This phrase “necessary but not sufficient” has been ringing in my ears of recent weeks when thinking about those students who are achieving below minimim standards.
I first heard Paul Brock use the phase and subsequently I have used it when speaking to teachers about our NAPLAN data. I was suggesting to teachers that in looking at our students results on the tests we search for different ways to improve student learning – we need to go beyond the necessary.
At the staff meeting we mapped our literacy program at each year level and agreed that it’s necessary that we all work on similar literacy strategies. However we began to question about whether the current teaching strategies were sufficient for those students below standards. We posed questions about how we might offer targetted students more literacy sessions each week. We posed other questions on how we might differentiate better our instruction during the mini lesson at the beginning of each writers or readers workshop.
It’s a tough ask for teachers to not only explicitly teach rich content [usually planned by the year level team] in consistent ways with high levels of instructional skill – now we ask that you plan and teach responding to student’s individual needs on a daily basis. It’s a real challenge for a year level team and individual teachers to come to grips with – can we offer 4 or more guided reading sessions per week for those students who need it – instead of the 2 we currently plan for ? It’s a lot to plan – with an explicit focus.
I recall a converation between Sarah my Assistant Principal and I, where we agreed that it now takes us longer to prepare for the staff meeting that the length of the actual meeting – as we try to engage teachers in rich tasks – modelling what we expect in classrooms.
One the tasks in 2009 will be to structure a timetable that releases teachers in teams – so that we get better at this task of differentiating the curriculum for each student’s needs. Teachers need more time to plan this differentiated instruction.
One of our challenges will be to provide additional instruction for those students not reaching our literacy benchmarks.
Connie
Good to hear from you. I agree that quality assessments are one of the keys to differentiated instruction – assessments that lead a teacher to alter or focus their instruction for that child [often we have small groups of students in our classes that also need that specific instruction]- lots of tests I see allow teachers to make judgements “of” the learning – its the dialogue of teachers in teams about what type of instruction is needed that helps us get assessments “for” learning. I attended a team planning session this week that tackled whole issue about the VELS content in the mini lesson of the readers and writers workshop and hope to post a comment on that discussion soon.
Opportunities are created to help teachers develop common language and understandings by releasing them in teams to plan for differentiated instruction. However the rate at which this develops depends on the knowledge and skills of the teachers. After completing a case study based on learning difficulties I found the key to planning differentiated instruction is dependent on quality assessment – what are you looking for?; which test(s) will povide this information?; and which instruction will best suit the needs of the learner – explicit or whole?; Furthermore how does explicit instruction differ from whole? I believe that if teachers have a common understanding and knowledge in these areas then the planning becomes a far more simple and less time consuming process.
Opportunities are created to help teachers develop common language and understandings by releasing them in teams to plan for differentiated instruction. However the rate at which this develops depends on the knowledge and skills of the teachers. After completing a case study based on learning difficulties I found the key to planning differentiated instruction is dependent on quality assessment – what are you looking for?; which test(s) will povide this information?; and which instruction will best suit the needs of the learner – explicit or whole?; Furthermore how does explicit instruction differ from whole? I believe that if teachers have a coomon understanding and knowledge in these areas then the planning becomes far more simple and less time consuming process.