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With gifted kids, special ed kids (assumed to be the ones need extra help in the classroom or ones who are disruptive,for this argument since some here will try to lump all kids with any issue into this category just to argue ) and regular ed kids of varying abilities in the same classroom, what's the solution? How would you suggest teachers manage the education process in order to best meet the needs of all students?
I ask what teachers should do because they are the first line of defense. Policy changes take time and, while we can fight for them, we have to wait for them. In four weeks, I will walk into overcrowded classrooms filled with students whose abilities range from needing a lot of support and special grading scales just to pass to the G&T crowd (they all take chemistry). What would your strategy be for dealing with this situation and making the best of it? How would you divide your time to give kids the most?
I don't think there are that many classes with pupils who all have the same needs, you'll always have a wide range of needs among the kids, so it's hard to have a good solution for that. I always tried my best to be available for everyone in my classes. Unfortunately, when you have 30 students to deal with, you must deal with them all, whatever their needs, because if you spend too much time with one, then the others might get disruptive to attract attention, or consider the other kid as the teacher's pet, or stop working, etc. I always try to explain why some will get a little more attention, I also try to have the good students help the ones who have difficulties. It may work or not, it all depends on the class actually.
Ideally, the best students should have a little more to do, to keep them busy. But there again, it does not always work.
Teachers with special ed students should have an assistant in their class. A teacher cannot be everywhere at the same time, so some help should be provided whenever possible. But usually, well, it's not...
I'm not sure there is a good solution for that problem.
You will have to accommodate a range of ability levels, whether your students are developmentally disabled, gifted, or not.
If it bothers you to have to differentiate your instruction and take into account that the way you are teaching a group may not be cutting it for individual students of diverse needs and ability levels, you may be better served by working at a school that deals with a very specific student population...don't like dealing with learning disabled kids? Teach at a school where students test in. Don't like working with the neurotypical student population? Teach at a school specifically for disabled kids. Want to work only with a particular type of curriculum or focus? Chose an EL school, a magnet school, an arts high school, or some other similarly specialized institution.
As the previous poster mentioned, peer mentoring can be helpful. Any extra supports possible are always good if there are students who would benefit from it. My mom's been a special education para for nearly twenty years. She's worked under classroom teachers who utilized her to the fullest in order to do their jobs of teaching all their students to the best of their abilities, and others who were completely dismissive of her, because they resented having disabled students in their class, at all.
You will have to accommodate a range of ability levels, whether your students are developmentally disabled, gifted, or not.
If it bothers you to have to differentiate your instruction and take into account that the way you are teaching a group may not be cutting it for individual students of diverse needs and ability levels, you may be better served by working at a school that deals with a very specific student population...don't like dealing with learning disabled kids? Teach at a school where students test in. Don't like working with the neurotypical student population? Teach at a school specifically for disabled kids. Want to work only with a particular type of curriculum or focus? Chose an EL school, a magnet school, an arts high school, or some other similarly specialized institution.
As the previous poster mentioned, peer mentoring can be helpful. Any extra supports possible are always good if there are students who would benefit from it. My mom's been a special education para for nearly twenty years. She's worked under classroom teachers who utilized her to the fullest in order to do their jobs of teaching all their students to the best of their abilities, and others who were completely dismissive of her, because they resented having disabled students in their class, at all.
It doesn't bother me. I'm asking what other people's solutions would be. I have my own but I'm always open to exploring other options.
Your mom can come into my class any time. I'll take all the help I can get. Trust me, she'd get used .
While peer mentoring does work, parents of the kids doing the mentoring don't seem to consider it a proper use of their children in class. It is, really, slowing down the brighter student by giving them a struggling student to mentor. On the plus side, if you can explain something to others, you know it.
