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Sam Leal
What Really Matters in Planning for Student Success?

Teaching a curriculum is half of a teacher’s duty. It’s a very valuable part and also very powerful for the student’s success in learning. It focuses the core teachings that the student should grasp. The second half of the professional role that teachers have is that we are also teachers of human beings. This means as a teacher the instruction of the curriculum is a vital aspect. Students won’t learn the material if its not instructed well. In the chapter it covers different attitudes and skills that help in being able to be a great instructor for all students in the classroom. One example out of the nine that stood out to being very important to me is, “They develop flexible classroom teaching routines” (40). This stood out and would help me, because I’m a logistical guy and need things organized and routine, but I need to understand to definitely be flexible to help teach to all students in the classroom. The chapter goes through each of the nine attitudes and skills, as well as giving a scenario for each. Another one that’s important to me is developing a community of respect. Students should show tremendous respect to one another, listen when someone else is talking and paying attention to each other. I believe these are essential aspects of a classroom environment.

Ethan Guthrie Herrell
Understanding by Design: Chapter 4 toc For this chapter, my eyes were naturally to the warning: “Attending to quality of instruction while de-emphasizing instruction may provide great mental stimulation for teachers,” but will do little for students. Near as I can tell, this is warning against all teachers not to get too absorbed in mental exercises or verbalism, “Talking the talk and not walking the walk.” I will try to keep that in mind as I try to make the “perfect” lesson.

As a teacher I will have to look out for falling back on the “easy” or knee-jerk ways to respond to struggles in the classroom, as that is usually what happens when teacher who want to do differentiated instruction in spite of their idealism. They simply fallback on what they have previously learned.

Another interesting point made in the chapter: “It does not help struggling learners to do less of what they do not grasp.” It is the quality of instruction and material that counts, not just quantity. Advanced learners, in turn, probably do not want to do more of what is too easy anyways.

The chapter further outlines way that the teacher further foster respect in the classroom, by not allowing certain individuals or groups to dominate, but not supporting demeaning competition in which the losers are derided for failure rather than given concrete steps by which to succeed.

Emily Haskell
UbD Chapter 4 In this chapter I really appreciated that the authors brought up the idea of a fun and engaging learning experience and environment. In many of the classrooms I have been in I have seen the negative effects of a bad learning experience. If a lesson is boring then there is no reason for the student to stay awake. Sure, the material and the information are probably extremely important, but if you don’t make the lessons fun then the children will stop listening after a few minutes. My grandmother used to teach both at the college level and at a preschool. I believe that her success with college students came from her success with young children. In order to keep a young child interested in something you must always be diverting their attention in some way. This again relates back to the multiple intelligences theory.

You must engage all of the intelligences in order to keep a child truly focused. I was lucky enough to sit in on one of her classes and I found something very interesting. She did not sit at the desk and lecture. She also did not allow the students to lead themselves in discussion. Instead she made the class interactive. She made sure that she was always pacing, that she called on people when they least expected it, and at one point she even started dancing on top f her desk. I found that although the material was rather dry at times, she kept the attention of her audience. Though this isn’t exactly what the chapter was talking about, I still find it very helpful. The other thing that the chapter briefly touched on was respect in the classroom. Because of her techniques students grew to respect her. It was a mutual respect and I like to think that everyone benefitted from it.

Karina Sprague
Chapter four focused on the importance of not only teaching the content, but making it enjoyable and effective for the students. One of the big things that teachers use to keep students engaged in a pre-assessment. I think pre-assessments are very useful because they 1) rate the students subject knowledge so the teacher can create an assignment that won’t be repetitive or teach material that all of the students already know, and 2) get the students minds prepared for the subject, and get them thinking about how the subject will be important to them. I think that I will use pre-assesments a lot in my class, especially in my first few years. I will mostly use pre-assessments to tell how much the other teachers taught the students, and also to see how much they remember. I know how boring and useless it is to do an assignment that you already know, or study a topic that you already know almost everything about. This usually happens when teachers do not pre-assess or base their lessons off of what their students already know. I will use pre-assessments to plan the details of my lessons, and I will make sure my lessons appeal to every learning style/intelligences. This way, no student will be bored. This chapter also talked about broad limitations on assignments, and multiple types of assignments, so that students can choose which assignment to do. This way students can choose what type of assignment they want to do so they won’t be bored by an assignment that does not relate to them. If students are not bored and if they can relate to the material, they will be interested in the assignment and they will want to learn, and enjoy learning.

Spencer Hodge
In chapter 4 of UbD/DI the authors discuss the role of a teacher in planning for student success. Teachers need to always initially focus on providing a powerful curriculum in order to broaden the possibilities for the classroom, the teacher, and the students. Effective teachers have to balance continually attending to the quality of both the curriculum and instruction. Another major part of the chapter was the emphasis that teachers should understand that it is their responsibility for his or her students' success. Students still have responsibility in their learning but teachers have the task of building an environment where all learners can succeed. Through differentiated instruction teachers should plan lessons to match the learning styles of their students. However, it is important to note that year after year the incoming students will be different learners than their predecessors, therefore teachers should always modify the lesson plans to accompany the students needs. Furthermore, a teacher should always assess the growth of his or her students while keeping focus on the curriculum goals.

