In today's education field, teachers are expected to play many roles. No longer do we just "teach" academics, but we are to nurture hurt feelings and boo boos, teach children manners and wrong from right, be a protector and yet a disciplinarian at the same time. You might as well through a cape around our neck and call us superman (or woman). When creating a lesson plan, that is who we must act like. We have to literally "save" all our students from falling behind. Now a days, a teacher cannot simply teach one way. With Gardners Multiple Intelligences being implemented at a rapid pace, and cross cat kids beginning to be placed in the regular education room, teachers must accommadate to all students.
When I sit down to think about creating a lesson plan that takes care of all the diverse needs, I must think of all my students, not just the special ed, or high kids, or behavior kids. I first ask myself, "what do they need?". Once I have my goal or objective in mind, I then ask myself, "how is the best way for them to understand this." Whether it is groups, centers, individual work, or what not, the "how" is always changing. For one assignment, I might have them create a PowerPoint. For the next, I might have them create a rap or song. For the same assignment, I might make another student create a journal entry.
For this lesson plan over assistive technology, I wanted to use a piece of technology that would reach all my students, and not just one group in particular. That is why I chose the buy a CD and CD workbook to help my 2nd graders how to skip count by certain numbers. The CD and workbook use audio, visual, small motor, and tactile learning styles, which covers the majority of my students. The CD called So Skip Counting cost $9.99 and the workbook cost $19.99. If I were to buy a complete set for my classroom of let's say, 24, that would be around $500. From that point, you would have to contemplate if $500 was worth students mastering one objective. How much are you willing to spend. In my instance, I know I would not have the money to spend that, but yet could possibly afford the $30.00 for one CD and one Workbook. At that point, I could make copies from the one workbook as reproducibles. That is a decision that each teacher would have to make.
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Ashley - You pick a great place to begin your lesson planning, "what do they need?" and then "what is the best way to teach them this." So lessons lend themselves great to the diverse learners we all have in our classrooms and some are best done one particular way. Although I would like to appeal to as many learning styles as possible for any given lesson, I also think students need to struggle with their learning sometimes. Life will not always be explained to them in way they best learn.
ReplyDeleteI like your skip counting CD idea. when I started at my school, our principal was big on skip counting as necessary math skill. During our morning announcements, we skip counted every single day. Our new principal has discontinued that and I really noticed the lack when I went to teach multiplication. I have been looking into CDs to use next year. I thought if I focused on 2's one week, 3's the next, and so on, it might make a difference. Where did you find the CD So Skip Counting?
ReplyDeleteI totally understand your problem with wanting to buy a copy for each student but wouldn't it be nice if we could. We can just add that to our wish list. I I liked your idea of thinking about what your students need. Sometimes I get so wrapped up with trying to figure out when I'm going to get time to teach all the things I need to teach and it'd important to stop and check where your students are at with their learning. What is it we need to stop and spend more time on? What other resources could I bring in not to just meet my low learners, but resources that could meet all learners at their own level.
ReplyDeleteI like your ideas but with todays budget constraints in education you'd have to be very convincing with administration, pair up with colleagues,or go to parents or PTA . It's called creative financing. In your first paragraph you stated that we have to be superman to meet the needs of our students. It seems like a burdensome tasks but most teachers step up to the plate for the children. I'm sure you do too, but I related to your thinking there.
ReplyDeleteDianne-
ReplyDeleteI found the cd under one of the links posted. Here it is again.
www.iser.com/rockngo-math.html
Hopefully this will help you and others!! Thanks for all the comments!