I don't think there are that many classes with pupils who all have the same needs, you'll always have a wide range of needs among the kids, so it's hard to have a good solution for that. I always tried my best to be available for everyone in my classes. Unfortunately, when you have 30 students to deal with, you must deal with them all, whatever their needs, because if you spend too much time with one, then the others might get disruptive to attract attention, or consider the other kid as the teacher's pet, or stop working, etc. I always try to explain why some will get a little more attention, I also try to have the good students help the ones who have difficulties. It may work or not, it all depends on the class actually.
Ideally, the best students should have a little more to do, to keep them busy. But there again, it does not always work.
Teachers with special ed students should have an assistant in their class. A teacher cannot be everywhere at the same time, so some help should be provided whenever possible. But usually, well, it's not...
I'm not sure there is a good solution for that problem.
You're correct. Mixed learning abilities is the norm. I'm asking what other people would suggest to teachers. How do you work this to the benefit of all?
Keeping the best students busy doesn't work. They resent having to do more work or having more expected of them. If they're interested in the topic being discussed, they will go deeper on their own. This is one issue I don't have a solution for. How to keep the brighter kids busy without overwhelming the lower performing kids in the class. There's nothing like feeling you're defeated before you start to stop a student from even trying.
I agree that we should have an assistant in the class. Unfortunately, I don't. I just get handed a stack of IEP's at the beginning of the year that I have to comply with. Most will only involve changing my grading scale or giving easier tests. Some, however, will require more support.
60 years ago our public schools put out students that sent men to the moon and back but somewhere between then and now we decided most kids were somehow "special" in one way or another so we segregate.
Kids like John weren't "gifted" they skipped 6th and 10th grade to graduate at 16. Kids like Mike did 6th grade over probably damaging his psyche forever but that is the way life goes. Life is competition after all.
If I had been born in the 80's instead of the 40's I have no doubt the school system of the 90's would have ruined my life. My dad died when I was an infant and I had some problems coping, I acted out in school being a little on the disruptive side (I wasn't a rotten kid just a handful). Today the psychologists would have made sure I was fed enough drugs to put my head on a spike and today I would either be in prison or a politician running for congress.
Actually I didn't have problems the problem was a home life that was constantly in turmoil when my mom married a dead beat alcoholic son of a *****.
But I was never put on drugs and I was lucky enough to have some teachers that kind of knew what was going on. While my grades were poor I always excelled at math to the point some teachers thought I had to be cheating (I wasn;t) and would make up "special tests" for me to do sequestered in a room by msyelf. Kind of funny, they would grade it, shake there heads and walk away. I sucked in everything else though. C's amd D's in everything except Algebra II where I got an "A". Go figure.
I shudder to think what a school would do to a kid like me today.
If Connor and Meghan are gifted then have them skip a grade. Saves the system money.
While peer mentoring does work, parents of the kids doing the mentoring don't seem to consider it a proper use of their children in class. It is, really, slowing down the brighter student by giving them a struggling student to mentor. On the plus side, if you can explain something to others, you know it.
As a parent of a child who has been asked to do peer mentoring, and an educator I have mixed feelings about peer mentoring. Peer mentoring works well when paired with more advanced opportunities. However, my experience as a parent is that SOMETIMES peer mentoring is used to occupy the time of the brighter students who finish their work faster than the rest of the class.
My son had a teacher who gave a pre test before teaching a unit. If the students got an A on the pre test they were permitted to work independently on an activity of their choosing while the unit was taught. There was a center of really fun, educational activities that the students could choose. On the day before the test the teacher used peer mentoring to help the struggling students. IMO that was an appropriate use of peer mentoring. My other son had a teacher that just had the kids who were finished with their worksheets help the other kids. IMO that was not an appropriate use of his time in class.
I don't know the best way to help all children in a heterogeneous group, and I struggled with it as well. I had gifted students, special needs students (severe with no aids in the room...another story entirely....pretty sure it was illegal), and regular education students in the same class. No matter what differentiation I offered, there was no way to meet everyone's needs. After many years of that experience, I decided that I think it would be best if the kids were ability grouped. It is not fair to have advanced students peer mentoring others, that is not what they are at school to do. At the same time, it is not fair that the special needs students are not getting the one on one, from a trained professional, that they so deserve. I really think it is an injustice to not have the kids attend a class that matches their performance. Not to mention the behavioral issues that could be prevented. The kids can be heterogeneously grouped for their related arts classes, but otherwise the system needs to be revamped.
