marilynntatum

This blog consist of all six chapters of Differentiation in Practice.

The author stresses the importance of keeping students engaged in the learning process especially at the elementary level because a child's view of school is shaped in these early years.

Part one gives an overview of what differentiation is. "Differentiated teaching is responsive teaching. It stems from a teacher's solid and growing understanding of how teaching and learning occur, and it responds to varied learners' needs for more structure or more independence, more practice or greater challenge, a more active or less active approach to learning and so on...". Pg. 2   A responsive teacher is always asking these questions: Who do we teach, what do we teach, where do we teach, and how do we teach.

Part two of this book has a variety of units that were developed by teachers who differentiate instruction in their classroom. There are two language arts units one on the alphabet and another on the introduction of literature circles. There are two math units one on basic geometric concepts and one on beginning probability. There is a science unit on the functions of plant parts, and a social studies unit on needs, wants and community helpers. Each unit is comprised of an introduction, unit overview, unit description, and teacher commentary.

These units are designed to be learning tools not teaching tools.

The book is a great place to get ideas for differentiated lessons to add to my already established units on these topics. It also helps me to see how to go about developing other differentiated units.

Chapter 11 - Planning For the Workshop (Writers Learn from Writers)

This chapter looks at the concept of mapping out a year long study in workshop by focusing writers' attention on ideas that will help them grow as writers. We as teachers must ask the hard questions: "Why am I going to teach this lesson?", "What am I trying to accomplish here?" and the big one "After spending a year in my writing workshop, how do I hope my students will be as writers?". This chapter tries to help us answer these questions.  But I think this statement that I keep reading says it all, "We teach writers, not writing".

Chapter 12 - Focus Lessons (Filling the Writing Workshop with Craft  Possibilities)

This chapter discusses the different types of focus lessons, those that share an idea or explain some concept and those that launch students into inquiry. Katie Wood Ray gives examples from specific books to explain these concepts and she tells how she taught the lesson. I enjoyed this chapter because she explained how she conducted lessons.

Chapter 13 - Brave, Bold Teaching (The Power of Suggestive Writing Conferences)

This chapter has examples of actual conferences that Katie had with students. She talks about expanding her knowledge base which really spoke to me. She said "Before I started studying craft, I couldn't have even considered helping students more with their writing because I didn't know how to help them. And what's really funny is I didn't know I didn't know....The bottom line is that I couldn't teach what I didn't know, and now that I know so much more, my teaching has changed." I agreed with her when she said conferencing is the hardest part of workshop teaching. There are three components to conferencing: 1. listen to and look at what the student is trying to do (assessment), 2 think of what we know that can help the student do this well (curriculum), 3. Suggest something for the student to try or help to refine what the student is trying (instruction).

Chapter 14 - Assessment That Focuses Our Eyes on Craft

In this chapter the author stresses the importance of how we respond to students throughout the entire workshop. She says "My responses have to show them, every day that I really think of them as writers". We should ask ourselves this question when we are assessing "What is the message of what I see in student writing?".

Chapter 15 - Never to Teach Alone Again

In the final chapter the author discusses an experience with one student writing poetry. After making many suggestions to clarify the poem which the student does, Katie leaves wondering if all this will carry over to other writings. She also left a book of poems for the child to read. The student sent a new poem to Katie which is wonderfully written. So yes the book and Katie's suggestions made a difference. 

Chapter 13 really spoke to me and what I hope to become better at "suggestive writing conferencing".

This book was written by a grandfather, Donald O. Clifton, Ph. D. - who was battling cancer - and his grandson, Tom Rath, who has a rare tumor disease. In the introduction the author tells us our lives are shaped by our interactions with others both positive and negative. Next, "The Dipper and Bucket Theory" that the book is based on is discussed. In short the theory says if you fill other's buckets with positive emotions then you fill your bucket and the same is true of dipping into someone's bucket and taking out with negative emotions then you dip from your bucket.

Chapter 1 - Negativity Kills

One of the authors, Don Clifton, Ph.D., believed in studying what is right with people instead of what is wrong. The reason he believed this is a study he did of a Korean War POW.

Chapter 2 - Positivity, Negativity, and Productivity

This chapter deals mostly with bucket filling in corporations. Recognition and praise are key components in developing a positive emotional environment. One statement that caught my attention was that "one negative person can destroy a workplace". A positive workplace increases productivity while negative decreases productivity.

