Reflection on Reading - DI-2

Book: Integrating Differentiated Instruction & Understanding by Design - Tomlinson

Chapter: 2 – What Really Matters In Teaching? (The Students)

Write a brief abstract of the chapter:

This chapter was about students and their individual differences. These differences could be intellectual, emotional, and physical. They could be a learning impediment, a situation at home, or a physical disability. It explained how we as educators need to recognize these differences in the classroom and use differentiated instruction to work around them to get to the student in question. It is about being sensitive to the fact that in the classroom there are no cookie-cutter-students; they are all different and when their teacher recognizes that they work more effectively in class. It explains that using responsive teaching opens up windows of opportunity in your classroom.

How did you connect to the reading? And briefly reflect on your thoughts.

We liked the chapter. We agree in the fact that teachers need to be there for their students in every academic way they can. We like the concept of responsive teaching and understand how it shows sensitivity to the differences of our students. But we didn’t realize how much students needed/wanted of educators. We as teachers need to get close enough to be easy to talk to, but have enough distance so that we don’t invade their personal space. We need to be there for our students, but the balance in-between is something we are noticing more and more. We noticed that this chapter suggested teaching to students’ strongest intelligence and evaluating them frequently. Taking such a large role in the lives of our students has gotten us excited to get into the field! The last thing we noticed was how this chapter emphasized the fact that learning happens within the student, not to the student. We as educators have to help our students want to learn the material, not expect them to learn it. All in all we really liked this chapter. It reminded us that we have to be there for our all of our students while expecting great things from them.