IV.+Narrative+Description+of+Students+and+Activities

My Heroes:
My Heroes are a group of twenty 7 and 8 year old regular education students in Vestavia Hills, Alabama. They are a beautiful mix of abilities, nationalities and personalities. They teach me more each day than I could ever hope to impart to them. The class consists of 11 boys and 9 girls. Three of my students are ELL (English language learners receiving ESL services with a resource teacher). One has just been staffed into programming outside the regular classroom for students with a Learning Disability. We are uncertain at this point if she is LD alone, or may also be dyslexic. Seven students have medical a diagnoses of either ADD, ADHD or ODD. Four of my students are new to our school and community this year (3 are from other countries and 1 is from a bordering state). I believe that at least 4 of my students will qualify for our district's gifted enrichment program through the Child Find screening process in the coming spring term. My hope is that each of my Heroes will leave me in the spring with a greater appreciation of other cultures, a tolerance for diversity and a tenderness for themselves.

My Responsibilities to my team and my school:
In addition to teaching this multi-nationality, mixed ability group of 2nd graders, I am the grade level leader for a team of 6 second grade teachers. I serve on our school's Professional Development Committee and the School Improvement Team this year. I am a certified Promethean ActivClassroom trainer, responsible for troubleshooting, training and implementing curriculum using our system's 21st Century Classroom initiative and equipment. I present each year at our district-wide technology conference, to several mid-sized groups of educators seeking to improve their personal and professional integration of technology. I have offered courses on using iPhoto, Comic Life and Promethean Planet resources over the past 2 years. Additionally, on my own accord, I sought to help groups of parents who are trying to keep up with their children's level of tech "savvy" by planning, organizing and implementing after school workshops for parents in our school, with the help of a collegue. The parents came to learn how to utilize online resources, Internet safety, digital productivity and general troubleshooting which enriches them personally and aids them in parenting this generation of students, who are "digital natives".

See project description here:

More Collaboration:
Over the past several years of teaching in the regular ed classroom in my school, I have become increasingly less impressed with the level of problem solving and independent thinking that happens in our Math classes. I began to notice that my second graders did not come to my room in the fall with the expected level of problem solving ability and general task commitment necessary to excel in the area of Mathematics. Though our first grade teachers do a phenomenal job at teaching reading comprehension and critical reading skills, the students, as a group, seemed to lack the ability to apply these skills in their Math. Additionally, the 2nd graders still struggled with Math facts and seemed to lack an innate number sense. After meeting my third group of 2nd graders, I really began to take ownership of correcting this problem in our school. In talking with upper grades teachers, I uncovered that it was a school wide issue which had not been addressed through collaboration. Each teacher was doing her best in the classroom, but each style of teaching was reaching a very limited number of children--not enough to affect change in the school as a whole.

I will admit that this realization grew out of my constant desire to differentiate for high level learners and gifted students. I simply cannot rest while a gifted student wastes time in the classroom! So, I set out to help change the way we think about our "one size fits all" curriculum in Math.

As early as my first year at my current school, administration and colleagues seemed to notice that I did not approach Math in the traditional manner in my classroom. I was grouping, assessing and teaching in the way that we are taught as teachers to differentiate in Reading for mixed ability classrooms. "How in the world do you have time to do small groups in Math?" was a question I got all the time. I don't know how I have time, it's just intuitive for me to want to teach children where they are, not where the MIDDLE is! This year, I finally petitioned our administration and our district for the time and resources needed to teach my team how to work small groups, games and LESS CONTROL into their daily Math routines, and I'm SO glad I did. It is really working for my entire grade level and is starting to catch on in our school. First grade is now ability grouping in Math and pre-assessing EVERY unit. :)

See documentation of the process for my grade level:

Content, Process, Product and Environment:
In these videos, you will notice students playing a "Toss the Globe" game, using Leap Pads with Geography books and headphones, reading maps and atlases and accessing online Geography games and research on the classroom computers. These open ended activities are engaging and naturally differentiated. Students are able to explore on their own, or with peers to complete a prescribed activity OR extend the activity to suit themselves. I offer much more flexible time in my classroom than the average homeroom teacher. I believe this time is vital to differentiation in a mixed ability group of students. Students who are engaged are easier to manage, in terms of behavior and direct instruction. This flexible style of teaching, with a purpose and standards driven goals and objectives enables me to seek every possible "teachable moment" in my classroom.



Students in my classroom are encouraged to create products which show their own interests, level of understanding and personalities. Below are some photos of students working on storyboards for a presentation based on a destination they researched through the Flat Stanley project. You will notice students using FlipCams to video each other taping "commercials" and "news spots" for the places they learned about.