Journal Drop #2

9-26-16

Frustrations in Education

One of my many roles in our school is to support a mainstream teacher with our IEP students and any other students in need. I feel frustrated watching this particular class being taught. The teacher I work with is a friend and we have a good relationship, but the class does not run smoothly and by my estimations, learning is not occurring. When I get the chance to work with students after lecture time I find that I can help individuals but I can not help everyone.

Now I am envisioning myself as a special education case manager. In that role I will have to suggest to teachers different teaching styles and modifications to better support our IEP students. This could be difficult. I do think I have an easy going personal manner but few teachers want to be told how to teach. I am wondering how I will walk this tricky and important line. Today I did approach my coworker and make a few suggestions. He runs a very strict class where he wants everyone doing the same thing but we did agree to try modifying and supplementing the note taking process for a few of our students. I have seen this approach used before to great success for students who worked slower than others or who were often off task. While supporting this particular class I want to try to continue to have conversations with the lead teacher in an effort to better serve the needs of our struggling students. My hope is that this class will serve as experimental grounds for working with not just students but also making recommendations (an important part of my future position) to teachers in my school.

9-28-16

Checking for Understanding

Every teacher (should) check for understanding daily. I have observed many techniques:

1. “Thumbs up, in the middle, or down” based on level
2. “Show me how you are feeling about this with 1-5 fingers”
3. Sticky notes for answering an exit slip question

And many more

Today I began wondering how effective these brief surveys of knowledge are? How do I know if I am getting honest answers? How can I encourage students to be honest about what they know AND what they DO NOT know?

I have also noticed that these methods of checking for understanding are often used initially and quickly fall off.  I wonder how a more disciplined and differentiated use of checking for understanding could benefit the teacher and students learning. This is an area of inquiry that could be interesting for action research.