HONORING THE DIFFERENCES

SPRING 2012: WEEK 3: ASSUME NOT! USE A G.P.S.

2012-01-26T20:05:00.000-05:00

Over the last few years, one of the things that I've seen on multiple Exit Cards or AHA comments, from DI students, is "I need to learn to not assume!" Assuming usually doesn't work well in any walk of life unless the person is highly gifted in intuitive thinking and/or perceiving.
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Here are 3 things to consider:

When you have a student who doesn't put out the effort you expect, do you automatically assume that person is lazy or unmotivated? Is it possible that the student has some kind of challenge that you do not understand?
When you have a student who is really aware of her/his fashion and body image do you automatically assume that student is really into her/his appearance? Is it possible that the student is highly insecure and dupped by the commercialism of our society to dress or look a certain way?
When you have someone give you powerful information, do you automatically assume that person is correct? Is it possible that what you've heard or read is only true in part?

Below are 7 activities (5 for all classes to comment on and 2 additional activites for Sikes' DI classes only):

ACTIVITIES 1 and 2: 2 videos
ACTIVITY 3: a 1 + 1 reading
ACTIVITY 4: 1 inventory to complete
ACTIVITY 5: 1 UDL search

These will get you to thinking more about the myriad of differences in our world. Hopefully, after you finish these activities and attend Week 3 class, you will be convicted to ASSUME NOT. Use these activities to challenge your thinking on this topic. Scroll down, now, to the COMMENTS DIRECTIONS. Read them, so you know what will be expected of you after doing Activities 1-5. Once you've read the directions, return here to begin with Activity 1.

ACTIVITY 1 - Video:

This man's teachers made him feel small because he was different and they could not help him.

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ACTIVITY 2 - Video:

Why did I ask you to watch these 2 videos?

Sometimes teachers are swayed to honor a student by...

...how book smart that student is.
...that a student comes from a "good family".
...that the student "thinks just like me"!
...that the student is cute or charming or beautiful.

When we learn how to honor the differences, we understand that every classroom has a diversity of smarts, family heritage, commonality to the teacher, or physical charm / beauty. We can then begin to value the uniqueness of each individual and his or her strengths, weaknesses, challenges, interests, and preferences... and most importantly - needs. We learn to honor beauty differently; it's more than skin deep!

Activity 3 - A two part reading:

We've already talked in class some about names and labels attributed to those with ELN's (Exceptional Learning Needs). Sometimes the label is in the name and you quickly make the connection. How about considering a "refreshment connection"? Coca Cola? Dr. Pepper? Pepsi? Sprite? 7-UP? Other?

Do you RECOGNIZE these name connections?

Koch? Buffet? Gates?

If you say that they are associated with great wealth or philanthropy, you would be correct. These men KNOW a whole lot about what it takes to run companies and make money. In fact, Bill Gates is involving himself more and more these days in sharing his profits and what he has learned to help the future of education. There is an amazing article that has been circulating on the internet entitled, "Rules Kids Won't Learn in School". It may be that when you become a teacher you will hear them again and when you see those 11 points you will RECOGNIZE them as the words of Bill Gates. Be careful! Don't assume! Don't believe everything you read on the internet! Link here to read the 11 points and the whole story! http://www.snopes.com/politics/soapbox/schoolrules.asp
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In your field experience and future classrooms, your students will come to you with many different levels of KNOWING. In fact, some of your students will already KNOW much of the core curriculum that is to be taught in that semester. Others, will have the foundation necessary so that they are ready to be taught. Yet, there will be still others who come with big holes or gaps in their understanding of the subject matter. You will quickly want to understand: "What do my students know and not know? What do my students recognize and not recognize? It's part of the RECOGNITION network. Don't assume! Ask questions! Do your research! Collect your data on what your students really know!
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If Bill Gates was one of your students and you found a paper with those 11 points laying in your classroom, it would be easy to assume that he wrote them. Yet, since you've researched this a little more, you know that Bill Gates was not the author of that famous list. How could you know for sure whether he was or wasn't the author? There is a place online to check whether or not things you read or hear are fact or fiction. That's where you just linked to. Now, I would like you to go to their home page and peruse through other urban legends that might be true or false. http://www.snopes.com/ Oh, and by the way, was that really Julie Andrews in the Week 1 video?

Activity 4 - a Personality Inventory:

We will continue to assume less and let "the facts" (data) inform our thinking more. These 3 letters will help us: G.P.S.

