Week 4 -- Triad One
Monday 10/22/12 to Friday 10/26/12, 8:00 AM- 4:00 PM
Learners and Learning:
Diverse Learners
Diverse Learners
Area of Concentration:
Specific SEPT Element - Diverse Learners
Urban Diversity by Design
Research Target:
"Understanding by Design" in Principle and Practice
UbD and DI (Tomlinson and McTighe)
Critical Dispositions Matrix
Specific SEPT Element - Diverse Learners
Urban Diversity by Design
Research Target:
"Understanding by Design" in Principle and Practice
UbD and DI (Tomlinson and McTighe)
"Teachers must place a strong emphasis on
rigor, relevance, but most of all on developing
relationships with children."
– Dr. Asa Hilliard,
former Director of Urban Studies at Georgia State University
– Dr. Asa Hilliard,
former Director of Urban Studies at Georgia State University
Critical Dispositions Matrix
This week’s experiences highlighted five critical dispositions related to Diverse Learners:
- Teacher believes that all learners can achieve at high levels and persists in helping each learner reach his/her full potential.
- Teacher respects learners as individuals with differing personal and family backgrounds and various skills, abilities, perspectives, talents, and interests.
- Teacher makes learners feel valued and helps them learn to value each other.
- Teacher values planning as a collegial activity.
- Teacher believes that plans must always be open to adjustment and revision based on learner needs and changing circumstances.
Culturally Responsive Framework
Three core markers related to Culturally Responsive Teaching and learning assessment have been highlighted by this week’s experiences:
- Establishing inclusion: Creating a learning atmosphere in which learners and instructors feel respected by and connected to one another.
- Developing attitude: Creating a favorable disposition toward the learning experience through personal relevance and choice.
- Recognize that the varying experiences, abilities, language, culture, and family and community values learners bring to school with them are assets that can be used to promote their learning.
Implications for Practice
My fourth practicum week was an important and had a sense of closure to the first phase of the process. I fully participated in the classroom and led the activities. My ability to team-teach and manage the at-times awkward position was established. My presence, purpose and place have been clarified -- at least for the learners in my focus class.
Student-teaching requires the ability to manipulate multiple educational perspectives. Beyond negotiating the multi-level relationship with the CT, the practicum requires one to be student-manager, student-boss, student-grader and student-leader. Also, at any given point in the process, the 25-30 student perspectives on, and cultural comfort with, the classroom's team-teaching environment must be considered. The practicum requires political skills that are not expressly addressed in the Cooperative Teaching model or the "Suggested Timeline of Responsibilities for the Student Teaching" in the university’s handbook.
Just as there are “teaching hospitals,” there should be “teaching schools.” It would be a matter of a college urban teaching program adopting a specific school and interacting so closely with the student community that they would perceive the “student-teacher” as a normal and important part of the classroom. The enormous benefits to be gained by both the college and the participating public school simply cannot be overstated. The ability to share facilities and resources alone is reason enough to have such a program. That these relationships are not in place nearly everywhere in the country speaks volumes about our nation’s disjointed and dysfunctional educational system.
Framework for Excellence in Urban Classroom Leadership:
- Create coherent lesson plans that are engaging and relevant
- Dialogic instruction allows learners to be actively involved and own their learning
- The culturally competent educator seeks to use learners’ diverse knowledge to connect content concepts and skills