Chapter 3 - Every Moment Matters

No matter how brief an encounter is we can still fill someone bucket by giving meaningful and specific praise. Recent studies show that negative emotions, being a pessimist, can be bad for your health and might shorten your life span. While being optimistic can extend your life and improve your physical and mental health. Daily positive emotions are essential for your survival. Unfortunately, our culture focuses more on the negative than the positive.

Chapter 4 - Tom's Story: an Overflowing Bucket

This chapter details the other author's, Tom Rath, life story. He has a rare disease where he gets random tumors throughout his body. He writes that positive reinforcement about our strengths can buffer us against getting overwhelmed with the negativity in our lives. If possible everyone should read his story because it is inspirational.

Chapter 5 - Making It Personal  

Each person is unique so each person enjoys getting his/her bucket filled differently. This chapter gives some suggestions on how to individualize bucket filling.

Chapter 6 - Five Strategies for Increasing Positive Emotions

The five strategies are:

1. Prevent Bucket Dipping - catch yourself before you dip from someone's bucket
2. Shine a Light on What Is Right - focus on what is right and react on it and you will not only fill someone's bucket but your own also
3. Make Best Friends - people with best friends (this does not mean you limit yourself to only one close friend) perform better
4. Give Unexpectedly - most people prefer gifts that are unexpected, it was found that expected gifts do fill our buckets but that unexpected gifts fill our bucket more
5. Reverse the Golden Rule - "Do unto others as they would have you do unto them" There were seven questions listed to find out how to fill individual buckets.

Epilogue - "Take every opportunity to increase the positive emotions of those around you"

After reading this book I plan on buying it.

I hope to become a better bucket filler both at work and in my personal life. Hopefully, this will influence those around me to be more positive also.

I need a do-over on my blogging of this book. When  I completed the entire book I realized that in chapter 2 there was a list of the six cognitive strategies that proficient readers use to comprehend  and in the remaining chapters each strategy is expounded upon.

Chapter 4 discusses utilizing prior knowledge (schema) before, during and after reading to draw meaning for the text and to develop new schema based on new information.  In chapters 5 and 6 proficient readers determine the most important ideas from the text and question themselves, the author, and the text to better understand what is read. Chapter 7 points out that proficient readers use sensory details to make connections to the text so that a better understanding occurs.  Chapter 8 says proficient readers use prior knowledge and information from the text to make inferences to form conclusions, predictions, or new ideas.  Chapter 9 is about synthesizing or retelling for better comprehension of the chosen text.  The final chapter discusses a variety of "fix-up strategies" to repair comprehension when a breakdown occurs. The fix-up strategies are from the six language systems: pragmatic - what the reader thinks is important, schematic - structure of the text, semantic - the accepted meanings connected to words and longer pieces of text, syntactic - does the text sound correct when read, lexical - instant recognition of words, or grapho-phonic - letters and their sounds combining to make words.

We know comprehension is an area everyone can improve on including myself.  This book gave me a variety of ways to look at and teach comprehension other than surface questions.

Chapter 1 - The Mosaic Takes Shape

The author's last sentence in the chapter sums it up "This is a book about the mosaic each of us creates as we read - a mosaic constructed of diverse pieces, each integral to the whole, each essential to the texture of learning". I take this to mean we each draw different meanings from what we read so we need to read, reread, and talk about it with others so that we may better comprehend.

Chapter 2 - Mind Journeys

This chapter stresses teaching children six cognitive strategies to better comprehend text. We should teach these through modeling and then gradually release children to practice what was modeled.  We should not just talk about books but talk about the thinking processes that a proficient reader uses to understand books.

Chapter 3 - What Lies Beneath

There are five key ideas listed in this chapter when proficient readers use metacognition (thinking about thinking) in Reader's Workshop to help them to comprehend.

Chapter 4 - Homes in the Mind

"It has been known for some time that one of the most effective ways to improve comprehension is to - activate mental files" - schema (long-term) memory banks.  There are four ways to activate schema listed in this chapter.  The author stresses two points: your schema helps you understand what you are reading and that your schema is changed by what is read.

The part of chapter 2 when the author says we should not just talk about books but talk about the thinking processes a proficient reader uses to comprehend really got me thinking about how to help students with comprehension.