Week 3 Response

1. I think one of my favorite definitions that made sense to me for defining differentiation is on page 10. Tomlinson says, "...we teach responsively when we understand the need to teach the human beings before us as well as to teach the content with which we are charged... we are no longer teaching if what we teach is more important than who we teach or how we teach." This made sense to me because it brings students into perspective as individuals who have similar needs to each other, but also have very specific personal needs and requirements that the teacher needs to be aware of and differentiate for. From what I understand, becoming an effective differentiation teacher is an emersion process that evolves, and can only evolve when the most vital step, the teacher-student relationships, are established as well as the skills required to become a flexible teacher are obtained. I loved the metaphors given in the chapter of taming the fox and the clockwork of the three cogs! These metaphors helped me to realize that there is so much more to differentiation then simply planning well. Knowledge of your students, their culture, home life, and prior experiences, as well as what they are seeking from their experience are some of the vital ideas which shape the flexible forms of differentiation that should be transforming their experience in your classroom. (Some of the definitions also reminded me of the Emergent Participatory Teaching theory for ESL).

2b. On page 22 it says in correspondence with "Looking back (reflection)...and Ahead, "The point is not to entertain guilt. the point is to relentlessly seize the remarkable opportunity of a teacher to shape lives--to do the best we can to ensure that we are better at reaching children today than yesterday, better at it this year than last. Connecting with each child is at the heart of differentiated teaching..."

I LOVE this quote because by the time I finished reading the chapter, I asked myself, "well now what can I do to start..." and I felt lost and confused. As a teacher, I want to have all of the qualities and teaching strategies figured out so that my students can have the best opportunity to learn and feel safe in my classroom. These quote is comforting to me because I realize that it is going to take a lot of hard work and a lot of practice to get to the point that I want to be in with using differentiation in my classroom. I need to remember that as long as I am taking the opportunity to learn from my experiences and work harder to teach my students more effectively tomorrow, I am doing my part and the outcome is that both my students and I will grow and learn from it each day!