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What does G. P. S. stand for? You might answer, "Global Positioning System". Yet, for our purposes, within the next week or so, we will assign different words to those 3 letters:

G = Genogram / Gender
P = Personality
S = Styles of Learning / Intelligence

To prepare for Week 3 class, you will need to click here to take a short personality inventory. You will learn the words/letters that stand for your personality. Once you click on this link, it will give a brief description of what you will be doing. Then, you will click DO IT! That takes you to the personality inventory. Once finished, be sure and write down in your notebook AND on a WORD document the following:

your 4 personality letters
what each of those 4 letters stand for
your percentage of each letter

Once finished, you can back arrow back to this blog.

ACTIVITY 5 - A UDL search:

As discussed previously, the websites for UDL-Universal Design for Learning are massive. You could spend a whole day there and view only a fraction of what is available. Today, I would like you to learn how to access some of their resources for the 3 Brain Networks. Once you spend time reviewing, choose one resource / activity that you might find helpful in your future teaching. You will share your findings in the third part of your comment.

How to access UDL resources:

Go to http://www.cast.org/
Scroll down to the bottom left of the home page where you see pictures of the 3 Brains. Click on the link BELOW the brains.
Once on the page entitled ABOUT UDL, read what it says.
Next, click on the box at the bottom left that reads MORE WAYS TO PROVIDE MULTIPLE MEANS OF REPRESENTATION.
You will arrive on a page about UDL Principle 1: Multiple Means of Representation (Recognition Network) - Read the page and click on each checkpoint. On each checkpoint page is a link to EXAMPLES AND RESOURCES for that checkpoint. Once you've perused through multiple checkpoint pages, you can select the one that you could see yourself using someday. At that point, you will return to the COMMENTS PAGE and write your "comment on c." (Here, if you are in a SIKES' DI class; otherwise, go to your assigned area).

ACTIVITIES 6 and 7: Will be something for Sikes' students to come back to after commenting.

TO COMMENT:

a. DI-SECTION___; SIKES; your initials; your class student number (NOT your Rowan ID)
b. ACTIVITY #4: Write the 4 letters you were given as the result of the personality inventory on ACTIVITY #4 (for example, I would write ENFP).
c. ACTIVITY #5: Name the UDL resource that you found under MULTIPLE MEANS OF REPRESENTATION, give a brief one sentence description of it's purpose, and then explain how to link to it.
d. ACTIVITIES #1-#5: Consider the different activities of this post and share which 2 were the most helpful for you to create a new understanding or renew an understanding. Briefly explain why.

***The above activities and blog comment should be completed by the midnight before your DI Week 3 class.*****

ACTIVITY #6 for Sikes' DI students:
For Activity 5, you commented on a resource you found under the category of MULTIPLE MEANS OF REPRESENTATION. Please follow Activity 5 directions listed above: 1, 2, and 3. Then, instead of clicking below the first brain, click below the second and third brains to find one resource for each of these. Bring the information about those 2 resources to WEEK 3 class.

MULTIPLE MEANS OF ACTION AND EXPRESSION
MULTIPLE MEANS OF ENGAGEMENT

ACTIVITY #7 for Sikes' DI students:

In our WEEK 3 class, we will talk about Genograms/Family Trees. Google the word GENOGRAM and then look at the images that show how people draw different genograms or family trees. Consider how people might draw family trees if there is adoption or blended families involved. Be sure you have a basic working knowledge of how to construct a Family Tree before coming to class.

SPRING 2012: WEEK 2: A PARADIGM OF 3 BRAIN NETWORKS

2012-01-18T10:01:00.002-05:00

RECOGNITION NETWORK - (R):
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Over the years, I've come across a name or an acronym that I have no idea what it stands for. In the next few weeks, you will have that experience as well. Special Education, by itself, has a lot of acrostics and acronyms. You will get acquainted with quite a few of these as the semester transpires. I am sure that you will become quite familar with UDL, RSA, IEP, 504, IDEA, or maybe even AACCE MOO PS STV (and more letter strings) on this journey into differentiated instruction. For some of you, your RECOGNITION for different strings of letters may just turn from a weakness to a strength. Hopefully, each of the symbolic concepts. in this course, you will learn to RECOGNIZE WITH EASE.
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As you read, this week, at www.cast.org, you'll be reading TES - chapters 2 and 3. Those 3 letters really stand for our online textbook - Teaching Every Student.

In your field experience and future classrooms, your students will come to you with many different levels of KNOWING. In fact, some of your students will already KNOW much of the core curriculum that is to be taught in that semester. Others, will have the foundation necessary to be taught. Yet, there will be still others who come with big holes or gaps in WHAT THEY KNOW. You will quickly want to understand:

What do my students know and not know?
What do my students recognize and not recognize?
What are the different ways or styles that my students use to pick up their information? .

