My students arrive each August at a new school. They have each been incubated at their own sweet little elementary school: either in Como, Sardis, or Crenshaw. Some come to me hardly more than four feet tall, some less than sixty pounds. Others look like grownups: tall and awkward, maybe relieved to not have to repeat fifth grade again.
So the glimmers of inequality begin to emerge.
So the glimmers of inequality begin to emerge.
In many ways, all of my students are hard to reach. However, last year, I was plagued by fears surrounding the numerous IEP, borderline illiterate, and generally apathetic students. Differentiation my first year felt nearly impossible. I was burdened by the constant guilt for not reaching the students who needed my interventions the most. Particularly, I suffered at the thought of my many students with undefined or misunderstood learning disabilities. How many of my students were dyslexic but untested? How many were on the autism spectrum? How many of my students suffered emotional frustration in the classroom?
This year, I’ve made peace with the fact that I will always try to reach everyone, but I won’t successfully hit my target "mastery". Growth will always be more important than hitting proficiency. Even in my own career: I am a better teacher than I was last year, and I am inherently more successful by not thinking of each student as a project I have to take on alone. Instead, I have worked harder to spread the project to everyone. Students
Three days per week, my students work in flexible groups. This practice is based on our school’s accountability goals. I focus the majority of my energy on the lowest performing students. The method works like this: I post an agenda, a task, and my anchor chart on the board. Then, I quickly model the task, clarify any issues, and my students break into groups. The three to five students with more detailed IEP accommodations or the students who fall into the bottom 25% in terms of assessment scores, sit with me in a pod. Then the middling group sits in a group slightly beyond my immediate group. The remaining, higher achieving students are put in pairs and left mostly alone. Then, I sit with the lowest group and work through all of their issues directly. I circulate to other groups every five minutes or so, and students are free to approach me with any questions after they have consulted their group-mates first.
At first, I was frustrated with flexible grouping. The practice was mandated by the district. I was not enthusiastic about the idea. However, I was able to receive some professional development within the district and I now look forward to it. Flexible grouping allows me to prepare my students Monday and Tuesday, then hand the responsibility to them for the remainder of the week.
While I couldn’t get a video of myself actually teaching during flexible groups, I found it important to mention. It makes me proud to see my students given a task, and complete it excellently without my extra energy hovering over them. Furthermore, I appreciate having more in-depth tutoring with my struggling students. Flexible grouping helps me reach the students that otherwise might be left behind. In this way, the bottom 25% of my students receive the best attention from their teacher, and I get to see what my higher achieving students can do on their own. I suggest flexible grouping for any teacher who may have struggled with reaching all students throughout the week.
This year, I’ve made peace with the fact that I will always try to reach everyone, but I won’t successfully hit my target "mastery". Growth will always be more important than hitting proficiency. Even in my own career: I am a better teacher than I was last year, and I am inherently more successful by not thinking of each student as a project I have to take on alone. Instead, I have worked harder to spread the project to everyone. Students
Three days per week, my students work in flexible groups. This practice is based on our school’s accountability goals. I focus the majority of my energy on the lowest performing students. The method works like this: I post an agenda, a task, and my anchor chart on the board. Then, I quickly model the task, clarify any issues, and my students break into groups. The three to five students with more detailed IEP accommodations or the students who fall into the bottom 25% in terms of assessment scores, sit with me in a pod. Then the middling group sits in a group slightly beyond my immediate group. The remaining, higher achieving students are put in pairs and left mostly alone. Then, I sit with the lowest group and work through all of their issues directly. I circulate to other groups every five minutes or so, and students are free to approach me with any questions after they have consulted their group-mates first.
At first, I was frustrated with flexible grouping. The practice was mandated by the district. I was not enthusiastic about the idea. However, I was able to receive some professional development within the district and I now look forward to it. Flexible grouping allows me to prepare my students Monday and Tuesday, then hand the responsibility to them for the remainder of the week.
While I couldn’t get a video of myself actually teaching during flexible groups, I found it important to mention. It makes me proud to see my students given a task, and complete it excellently without my extra energy hovering over them. Furthermore, I appreciate having more in-depth tutoring with my struggling students. Flexible grouping helps me reach the students that otherwise might be left behind. In this way, the bottom 25% of my students receive the best attention from their teacher, and I get to see what my higher achieving students can do on their own. I suggest flexible grouping for any teacher who may have struggled with reaching all students throughout the week.
My best "evidence" for why I believe all learners can learn is best explained through the story of the boy pictured far above (in the bowtie).
This is a student I had last year, who is now a football star (in his head) but still struggling. Around this time last year, he was by far my hardest working student. He came to the sixth grade having repeated twice already; once in third grade and once in fifth grade. By January of 2016, he was approaching his 15th birthday. His grades were abysmal, with no hope of attending summer school for grade recovery.
A stroke of luck placed me in one of his last IEP meetings of the school year. It was late January, and his mother and I sat with his math inclusion teacher to discuss his progress. I always get nervous in IEP meetings, because most of the time parents look desperate to help their child, and I usually don't have any answers. Usually, I look up the student's term grades and wait until someone asks me a direct question. But, as I pulled up this student's grades, I noticed that If he completed every bellringer and aimed for a "C" on all tests, he could pass my class and Ms. G's class; leaving only Math for grade recovery over the summer.
I was able to adjust his NewsELA passages, model some extra writing tasks for him, and by the end of the year, he had over an 80 average in my class. He was able to attend North Panola's summer school, scored a passing grade on his state test, and move on to the seventh grade. He is by far best part of walking through the halls of North Panola, because he is the example of what extra time and focus can do for a struggling learner.