- Teachers are expected to produce achievement for all students.
- NCLB mandates the use of research-based teaching and learning practice
- The more pathways teachers use while teaching, the more likely it will be that one will connect with the special strengths and needs of individual students.
- Learning strategies are ways to learn in a content area.
- Through flexible and varied approaches to the curriculum and texts, teachers can use content area literacy to help all of today's adolescents learn to be successful.
- Whenever possible, focus classroom conversations on students' experiences such as connecting rap music to poetry literature analogies and having students consider everyday uses and misuses of numbers and data.
Questions:
1) How can a teacher be punished if a child just cannot meet adequately yearly progress?
2) To what extent should the students' lives outside the classroom be embedded into the concepts taught inside the classroom?
1) I too have many questions regarding teacher responsibility to adequate yearly progress. It is important that teachers take great responsibility in this challenging and rewarding career we have chosen, yet I have seen teachers place their all into a child with no progress. I think that we have made improvements to ensuring success for every child and the placement of support systems, such as teacher support teams. With the tier model, we will not only decrease the amount of students in sped, but identify genuine problems earlier and quickly put interventions in place.
ReplyDelete2) I think that students will make more connections to material if it can be related to their life outside the classroom. With that said, I do believe that we have a responsibility to shelter students to some degree from the outside influences. For instance, I don't think we should necessarily include certain literature in our classrooms that students may otherwise see outside the classroom. As we discussed in math, relational knowledge provides students with more success in content areas.
I agree with you. I think teachers do have a responsibility in student success. However, I believe the teacher is not the only problem with student success.Sometimes a teacher is not able to make a difference for the student. I also agree that the Tier Model will help identify those students who are in need of extra help beyond the regular classroom instruction. Still, I wonder if the Tier Model acts quickly enough in its intervention. It seems like the child spends a very long period of time on Tier 2 when he/she may need more extensive help.
ReplyDeleteMaking connections is vital in a child's education. They construct knowledge from connecting it to their prior knowledge and life experiences. I agree with you about allowing certain literature into the classroom. Even though the subject matter may be a part of the child's life, it may not be a positive influence for the child. If we refer to it in the classroom, we will be in a sense telling the child that the activity or situation is acceptable. How do we know where to draw the line? If the parents condone or participate in the activity, how do we compete with their influence on the child? Is it right for us to say their parents behavoir is wrong? What effect will this have on a young child?