece talked about how her methods with the gifted students in her suburban teaching did not work well with her students in the lower ses schools.  Through her teaching, her students complained that they were mostly angry at her for making them feel incompetent, even though she felt like the assignments she was giving had worked so well in the past (Robert, 2002, p. 292).  She also realized that what these students needed the most is simply confidence.  One of the most important lesson I learned from this article is the key to successful lesson include structure, encouragement, and time.  Overall, I thought the discoveries of these two articles were extremely important.  In my placement, there is one student who I think should be considered gifted but she is not given the extra support and challenges that she needs.  However, it is tricky situation because she is usually gone for half of the school week for her competitive gymnastics team.  My MT does not have the time to give her extra support because when she is in the classroom the student has to be focused on catching up with the rest of the class.  I think this case pertains a lot to the parent and teacher connection.  If her parents were to communicate more often when the child is going to be out the class, then perhaps they could work something out that would benefit the student more.

Learning About Measurement

We talked in class today about the trend of poor scoring for US students when it comes to measurement.  In particular, as mentioned in the Thompson and Preston article, Measurement in the Middle Grades, student scores are lowest on constructed response questions that involve students to explain their reasoning.  When I read this I immediately thought of the task level page 116 from the 5 Practices Book that determines what constitutes a lower or higher level task.  If students are unable to explain their thinking, or actually understand the mathematical content behind the measurement concept being tested, does that mean schools are presenting them with more lower level tasks that lack connections or procedure building?  We have spent so much time discussing the benefits of providing students with higher level tasks, but this is actual proof of why it is so important for students to build those connections and come up with procedures on their own.  The article stated that, “Teachers focus on low-level knowledge and skills with little effort to help students develop conceptual understanding or engage in complex problem solving."  In thinking of my own schooling I can remember being given a ruler and a worksheet in which I had to use a specific tool to measure an object.  While that did teach me how to use a ruler, I am not sure what it actually taught me about measurement.
For our lesson study, my group is choosing to focus on Measurement in a Kindergarten class.  We had a hard time coming up with a higher level task when we were talking during today's workshop time, but this article gave me some good incite.  Instead of teaching the students how to use a ruler to measure if something is "shorter" or "longer" I could make the task higher level by giving them multiple tools to measure with and allowing them to choose the best-fit tool for the job.  That way, the focus is on measurement, not just learning to use a ruler.