STRATEGIC NETWORK - (S):
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People have different ways of connecting information. I often connect things to situations or stories that have had a profound impact on me. Hence, I share with you my "love for sheep". No, I have never owned sheep, but I've gotten to know people who have. I've learned that when sheep fall down, they need someone to help them get up. The sheep in the picture at the left is a "cast sheep" who is not able to get up on his own without help from the shepherd and his/her staff. The staff is the shepherd's STRATEGY for rescuing cast sheep.

Over the course of your teaching career, you will come across many students who are "stuck", paralyzed, can't move on, or in a sense "cast". They don't have the skills or the strategies to solve their problems. They need to be rescued! Your challenge as their teacher / "shepherd" is to come up with a strategy or strategies that will help them get on their feet in this journey of learning.
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In the video below, a young man shows how by simply using common items available to him and stacking them, one on top of the other, he developed a strategy for solving his huge problem..
Enjoy the video and make the connections!

It will be good to continually ask yourself,

How does each student connect with and express what he or she has learned?
How do they use different strategies to organize information the information presented to them?
How might the concept of S.A.M. (Strategies, Accommodations, and Modifications) set him/her up for success?

AFFECTIVE NETWORK - (A):

Suppose that in your first year of teaching, you learn that you are going to have a student, in your inclusive classroom, who will come with an IEP and a One-to-one Paraprofessional. This student already has a history of Special Education services that are covered by the IDEA. You will quickly learn about all of his/her needs and the services that are required.
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On the other hand, you'll have a classroom full of students who you know very little about. It will take some time for you to wrap your mind around the array of personalities, preferences, interests, backgrounds, and NEEDS of each student. It will be good to often ask yourself:

WHY is this student this way?
WHY does this student do things in this manner?

To begin our journey as your "shepherds" through the maze of differentiation, each of us who teach Differentiated Instruction would like to know a little more about our own students. To expedite that, we will use the RSA format. First, you will need to learn more about RSA. Therefore, begin with Activity #1 below and make your comment before completing ACTIVITIES 2, 3, and 4. These activities could take you an hour or more. Remember to write your entire comment on a WORD document before you copy and paste them into your class' assigned area.
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ACTIVITY #1: TES @ http://www.cast.org/

1. How to navigate cast.org:
      a. Click on the link above to go to the CAST site.
      b. Once on the Home Page, click "Learning Tools" up at the
        top.
      c. Scroll down as you are counting the learning tools links 1, 2,
          3.... Go to the 8th learning tool. This is your online text
          entitled Teaching Every Student - TES. Click on the
          book name-which links to the book.
       d. Find the words Learn About UDL and notice that
           underneath those words are 3 sections.
       e. The first section is called THE BASICS and it has 3 parts to
          it. THE BASICS is this Activity #1. Follow the directions
          below to complete THE BASICS.

THE BASICS first bullet is for the chapters of your online text. Click there and read chapters 2 and 3. When you are through return here.
THE BASICS second bullet is to 4 very short video clips. Click on one at a time and then push play to watch. When you are through watching all 4 return here.
THE BASICS third bullet says to READ THE UDL GUIDELINES 1.0. Yet, I believe we need to take this section very slowly. Therefore, I just want you to click on this third bullet link. Then, on the right sidebar click on Principle 1: Provide Multiple Means of Representation. Read through Guideline 1 and Checkpoints 1.1, 1.2, and 1.3 so that you really get a grasp of what it is talking about here. - - - - Congratulations, you are almost finished with Activity #1. It is now time to make your blog comment before going to Activity #2.

COMMENT ACCORDING TO THIS FORMAT:
1. On your WORD document, after #1, write in this order: DI followed by your section number, your professor's name, YOUR INITIALS, and the Class ID number that your professor has assigned to you.

2. What does RSA stand for? Write the 3 words.

3. RECOGNITION NETWORK:

a. WHAT's one new thing that you've learned by going to TES?

b. WHAT was the method or representation by which this one

new thing caught your attention and it stuck with you?

Reading it? Watching a Video? Connecting it to a real life

experience? Other?

4. STRATEGIC NETWORK: Answer these two questions:

a. On the video, on this blog, about Nic V, HOW did he use the

book as a strategy to help himself?

b. I love expressing what I know about the importance of

flexibility and flexible grouping to future teachers. I do this

by connecting to hooks like a rubberband and/or dice.

HOW might you express what you have learned about

differentiation this past week?

5. AFFECTIVE NETWORK: Keeping students engaged is often a

challenge.

a. WHY must we learn WHY students do what they do?

NOTE: Go ahead and submit your comment BEFORE doing Activity #2 below which is the 3 BRAIN NETWORKS activity.

