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| 3. Creating learning communities where small groups of children are known by their teachers. (continued from "Home Page") Parents realize that the most important thing we can give our children is a good education. It is through this education that our children will attain the skills necessary to succeed in life. And yet today’s schools do not meet the learning needs of all students. Meeting the needs of all our students is our biggest challenge. The development of our children through adolescence is a unique, exciting, and challenging time of life. It is a time when dramatic changes occur in appearance, self-concept, and intellectual development. This development for many children is a critical period in their lives. Some would argue that to call it a transitional period, to think of it as something that one is only passing through, would be to reduce its importance. The different needs of our students place extraordinary demands on schools to provide a structure that will accommodate these individual needs. But, unless our schools meet the challenge of meeting the physical, intellectual and emotional needs of our students, the finest educational program will fail. If we look at the needs of the students we are trying to teach, we must also examine the role of the students’ families and their impact on the school. Many of our students come from single parent homes. Less adult supervision means fewer people to assist in the responsibilities of parenting, including such things as guidance, discipline, and assisting with homework. As a result, the schools must assume many of these responsibilities. Our students are looking for independence, but they still need adult direction. When this is lacking in the home, the school must become the new family. Becoming the new family means that teachers need to gain the trust of students so that they can go to them for guidance and confide in them. Educators must not only be capable to communicate with disadvantaged and difficult students but with their parents as well. Elementary students are developing their independence and starting to become independent. Social behavior is a new experience for young children. Their world is expanding very rapidly, meeting new friends and experiencing new social situations that are not familiar to them. These social situations are not always of a positive nature. For example, research shows that most elementary students have experienced bullying and some have participated in bullying themselves. A trained caring, observant teacher would react to this situation by helping young children adjust by introducing new strategies and ideas to help the children cope and develop stronger values to see them through these difficult times. In middle school this transition to adolescence creates unique problems for many students. Peer pressure is very powerful, creating discipline problems in students who are usually quite passive. Drugs play a very large part in these students’ lives and educators must be trained to recognize emotional and life issues that help students solve emotional and life issues they are facing. In order for the educational system of a school to work, all teachers must not only be trained to meet the children's educational needs but they must meet their intellectual, social and emotional needs as well. The rapid physical growth that children are going through puts stresses on their self-identity. By having an adult connected to every child will create a supportive, caring environment that will promote academic achievement. Adult counseling will help students acquire the positive social skills and values they need to become successful in life. It should also be noted that some of our children live in chaotic home environments. These environments are correlated with behavior problems in these children. This social environment that surrounds our students at home, which is created by friends, caregivers and siblings has long been the subject of research of child behavior specialists. This research has proven that children who come from homes characterized by noise, overcrowding, lack of order, lack of supervision, lack of a healthy diet, exposure to inappropriate media on television, radio and by siblings tend to score lower on tests, have poorer language abilities, show higher incidents of problem behavior and lack the attention span to function on a high level needed to succeed in school. Research also shows that these children are not exposed to books and meaningful vocabulary thus impeding their ability to develop the literacy skills needed to function on grade level. This is only the start of the educational dilemma that students are facing in our schools. Today, more than half of the students are struggling in school. In classrooms across the nation, students feel discouraged, and alone. Not because they cannot learn but because the way they learn does not align with the way they are taught. Many teachers are also struggling and feel discouraged not because they cannot teach but because their teaching strategies do not align with the various learning styles of their students. Teachers are not receiving the training needed to keep up with brain research on learning and how to respond to individual student needs. When students are taught in a way that is incompatible with how they learn, teachers interpret this as a student deficiency and their disengagement from the learning process. This is a totally wrong conclusion. When we look at all the current literature on improving the educational system, the conversation has been how we can improve the education process in schools. But improving education through Common Core Standards or holding teachers accountable for test scores is only a small part of the problem. The real question we should be asking is how can we ensure that all children will learn? This question makes us look at the student and how he or she can understand the education he/she is receiving. Child and adolescent psychology tells us that every student is different. Every student has different talents and skills. Every student has different interests and needs, yet our schools do not look at the personal uniqueness of our students and they force students and teachers into scripted models of education where all children learn the same and teachers follow models of scripted lessons. Educational leaders force teachers to use the factory model of education where all students are treated the same. This factory model creates routines that engage and reward some of the students while many of the students slip through the cracks in the system. Brain research tells us that each student has a range of strengths and weaknesses that influence learning. These strengths and weaknesses shape how individuals learn based on their talents, skills, interests and needs. Research also shows that when educators develop greater knowledge of how students learn, and when they use this insight to develop a curriculum that focuses on individual student learning styles, teachers will be able to reach a majority of students solving many