Cycle Two: Challenges and Opportunities in Building Classroom Communities

I’m currently working on an inquiry project about building classroom communities, because I noticed a correlation between positive classroom communities and student achievement in my classes last year. With that in mind, I found this week’s content particularly interesting and enlightening. In my interviews with students for my inquiry project, several of them told me that in a class with a really good atmosphere, there was a lot of time spent in groups, doing both content-based work, and just spending some time getting to know each other (and often a combination of the two.) Several of the students described their “good” example of a class as one in which the students had fun learning together.

My school has been doing walk-throughs to analyze how student time is spent, and repeatedly finding that the majority of class time is spent on whole-group instruction or individual, quiet work on worksheets, etc. Because of the talk about those findings in our staff meetings and PLC’s, I had already been trying to focus on how to incorporate more group work in my instruction (generally easy since my main goal in instruction is communication), but after hearing what my students had to say about how they perceived classes with lots of group work, I determined to make this even more of a priority in my planning for next year.

The Tomlinson & McTighe (2006) chapter on differentiating instruction was possibly the single most useful piece I’ve read in a teacher education course. I’ve always grappled with the idea of differentiated instruction, knowing it would benefit my students, but always got stuck somewhere around varying my instructional techniques but not actually individualizing anything- because I didn’t really know how and didn’t have the time to figure it out. This chapter lays out the basics and gives enough concrete examples that any teacher could start implementing them with a little extra careful planning.

At first when I read the analogy about universal design- the idea that it’s easier to plan something like a ramp for a sidewalk rather than try to add the ramp later, and also the idea that, while designed for people in wheelchairs, the ramp is useful for mothers with strollers, etc (95).-I only thought about the time this extra step in lesson design would require. I do differentiate instruction on some level regularly, but last year there was only one time that I was really proud of my efforts. I was teaching the difference between the preterit and imperfect tenses in Spanish (two past tenses), a major grammar point for Spanish learners. A certain portion of my class had just barely scraped by Spanish 1, could hardly conjugate a present tense verb, and so were lost at sea when it came to contrasting two different past tenses, while others in the class could conjugate in their sleep and had memorized the rules for when to use which tense on the first day I introduced it. To accommodate for those differences, I made a preliminary assessment to determine groups, along with three different sets of activities for the day- ranging from basic conjugation to more abstract uses of the verb tenses, according to what the students needed practice with. The lesson went great, and I was able to spend some time with the struggling students who really needed a little one-on-one, but it took me three times as long to plan, since I had to come up with essentially three lessons, as well as figure out how to make them all work simultaneously.

A later analogy in the chapter really resonated with me- comparing starting to incorporate differentiated instruction with starting an exercise habit or a healthier eating plan (106). I’m a runner, I enjoy cooking, and I’m somewhat self-conscious, so the struggles of starting and sticking with a regime is something I can really relate to. I can also relate to the success side of it- since it’s become a habit for me, I no longer buy it when friends say they’re too busy for exercise. I think- if I have time for it you could definitely find the time! As Tomlinson & McTighe put it, “the changes are awkward at first,” but “many illustrate the benefits to their lives” (106). As Cheryl Caggiano, a teacher who works hard to differentiate instruction puts it, “It’s crazy, insane, and I don’t get paid enough,” but she does it anyway- because she can see how beneficial it is for her students (Schumer, 2003). I can find the time to make little changes to all of my units, even if I have to start small- it’s worth it.

The other chapter I gained a lot from this week was the Johnson & Johnson (1986) chapter on grouping. I was particularly glad to find this chapter so useful because, before reading it, I had chosen this book for my final project, thinking it might tie in well with my inquiry project. Groups make differentiating instruction easy because they can be working on different tasks, with varying levels of difficulty, and at varying paces, and, as I found in my student interviews, they help “build relationships among the students” (171).  This also meets my school’s goal of having less full group instruction or students working alone. Using the tips given in this chapter, even full group instruction via lecture can become a cooperative effort by breaking up sections of lecture with discussion tasks to be performed in small groups.

I’m excited to try new things with grouping in the coming school year- not just ability-based grouping, which often pushes some students to the top, while leaving others to languish in the dust, but base groups that stay together throughout the year, informal groups for small tasks, groups based on interests, etc., and I’m hoping that the implementation of those grouping strategies with both contribute to a more positive classroom environment (which I believe will positively affect achievement), and offer opportunities for differentiated instruction (also shown to positively affect achievement.)


References:

Johnson, D. & Johnson, R. (1986). Learning together and learning alone: Cooperative, competitive, and individualistic learning. Boston, MA: Allyn & Bacon.

Schumer, F. (2003, November 9). One classroom, many minds: A paddle for the mainstream. The New York Times. 

Tomlinson, C.A. & McTighe, J. (2006). Integrating differentiated instruction and understanding by design: Connecting content and kids. Alexandria, VA: ASCD.