In my own words, this standard tells me that I should know who my students are, make an effort to find out who they are as individuals, and not just understanding their academic capabilities but their cultural assets and personal interests as well. In addition, the teacher should display respect for each student and treat each one as a unique individual.
While reading this standard, I have several questions regarding how I achieve and demonstrate my capacity to meet the standard. One question at the forefront of my mind is, “How can I make time to learn about all of my students?” I was fortunate this year as a student teacher to be the primary instructor for 20 students; however, I know that in some cases, teacher have between 30-35 students or more in one classroom. Furthermore, in my induction years, I know that I will have more classes to teach and will be responsible for possibly 100 or more students. On top of that I will have content that I need to teach and important adaptations to make of the curriculum. Another question that I have regarding this standard is “how do I extract this in a positive and productive way without the students feel like it is an invasion of privacy or awkward for me to ask?” One final question is related to the previous inquiry, in which I question “can some information be too sensitive or personal for the student to share?” After all, such information may be important for me to know about them as a student, but I don’t want to be invasive or ask for information that may cause them to feel uncomfortable and potentially harm the sanctity of the classroom as a safe space.
I have done several things during this semester to reach the parameters of this standard. For one, I make a habitual “task” of standing outside of my classroom door as students enter the class. As they enter, I address each student by name and inquire as to how they are doing. Once inside and class has started, I make it a prerogative to ask how the students are doing and ask if they would like to share something interesting that happened the previous day.
I also try to show students that I do know something about them by including their interests, hobbies, or work experiences in the lessons that I am teaching. For example, when I taught about the circular flow model, I formed the model based on the work experience of one selected student and his interests. I did so by asking the student where he worked, to which he said Papa John’s. In response I said that he gave one of the factors of production (labor) to Papa John’s and asked what the pizza company gave him in return. He said a paycheck or income. Then I asked him what he was going to do with the money that Papa John’s gave him, to which he replied that he was going to purchase a new set of headphones from Walmart. Finally, I asked him how he was going to get the headphones at Walmart, to which he said that he was going to pay a cashier money for them.
In future years I would like to acquire knowledge about my students and their interests more formally. I envision this at the beginning of the school term as a type of “get to know you” survey, in which the students tell me not only about their academic interests, strengths, and weaknesses, but also what their interests are or if they have any hobbies. I regretted that I did not do this at the beginning of the semester, but I think that I was pressured with lesson planning and learning the content for myself. Regardless, showing a genuine interest and appreciation in your students is vital to trust building in the classroom.
Another idea that I have in relation to this standard beyond this semester is to tweak and strengthen something that I have already done this semester in a habitual way. While I did ask my students to share out something meaningful that happened the previous day, rarely did I get replies that were substantive or from more reserved students. To modify this, I would like to have them write down their answers to this question, so that students are more inclined to share something with me, albeit silently. Moreover, each Friday, I could ask in a ticket-out-the-door activity for the students to write down at least 5 things they plan to do on the weekend that is enjoyable.
This standard directly relates to aspects of my rationale, and I am a proponent of showing students that I care and respect them as individuals with at least something worthwhile to the learning experience. As I stated in my rationale, my established curriculum should include not only connections to contemporary events, issues, and controversies, but should also be relevant to students’ lives and interests. In order for this second important aspect to be achieved, I must have comprehensive knowledge about who my students are, what drives them, and what interests will make the curriculum and content authentic and relevant for them. Without doing so, students will find that, while my class may include important connections to current issues, the content does not have any direct relevance to them as individuals.
To me, this standard says providing differentiated instruction and supporting students in a variety of ways in which they learn. Additionally, the teacher should develop these supports over time, once he or she knows the students and the scaffolds and supports that they require.
When reading these standards during the earlier periods of the semester, I asked "is it was possible to provide all of the necessary supports that students need in all instruction and activities?" Another related question that Todd Dinkelman also referenced is "what supports are necessary to give all students so that they are successful in learning?" All children learn differently and are successful at certain activities, so is it really possible to give blanketed supports to all students to ensure that all students will be successful?
Another question that I had that was related to this standard is "how do students help themselves learn?" Throughout this semester, I have had a group of students that have done poorly on the multiple choice tests that I was mandated to give. After giving each assessment I pondered, "Is this a fault in my instruction or are the students not being motivated to take notes, ask questions, or study the concepts?" I am not suggesting that students assume all responsibility for their learning, but I do think that in order to truly understand and learn material then they need to be both physically and mentally attentive in class. However, I also recognize that as a part of my duties as a teacher, I need to motivate these students to be attentive and participatory in the class.
Within my teaching experience as a whole this semester, I have done certain things to ensure completion of this important standard. I have tried to implement certain supports and lesson activities which include a wide range of learners to ensure their success in the class. For example, in mini-lessons, I have presented video, picture, and graph analyses to ensure inclusion of those who tend to learn more visually. In addition, I recognize that my class, and any class for that matter, is made up of a various levels of readers. To support all learners in reading assignments, such as jigsaws, stations, or independent readings, I did the following: assigned readings were paired down and highlighted for important sections regarding the big idea of the article.
In addition to the aforementioned implementations, I have sought to reach and challenge my gifted students in order to motivate them to participate in class activities. In doing so, I have attempted to highlight and expose their creativity by providing them opportunities to engage in simulation activities around important economic concepts, having them act in role playing situations, or requesting that they produce a creative poster or political cartoon about vital ideas that we have discussed, like the growing U.S. debt.