learning issues in their classrooms. A very sad fact is that educators receive very little any training in how students learn. Educators do receive training on what students need to know (Common Core Standards), but, without an understanding of how students acquire this knowledge the delivery system is lacking the capability to transfer this knowledge to the students. Thus, we can see that many students are failing simply because the way they learn does not align with how they are being taught. Students feel disengaged because they do not see the relevance in what they are being taught in the classroom, and how it applies to their lives. We must do better. Instead of cultivating individual talents we are using the mass production approach. It is time to change the culture in our schools. The science of how students learn must become the practice in our classrooms. The teachers must become the learning experts that understand how the process of learning varies from student to student. We must look at students as unique learners and stop creating curriculums of “one size fits all” approach. We have all seen the model of "Student-Centered Learning" where the student is in the center of the learning process. The student becomes an active participant in his learning process. This is different than a "Teacher–Centered Learning" process where the teacher who is highly trained transmits information to usually a passive student. In this situation, learning is standardized and does not take into account the learning styles of the students. While in "Student-Centered Learning", learning is considered individualized instead of standardized. Students develop the skills necessary to become problem solvers and critical thinkers. Student centered learning also adapts to the different learning styles of students' by focusing on their experiences, backgrounds talents, interests and needs. This style of learning also raises the student’s motivation making them active in their learning rather than a passive recipient of knowledge. The challenge that educators face is to create a model for teaching, curriculum design and classroom practices which make students actively involved in their own instruction. Instruction should no longer be delivered to the students but students must live it in their educational environment where they are active participants. |
| 4. Learning based on the uniqueness of each student. Why we must differentiate instruction. (continued from "Home Page") We understand that every child is different. Each child has individual needs and personal factors that are motivational. No two students are motivate d by the same learning activity to the same degree but we must expect all students to be successful learners. We must present materials to students that is within their capacity to learn yet is challenging and tied to prior knowledge. Children learn best if they are immersed in their experiences and are given opportunities to actively process what they have learned. The best learning takes place when necessary facts and skills are embedded in experiences that relate to real life. Some outcomes of this model are that students feel safe and involved in their education with a sense of self-worth and acceptance. There is a mutual trust between teachers and students with a sense of community and family. There is genuine caring among individuals and a sense of responsibility for the student’s success. Teachers demonstrate an understanding of their subject matter and continuously strive to better themselves and model caring attitudes for students thus students value themselves and others. No one can disagree that children learn better in smaller classes than in big ones. In smaller classes, children do not get lost in the crowd. There is a large cost that is incurred but in order to realize the benefits of child centered classrooms, this is a small cost to pay. The bottom line is that every change to public education requires an investment of funds. Creating smaller learning communities does incur additional costs notwithstanding that the positive effect of smaller classes becomes very cost effective in the long run. The greatest advantage of small classrooms is the ability to differentiate instruction. When we use differentiated instruction especially with low achieving students it provides different pathways that all students within a classroom will be able to learn effectively, regardless of differences in ability. It is the process of ensuring what a student learns is a match for that student's readiness level and preferred mode of learning. It is teaching to the students ability level which is responsive teaching rather than one size fits all teaching. The Characteristics of a Differentiated Class
- interest-based - or should match student's learning styles Many teachers have been known to adopt all kinds of new strategies to try to teach more effectively. One promising strategy involves using adaptive learning to tailor instruction to each individual student. Teachers are moving away from the traditional classroom model where one teacher works with an entire class having all students doing the same things at the same time to a classroom where teachers give more focused attention to small groups while other groups work independently. In the traditional education model, each teacher works alone, isolated in his/her own classroom. This is a factory-style model. Teachers need to work with other educators, sharing information about their curriculum and how it can be tied to other subjects so it becomes interdisciplinary. There also must be ongoing conversations about the students they teach in common, sharing observations and coordinating efforts to monitor how the students are performing throughout the day. By schools restructuring to support small learning communities, teacher effectiveness multiplies. Second, schools should identify who their best, most effective teachers are and then empower them to lead and help train other teachers. Teacher mentoring have been proven to help solve the problem of retention and help to reduce isolation, allowing teachers to problem-solve together. By creating schools within schools and reducing the size of a school by creating mini-schools, we are rethinking the role of teachers and their place in the educational structure. In this model, teachers will become critical thinkers and problem-solvers adjusting the educational process to effectively meet the ever changing needs of their students. By understanding how children learn and why they are having difficulties, not just how successful or poorly they are doing based on exams, we can build an expertise on how these students learn that will tell us why they are successful or why they are doing poorly on their exams. Research on how students learn is not a new notion but when one puts that knowledge into practice, educators will be able to use it to close the achievement gap. Students who are not engaged in their educational process will be decreased in numbers and the underachievers in our educational system will diminish. |
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