I agree it is important to recognize students that learn in different ways and at different paces. As a teacher, I will encourage students in their learning no matter what their ability. I love the idea of constantly changing and modifying lessons so that everyone gets an equal opportunity to learn in their own way. It is understood that as a teacher I am responsible for my students learning, and I want to teach them to learn to be self-sufficient and have them help in managing their classroom. Although it may sometimes be easier to give up on students who do not care or do poorly in class, we, the next generation of teachers cannot do that. We should foster creativity and engage them in learning. Differentiated instruction makes this possible with all students.

Cidney Mayes
When teaching, it is important to maintain a balance between curriculum and instruction and make sure that, while content is being relayed to students, their needs as human beings are being met. This chapter emphasizes the importance of clarity when determining goals for learning. When the teacher is certain of what the goals are for their classroom, they can effectively pre-assess student knowledge and create a clear path for how to reach goals. When the instructor knows where students are in relation to goals, he or she can determine the best course of action for providing differentiated instruction in their classroom. After reading the chapter, specifically the first “Scenario” section, I have some questions. In the scenario, the teacher gave students different tasks based on what kind of instruction they needed and where their levels of understanding were at. However, is there a point where differentiated instruction become too segregated in a classroom? How do you differentiate instruction without creating a large gap between learners? In my classroom I want to provide differentiated instruction, but I do not want to segregate my students by categorizing them. Is this what was meant by implementing patterns of instruction, rather than trying to target each individual student?

Jordan Hale
UbD DI Chapter 4: What Really Matters In Planning For Student Success? Chapter four discusses different elements of differentiated instruction (DI) and the connection to the curriculum. It is basically a what-to-do-while-teaching checklist. They talk about how a teacher with direction of where the curriculum needs to go. The teacher can more accurately pre-assess their students based on the goals of the curriculum. The curriculum direction can also help the teacher track the learning of an individual. Students who have learning challenges can show persistent growth from the start but still find it hard to master all aspects of his grade-level (UbdDI 54). A pre-assessment is a huge tool in math. Students coming from different math teachers in the past could have covered certain material that the other teacher did not. It is my job to find out where each student is so I know how to tailor my curriculum and lesson plans to accommodate the needs of every student the best I can. Differentiated instruction will be a catalyst to my curriculum and lesson plans. Diversity in teaching methods can help connect to more students. Being a math concentration, it will be a little hard to point algebra lessons to certain learning styles. I am sure with some more learning here at UMF and talking to colleagues I will have some more ideas in the future.

Colby Hill
UbD Chapter 4 Awareness of your students works. At least, that’s what everyone has always told me, and all these books have told me as well. Chapter 4 is no different, and tells you to pay close attention to the student. It’s hard to believe that all of these books iterate that so much… was it really an issue before that no one paid attention to the student? I planned on making individual communications with students because that is what I cherished so immensely in high school. Another crossover is the idea of “expanding a repertoire of instructional strategies” (52). Although Tomlinson and McTighe don’t go into as much detail as the //Multiple Intelligences// book, it still refers to using varieties of teach strategies so that each student has equal opportunity alone. Hopefully, everyone who reads these two books hear this enough to actually do that. Although I have heard that it is much more important to be able to know how to teach then to be a master at the subject, I do think that it ties in immensely. The book states that if a teacher does not know his or her subject greatly, he or she could be unsure about teaching it, and from then on there is a domino effect. This worries me because it reminds me of practicum. First going out into the schools and being nervous, and even a little unsure. This could lead to me failing as a teacher. I also hate the idea of differentiated instruction being the “more or less” strategy. It’s offensive and it does not work.

Elizabeth Sargent
UbD Chapter 4: What Really Matters in Planning for Student Success?

Yet again the fact comes up in this chapter just like the last one, as teachers we will not be able to cover the entire curriculum. As hard as we try we will not be giving students the essential content and state of teaching they deserve. The fact that because right now I am not yet a teacher makes this chapter all the more relatable. The chapter talks about believing in learner variance, and believing in various models and theories, but how will we know we will be able to enact them until we finally get out into the field. The teaching professional is a constant teaching tool. As teachers, we will never stop learning until we retire. We may be talking about doing certain things in our classrooms, but when we actually get into those classrooms, will we be able to break off from the norm and follow our beliefs? Or will be succumb to the ways the practice has evolved to be through standards set by others? Hopefully, practicum will be that personal experience that we as teachers need to be able to enact our beliefs. One other thing I thought was pretty important from this chapter was developing a positive community in the classroom. In essence, being in a classroom full of students and friendly faces you see every day makes them feel just like a family. That family comes from many different backgrounds and the classroom needs to be a place where students feel safe. If students don’t feel safe, then how can they learn?

Alex Randall
UbD/DI Chapter 4 This chapter is emphasizing the significance of a well-constructed curriculum. The stronger and more effective the curriculum, the better the results for the teacher and the learner. There’s an enormous emphasis on understanding content. With something like the backward learning design, understanding what is considered crucial and being able to absorb and retain it is key. A strong curriculum is a teacher’s greatest tool.