Boy, did I learn a lot about making accomodations this past week. From “Jake Carpenter’s Pirate Diary” to “What If You Met a Pirate?,” I was able to experience and understand some awesome ways to accomodate kids at all levels. From placing students on related books at different grade levels to making audio tapes, I learned that taking a little extra time will go a long way! We want all our students to learn that same things so there will be no discrepancies between ability levels. Fortunately, placing students in different materials at different levels can expand their horizons even further. Coming together and discussing what each group learned can be a great way to compare and contrast ideas. Some groups might learn something that another group didn’t. By coming together to share ideas and information, you are providing students with a wide variety of possibilities.
I even learned some advantages to having self-contained classrooms. So often we think, “Oh well, we’ll let the art, music, or physical education teacher teacher that.” Hello?! We can incorporate and integrate some of the very things they will be teaching in our own classroom. It will also be much more applicable to students when they see every concept coming together and forming a mosaic of sorts. I am all about some applicability! I also learned a great deal from the discussion and fishbowl strategies. Having a discussion every three days allows students sufficient time to question, sort through, and grasp concepts before they are asked to discuss them. The fishbowl strategy accomodates several types of learners. It gives the high-achieving students a chance to model effective instruction, while it gives lower-achiving students a chance to observe, model, and practice these skills. It is team work, and I love it!