ACTIVITY #2:

Return to your online text - TES. The second section of LEARN ABOUT UDL is the Activities section. How the Learning Brain Works: Your 3 Brain Networks. Complete this activity and email it to your professor. How? Go through the activity and put a detailed answer in each box. Make very sure to write in complete, descriptive, and professional sentences unless it asks you to list. Please understand that points will be taken off for mechanics. (PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE write the following in the subject box of your email: 3 BRAIN NETWORKS, your DI section number and your name. Thank you.

ACTIVITY #3:

Return again to your online text - TES. The third section of LEARN ABOUT UDL is the Case Studies section. Read them and come to Week 2 class prepared to discuss.

ACTIVITY #4:

Read chapters 1-2 of your Heacox textbook AND chapter 1 of Tomlinson. Come to class prepared to answer questions and discuss.

ACTIVITY #5: FOR SIKES' DI SECTIONS (and for others who have been directed by their professors to do so):

1. Research the meaning of your first name. Bring that info to Week 2 class.
2. I have different items that connect to who I am and help describe me: a quilt, a sheep/staff, a pitcher, a globe... I bring these items to class. Instead of an item, I would like for you to each bring a picture that you have printed off the internet that is no larger than the size of a file card. (In fact, I want 2 of that same picture copy and pasted to one page). This picture (copied twice) would be your "item" that connects to who you are and helps to describe you.
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WHEW! Thank you for participating in this double blog post adventure. Remember that blog posts and all email assignments are due to the professor before or by midnight the night before the DI class meeting. That means that Week 1 and 2 Blog comments should be completed and submitted AND your 3 Brain Network Activity emailed to your professor before the deadline.

We'll see you soon in WEEK 2 class!

SPRING 2012: WEEK 1: GETTING TO KNOW YOU

2012-01-18T06:00:00.003-05:00

Each child, we teach, has his/her own fascinating combination of strengths and weaknesses. For those students who have a huge imbalance of abilities, in one way or another, do we write them off and roll our eyes when we can't seem to meet their needs? Do we begin to use phrases like, "I had to DEAL with that kid again!"?

I hope that this post, with it's 3 videoes, gives you time to pause and challenge yourself to look past the symptoms of weakness in each student and consider each student's individual strengths. Consider who the child is. Consider the whole child. How can you transform yourself into a teacher who can say, "Not right! Not wrong! Just different!"?

It starts with a decision... a mindset... and then the willingness to create "A LAND OF OPPORTUNITY" for all students. I believe that is what you will see in all three video clips. Please watch all three before writing your comment:
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VIDEO CLIP 1:
When a teacher addresses differences via his/her instruction, it creates "A LAND OF OPPORTUNITY" for students. You may watch this video via this link .

VIDEO CLIP 2:

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VIDEO CLIP 3:
Julie Andrews with her new group of students in the musical "The King and I" as they sing "GETTING TO KNOW YOU":
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If you are taking a Differentiated Instruction Course at Rowan University, please understand these directions about making comments on each post for this blog.

1. Make a WORD document folder on your computer entitled DI BLOG COMMENT - WEEK 1. (Open a new WORD document each time you write your weekly blog comment).
2. Before beginning a new comment write: DI followed by your section number, your professor's name, your initials, and the Class ID number that your professor has assigned to you.
3. Follow the BLOG COMMENT DIRECTIONS to write your comment. Remember that this comment is for a college course and not a text message. Use correct mechanics and grammar. Each comment you write should be written with thought and care.
4. Copy and Paste your completed blog comment into your assigned comment posting place:

Sikes' DI classes will paste comments here on the COMMENT link at the bottom of the current post; be sure to click that your post will be "Anonymous".
All other DI classes will paste comments on Bb-9 per directions of your course professor.

5. Remember, this week you are doing 2 blog posts. Be sure and complete your comments on WEEK 1 and WEEK 2 blog posts. Throughout the remainder of the semester you will do the week's blog post before coming to that week's class. Example: You will do WEEK 2 blog post before coming to WEEK 2 class.

WEEK 1 BLOG COMMENT DIRECTIONS:
1. Write one statement/quote from one of the three videos that impacted you the most - only one!.
2. Tell of a person you have met or know of with ELN's (Exceptional Learning Needs). List a few of his/her weaknesses AND strengths. For every weakness, challenge, or disabilty of this student you must list a strength! In other words, you must articulate as many strengths as you do weaknesses. No names please!
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ADDITIONAL NOTE TO SIKES' STUDENTS: After pasting your comment in the comment box, click Anonymous and then click to Publish. (Sometimes BLOGGER asks for your security verification and sometimes it does not). Once you publish, your comment will be sent to my email. It will not be published here until I read it and approve it for publishing.

Welcome to a semester of blogging about honoring student differences. If you haven't begun yet, I hope you begin today on your journey as a teacher in THE LAND OF OPPORTUNITY!
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