Outside of My Comfort Zone: Blogging Was a Great Experience!

One of the most important things to remember about creating an inclusive classroom environment is just that: it has to be created.  A classroom will not simply become that way on it’s own, without lots of attention and work. The teacher plays a continuously active role in making sure that every student is included.  It’s a cycle of presenting information with built in accommodations, checking understanding and evaluating how to build on or improve that understanding.  As students grow and change, so will their needs, and the teacher has to always be identifying those needs and meeting them.  There’s so much that can be learned from students work and interaction and it should be carefully noted and used to inform instruction. 

After reading and exploring a variety of online resources, I think many of the practices that are designed for an inclusive classroom, are just overall good teaching practices.  Every classroom is an inclusive classroom, because every group of students will have a diverse range of needs that require specific attention.  I think one of the biggest mistakes we can make as teachers is assuming that a child is doing ok, that they don’t have any needs, or that they are not unique from every other student in the class.  It’s one thing to recognize that this is true, but it’s another (and more important) thing to address this in instruction and assessment. 

Learning difficulties and differences can only be noticed and documented through assessment, but assessment also typically proves to be more difficult for this children.  It’s not the children that are the issue, it’s the assessment.  Taking that viewpoint could dramatically change how we inform instruction.  I think there is a lot more research that can be done to find ways to authentically assess students based on their strengths and weaknesses.   I think there are ways to scaffold assessment to build students up to success.

The most important thing that I have gained from this blog is a new perspective of the resources that are available to me as a future educator.  It’s given me confidence to ask questions and develop this perspective almost completely on my own.  It’s reminded me how important it is for educators to continue to explore, ask questions and write as a means of professional development.  There is always more work to be done to better meet the needs of the students in our classrooms.

It reminds me of when I was first learning an instrument.  My music teacher taught me a really important lesson: If you only practice the parts of the song that you are good at, you will never get any better.  Of course, it was more fun to play the parts I was good at, over and over and over and I always got a positive response from whoever was listening.  However, I wasn’t getting any better.  At the end of that practice, I was still good at the same parts and I hadn’t made any progress. Playing the harder parts was much less fun and didn’t feel as good, but when I could make improvements and master a new part, it was way more rewarding than just playing something that was easy.   The only way to get better at something is to acknowledge and work through the parts that are weaker, that make us uncomfortable and that are hard. 

I think a large part of teaching is going through this process ourselves, constantly thinking about what our weaknesses are and what “hard parts” we can practice and improve upon.  However, it’s just as important that we guide our students through this process themselves.  They are just learning how to learn, and the best thing we can do is be understanding and accommodating whenever possible.  We want to build up students’ confidence and abilities so they confront challenges rather then shy away from them.  The best way to do this is to try to recognize and meet their needs before they have to ask for help and before it becomes too difficult and discouraging. 

I realize now that there are lots of ways to build accommodations into a lesson and make small adaptations that to not take away from the classroom environment.  The idea is to have supports available so that students can be successful independently.  There is no such thing as helping a student too much, as long as the scaffolds are gradually removed and monitoring takes place during that process.

Have the right supports in place is just as important as monitoring progress, and that’s where assessment comes in.  The more you are constantly taking small assessments of where a student is, the better informed instruction will be and the better students will perform on later assessments.  Assessments are an incredible tool, and when crafted and used correctly, benefits students more than they realize.  Maybe we should help them realize it.

       Every kid deserves to know what it feels like to ace a test.  It’s not the feeling of actually acing the text that is so awesome, but it’s knowing that your hard work and effort has paid off.  Putting the right supports in place and using authentic measures of their skills will help a child to focus their efforts in a way that will pay off for them on a test.  Of course it’s easier said then done, but I don’t believe that teaching is supposed to be easy.  Teaching is about working through what’s hard to feel the ultimate reward of a job well done.

      I’ve learned there are so many resources available that can be really informative and helpful and that even if I don’t agree with what others are putting out there, learning what the viewpoints of other teachers and parents is valuable information. Teaching doesn’t take place in a vacuum and technology is a very real part of education. Learning to interact with technology to further my own education is something I will definitely take with me and hopefully continue to build upon during my time as a student and a teacher.

      Creating my personal learning environment seems to be a great way to work towards my goal of being a life long learner.  I plan on definitely using this technology in the future, and exploring other professionals’ blogs for ideas. The feeling I’ve developed from writing this blog posts is a feeling I hope to instill in my students some day – that they have the power to take responsibility over their own education and the power to create new ideas through their writing.  Writing is such an important piece of expressing and developing thoughts and ideas and this blog was a great way to do just that.  I’ve become more comfortable with asking and answering my own questions and realizing it’s ok not to have an exact answer.

The more I learn, the more I feel like I have yet to learn. However, I believe my personal learning environment that I have created here is a great foundation for further learning and exploring.  I feel like I’ve been able to take the expanse of the world wide web and narrow down a few useful areas, and that there is still so much more to be explored.  I’m glad to have my writing stored here for future reference and excited to see where my writing takes me.