Small...I mean BIG victories!

I can't believe it's been three months since I have blogged. I have spent some time thinking about what to blog about, because after all, I better make it good since it's been so long since I shared my thoughts and celebrations in my classroom!

After some thought, I've decided to share the small...I mean BIG victories that are currently happening in my class.

This year has been challenging and I know that there is always a reason behind why things happen the way they do and why I was "given" my class.

It takes determination, creativity, and time to reach every child. However, that is my job, so all year I have been on a mission...which by the way would not be possible without the special education teacher to whom I co-teach with daily.

In two words, I can tell you what has created the successes in my class this year...differentiated instruction, across the board. That means, small group, small group, small group instruction! Oh, and all of my kids get small group instruction, not just kids needing remediation. I'll come back to this on a later post.

If you are a regular reader of my blog, you know that I teach math in small groups. I do this so that every child will get what he/she needs. I spent the first several months of school holding my breath, hoping that what we were doing was working. Several weeks ago, I realized its impact when I was grading the math tests. One struggling math student scored a 100% on his math test. I wanted to shout from the roof how excited I was. I decided that may be a little inappropriate, so I just called his mom instead. :-) As I began to grade the rest of the math tests, I was so pleased with the scores of my struggling learners (and my non-struggling learners).

I had a moment...a moment when I knew that we were successful. Success is important in any job, but because this type of success involved 8 and 9 year olds, it was even more thrilling!

So, differentiated instruction is not just for struggling learners. In fact, that would be so unfair if I only differentiated for struggling learners. In January, I instituted an additional responsibility in school...computerized written response based on a read aloud or chapter book we are reading. (They respond to their reading all the time, so this is just one more way) They have to answer one post per week (they only get the opportunity 2 or 3 days per week to answer). I make a big deal out of this new responsibility and the importance of written response. I relate it to their lives, because I believe that unless they can connect to what is being learned, it will be meaningless. I mentioned that if they wanted, they could complete posts at home, but it certainly was not required.

One by one, kids started doing extra work, completing 3 or 4 posts per week. What makes an 8 or 9 year old want to do extra work!? Again, I had a moment. We look at the posts as a class and discuss what makes a good post. Doing this challenges the kids to make their responses better than the last. I had one girl say to me, "Mrs. Neft, I answered a post at home and I tried really hard to make it even better than my last one. I love the drive she has. This type of differentiation has almost been created by the kids, with me being the cheerleader. Cool.

I know I was born to teach. I know that the challenges I face this year will only make me stronger.

So, some may see these as small victories, but I see them as big victories. And, this is perfect evidence to support my educational philosophy that all kids can learn, they just learn differently.

Everyday, my students help me become the best teacher possible. Thank you to those little people who experience such big victories each and every day.