I don't think there is an answer that will work in the long run. Clearly, all those classroom management techniques being taught are not working or this wouldn't be a discussion. The heterogenous grouping of academic classrooms is, after about kindergarten, not serving any of our children well.
Neither is the mega-school approach. Administrators and guidance counselors can't possibly learn all the kids in a thousand-child elementary school, or in a high school bigger than some colleges. Schools worked far better when they were actually child-focused, rather than education factories.
I don't think there is an answer that will work in the long run. Clearly, all those classroom management techniques being taught are not working or this wouldn't be a discussion. The heterogenous grouping of academic classrooms is, after about kindergarten, not serving any of our children well.
Neither is the mega-school approach. Administrators and guidance counselors can't possibly learn all the kids in a thousand-child elementary school, or in a high school bigger than some colleges. Schools worked far better when they were actually child-focused, rather than education factories.
??? When were schools child focused compared to today? I'd say we're much more child focused (mirrors modern parenting which became child focused sometime in the '80's). How much more child focused can you get, without pulling kids out and homeschooling to make them the entire focus, than we are now?
Back in, say, the '50's we weren't child focused. The child was expected to conform to the school. Today, the school is expected to conform to the child. Back then children were born into families and expected to adjust, whereas, today, they transform families and are the center of the family.
One of the problems I see is that we are too child centered. We're catering to our children by trying to make life adjust to them instead of them adjust to life.
What in the world would you think a child centered school would look like???? I think part of the problem is schools attempt to be all things to all kids instead of expecting kids to adjust to being part of a bigger picture as it was back in America's heyday.
BTW, in Asian countries, schools do not adapt to the child. The child is expected to do whatever it takes to adapt to the school. Perhaps this is one reason they are more successful than us. We cater to the individual child to the best of our ability and seem convinced that more catering would be better.
Education factories? Sounds like some homeschool anti public school rhetoric. So, if you don't think we should be concentrating on educating kids, what should be be concentrating on? I kind of thought that was the main purpose of school. Silly me.
School size is a consideration. Small schools are limited in what they can offer. If you're after a tailored education, which it sounds like you are, you'd want the larger school so you could choose the classes that fit the child. If you want to know everyone on a first name basis, choose a smaller school. Both have their advantages and disadvantages. I'm in favor of larger schools that can offer more classes but my kids are on the higher end so more opportunty is a plus. My dd is headed to a large middle school in September where one of her classes is Tech Ed. where she'll learn to use CAD to design something and then will go into the shop to build it. The small school I teach at can't offer classes like this because we can't afford it. OTOH, if a child needs more of a sense of belonging and knowing teachers well is a plus, we're the school of choice. Smaller schools also offer opportunties for participation in sports that some kids might not have in a larger school. Team skills are big in industry these days.
One of the best districts in my area has a mega high school campus. Three huge schools make up the campus. Each school has an emphasis and kids move between the schools as needed to take classes like they would in college. 97% of their graduates go directly to a 4 year college. Most of the remaining 3% go to community colleges. They have pooled resources to offer the best they can. Students have opportunities there they would not have in other districts. Of course, counselors don't know each child by name and it's up to the child and their parents to make sure what needs to be done is done but I think teaching personal responsibility is a good thing. I'm responsible for me instead of it's someone else's fault isn't the norm in our society.
Last edited by Ivorytickler; 08-07-2009 at 10:06 AM..
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) and regular ed kids of varying abilities in the same classroom, what's the solution? How would you suggest teachers manage the education process in order to best meet the needs of all students?
I'd say we're much more child focused (mirrors modern parenting which became child focused sometime in the '80's). How much more child focused can you get, without pulling kids out and homeschooling to make them the entire focus, than we are now?
