April Induction: Differentiation for ELLs

Well it is certainly a good thing this month's presentation wasn't given at the beginning of the year! We only have two months of school left and I still feel like a five ton weight has just been dropped on my shoulders! As always, I will do my mortal best to reach ALL students, ELLs included, but when we talk about day to day instruction, I just don't see it happening at this point.

One "ah ha" moment for me today were some of the strategies directed toward my LEPs... It's absolutely true that I sometimes assume they know more than they do (particularly when it comes to grammar and vocabulary). Some strategies I definitely plan to use with these students is reinforcing background knowledge, chunking, and most importantly, internal summary. I really need to focus on this each day for the benefit of all my students, as giving time to review and reflect WITHIN the lesson is something I often neglect to do.

After the training I continue to find myself bewildered as to how to help my two NEPs. Because their native language is Fulani, they don't have the benefit of relying on other Spanish students who make up the 98% of ELLs. Add the cultural component to the mix and I'm at a complete loss! Yes, I can help build background knowledge and vocabulary. Yes, I can aid their learning with visuals and hands-on activities. But when I'm told NOT to, under any circumstances, modify the curriculum, and my curriculum involves complex grammatical structures, proper essay format, writing with voice, word choice, and organization, and these kids can't even put together a simple complete sentence, well........

How much time am I expected to devote to two out of 120 students? The theories and techniques discussed at professional development are all fine and dandy, but where is the support in my classroom? Where is the "real world" application? Where are the professionals who are supposed to help me plan and develop curriculum? Where am I allowed to draw the line?

Last month's induction about differentiating instruction was extremely helpful for me, as this is probably the area where I struggle the most. At times, developing new/different/modified versions of the same lesson or assessment can be overwhelming... I have a difficult enough time developing just ONE version!

Drawing on student interests is something I always try to do, but even this seems to sometimes fall flat. I was really inspired by the article discussing new formats and modes of expressing student learning. This trimester my biggest goal has been to offer my students more choice in their products. My 8th graders are currently engaged in autobiography projects, beginning with memoir. Allowing them to choose their topics and express themselves has been soooooo rewarding so far! I've never seen them so invested in their learning. My 7th graders are actually EXCITED about writing essays, because I encouraged them to choose topics, issues, problems that are of concern or interest to them. My next step is to continue to be creative with my planning, and hopefully, set aside enough time in advance to create an actual "real world" application for my students.

Oops!

So....
It's been almost a month since the last induction meeting, and I completely spaced on a blog! If I recall correctly, we did an activity on rich and robust vocabulary instruction. While I find this strategy effective and engaging, it is also time consuming--time I undoubtedly will always be scrounging to find! Additionally, I received training on this exact method less than one year ago, and while I always appreciate the efforts of the PD team, it is somewhat frustrating to have to sit through a repetitive lesson after a 9 hour work day beginning with Cluster!

I did, however, thoroughly enjoy the technology library resource tips, and was successfully able to guide my 8th graders through them while conducting research on American Revolution battles. Who knew the middle school library websites were such a wealth of information!?

January Training: Assessment

Finally! The software is installed and the Promethean clickers are ready to go! If only I could remember how to create a quiz... Only five days have passed since Jason's thorough training and my diligent note-taking, and alas! I have already forgotten the necessary steps to getting started. I have made it my mission this week to become the clicker master!

I enjoyed our training on summative versus formative assessment--a topic which continuously baffles me with how seemingly straight forward, yet entirely deceiving its content seems to be. The biggest "ah ha" for me was that summative assessment does not always have to be "formal." I suppose the major difference would be that formative is used by both teacher and students to drive lesson plans, while summative is more for teacher use to measure what a student knows at a given point in time. I hope to clarify some lingering questions and concerns in upcoming clusters and trainings.

In the mean time, I'll practice my assessment techniques with my floundering expertise on Promethean software!