Revisiting With Reflection

What I wanted to improve on in my blogs was simply the act of reflecting. I have done a lot of restating and recounting in the past, but have not actually written much about how it made me feel, or how I want to improve my actions. Revisiting some of my blogs, I see where I was lacking in the reflection, because even now,  I know why I was feeling a certain way or what I was thinking about while writing those blog entries, but know that those reading it do not! I also realize it is hard to reflect a lot when I was previously writing my blogs based on my readings, and not authentically writing about things I saw. However, I still feel it is important to look back and see how I could improve some of my previous entries. So, I have decided to re-do one of my old blogs, and in bold, add in the reflection I could have included at the time or include now that those situations have ended.

Differentiation continues

As we continue to read Tomlinson & Imbeau's book on differentiation, I continue to wonder how it can apply itself in the kindergarten class that I am in. This week was our first installment of the lesson study, and our lesson on gravity was taught to a class of kindergartners. We did not have any differentiation planned for this lesson, and it showed when we taught it to Mrs. Campbell's class. However, even we had planned for differentiation, would it have worked since we did not know her students?

I wonder if planning blanketed differentiation will really help a class, or will it need to be individualized?

In my class, I know the kids well by now. I know who I need to give extra attention to, who will run the lesson if I let them, who not to sit next to each other, etc. However, we did not know Mrs. Campbell's class. I we won't know Mrs. Kirk's either. When we are planning for our differentiation, I wonder how we will go about making sure that her students can complete the lesson. 

I know for a fact that Mrs. Kirk has a student who spends half of his days in a fully contained special education classroom, and is being labeled as having language barriers. Would we think to plan for someone like him if I did not already know him?

When we went through the planning process for these unknown classrooms, I felt helpless, and looked even more helpless when we were in the actual classroom. I did not like the feeling of being out of control because I focused on one child I thought needed my attention, when all the while it was a student at an entirely different table. I felt that I did not learn anything from that experience, except that differentiation is definitely something that you need to know your students to apply. 
I think that some worksheets and programs that come with differentiation already in place, like the spelling worksheets my teacher sends home to different groups of students, cannot possibly plan for each individual child. As I read through our wall discussion about how important differentiation is to us as teachers and our students, I am beginning to realize how costly it will be on time, but also seeing that it was so beneficial to many of us as students, and how important it is to us all to include it in our future classrooms,

Our teacher continues to use these differentiated worksheets and I think that in some circumstances they make a lot of sense. But I also feel that they do not always work. A general worksheet designed at three different levels by a company cannot always apply to a classroom. I think that a lot of differentiation must be applied individually, on a student-to-student basis. I don't like the worksheets we use and I think that this is something I will try to avoid in my future classroom.
Our readings are helping me to become more aware of the need for differentiation and helping me to see that it is possible in my classroom. 

So even after all of my readings and teaching, I am still not convinced that you can plan for differentiation with out knowing the students. You can plan for certain levels but individuals need more individual planning. However, I think this is a good thing and means that you need to actually know your students, and shows that teachers still have a place in schools, and it is an important one. 

I do think that differentiation is something I will use and as we continued our lesson study, I felt that even more strongly. However I still struggle with the time constraints, but seeing our struggling students understand and use gravity throughout their day made me feel really great as a teacher, and made me feel like the time we put into the lesson was worth it.

I feel like this blog as a whole is much more informative and beneficial to me as a teacher, a student, and to those who are reading this, and this is why I feel like I want to continue to reflect deeper, and why I feel that a blog or journal is not something you use or write just once, and never look at again.