Beyond this semester, I would like to further reach this standard specifically in supporting and challenging my future gifted students. While I have provided multiple opportunities where gifted students have been encouraged to participate in the class, I feel like some students have been disengaged with the assignments, and have specifically demonstrated boredom with some of the readings that I have present. I realize that their apparent disengagement may be impacted by the early class time (7:30 am) but also may be the materials that I present and my over-usage of readings. Thus, I would like to find other ways in which students can analyze and interpret, but in an engaging way.
In addition, I would like to implement more simulations, where students can compete to win at the activity. I found that all ranges of learners enjoyed such activities and understood the content more easily, given the hands-on approach. Doing such implementation would challenge all students, channel creativity, and motivate students to be engaged with the content. However, I am unsure about ideas where I can implement simulations in all of the social studies disciplines, and therefore, will likely need to turn my attention to research.
I would say that this standard relates to my rationale for teaching on a more abstract level. What I mean by this is how students are motivated to learn. Students must be challenged to learn and have an authentic interest in doing so. Therefore, it is necessary to find ways for students to be challenged and motivated to learn. It is here that my rationale is connected, as I believe that students find genuine interest in the subject that they are learning about when they find that it has relevance to their lives and the world around them. Thus, in order for students to be driven to learn in the first place, the teacher must have a practice and related curriculum that stresses connecting curriculum to the world and which involves students in inquiry around relevant and current issues.
In my words I see this standard as saying that the teacher will maintain the belief that all students can succeed at high levels and meet the high expectations of the instructor. The teacher must also recognize that students require support and scaffolding to succeed in academically challenging learning experiences.
Upon reading this standard, I was perplexed by several questions related to the idea that all students can indeed learn at high levels. I recognize the need to have high expectations for all students and assist them to ensure that they meet these expectations; however, one provocative question that had regarding this standard is "what if a student refuses to meet the high expectations?" I am in no way asserting that students can't learn at high levels, but rather perhaps they won't. As mentioned earlier in this synthesis paper, I have had a certain group of students who have frequently done poorly on assessments. That same group of students are often present physically in class, but not mentally. Often I see them with their heads down, talking with friends, and overall, not participating in the learning activity. I recognize that their disengagement may be stemming from multiple reasons, like fear of failure, as anonymously suggested by one of my classmates. Therefore, one final question on this point is "If I change my high expectations for these students, at what point are my expectations no longer high?" Several of my classmates as well as Todd Dinkelman were perplexed by this question, and I feel like I can take a brief stab at an answer. Students are no longer learning at the high levels of my expectations when they are not engaging in collaboration with others, inquiry around a particular contemporary issue, nor using evidence as support for individual claims. In addition, students are no longer reaching the high expectations and learning at high levels if they are passive learners, doing an activity only for the sake of a grade, or simply using basic recall to succeed in the class.
Frequently during the semester I have had challenging reading assignments for my students, in which I have expected that all of my students will be able to succeed at the task and reach (and potentially exceed) my expectations. When the students have been involved in inquiry at various parts of the semester, I have provided contemporary readings to help them answer provocative and complex inquiry questions. At the same time, students were supported in their reading, as the article was edited to be suitable for high school students and was highlighted for important big ideas. Moreover, students were assisted in what to actually do with the article, as they were given a graphic organizer that included guided opinionated and analytical questions. At the end of each article, I also created a section where the students could evaluate the evidence in the article and determine whether or not it helped them make an opinion of their own.
Moreover, after one inquiry lesson near the end of my experience, I had the students engage in a long closer activity in which they were asked to write a one to two paragraph response to the inquiry question and include evidence and arguments of both side of the issue (repealing and replacing the Affordable Care Act). I had the students do this because I felt like many of the students were not reaching my expectations regarding answering the inquiry question. While in previous inquiry lessons, the students had indeed given a definite "yes" or "no" argument to the question, they had not cited evidence from provided social studies accounts nor information from the lesson as a whole. As a result, I chose to implement this closer with my expectations clear and highlighted, so that the students were better prepared to achieve at answering the inquiry question.
In future years I would like to discover more of what each individual student needs and his or her academic strengths and weaknesses. Based on this information, I will be better prepared to offer more scaffolds so that each student can succeed at challenging learning tasks. Unfortunately, for most of the earlier part of this semester, I was focused on learning the content for myself, lesson planning, and material creation, and not necessarily focused on all of the individual needs that each student might require in order to perform well. I did, however, provide various scaffolds for the whole class, but perhaps not ones that are tailored to each individual student. Understanding the content and my students with more expertise, will allow me to create more challenging learning tasks and the supports that each student needs in order to facilitate their success in such tasks.
In addition, I believe that I started off with lower expectations than what I should have this semester for my students. Therefore, I would like to rectify and never replicate this mistake again in the future, and to establish high expectations, though differentiated, for all students at the onset of the semester. However, I also recognize that their must be a clear difference between easy-to-reach and impossible-to-reach expectations. Students need to be challenged in my class but not so challenged that they will not be able to be successful in my class.
In relation to my rationale for teaching social studies, this standard connects directly and what I constitute as "challenging learning tasks." My rationale is permeated with reverence for inquiry-based instruction and my belief that students should be engaged in collaboration with their classmates and teacher, analyze, evaluate, and interpret social studies accounts, investigate contemporary and relevant issues, and to form conclusions and solutions to these topics. By doing so, students are taking more of an active role in the classroom and are engaging in "challenging learning tasks." In being successful at these tasks, it is also necessary that the students be supported. In addition to scaffolds, such as guided readings or modeling done by the teacher, students are also supported by the creation of the classroom as a safe space. In order for students to be successful at such learning tasks, the students must feel comfortable enough to participate around often controversial and complex topics, and to do so with respect for one another.