Differentiation so far...

So far, I have been to my Differentiation class once.
So far, I have loved it!

Dr. Peterson is my professor and instead of standing up in front of the class to teach us about morning meetings (which would have been understandable), she conducted one herself, engaging each of us students and giving us a feel of what it's like to participate in a morning meeting (which is way more fun and memorable). Dr. Peterson said, "If you don't actually do it, then you won't get your students to do it."

What is a morning meeting you may ask.

A morning meeting is done at the very beginning of class. It is a powerful tool to create classroom community and is between 15-30 minutes. Morning meetings include 4 components:

The greeting can be simple or complex. The teacher may toss a ball to a student and say, "Good morning {insert name here}" and then that student would say good morning back. This would be repeated until every student has been greeted by name. There are many different ways to jazz up the greeting. 

The sharing portion can be a lightening share where each students shares with a one word answer or short phrase, or a couple students may be picked to share something {the teacher picks the topic} and the student can share for a couple minutes. After the student shares they would turn to the class and say, "I'm ready for questions/comments." Then the sharer picks someone who is raising their hand to ask a question or share a comment. After three people have been chosen, the student would then say, "Thank you that was three." This is a great way for students to practice their social skills and their listening skills. 

The group activity involves everyone. If there is any risk-taking on the student's end, then the teacher would need to discuss beforehand why the task at hand may be difficult. For example, if you play an activity where only one student is the center of attention and needs to accomplish a task, then you would discuss why that task may be difficult so the other students don't think it is okay to laugh at them if they have a hard time completing the task. 

The news & announcements needs to be interactive. You may have a big piece of paper hanging up at the beginning of class asking the students to answer a question, share an idea, solve a problem, or gather data. When it comes time to do news & announcements, you read the chart together as a class and then discuss what the students have written, answered, tallied, etc. This is also a great time to share any changes in the schedule or announce something important. It is also a great tool when transitioning from coming into class and then getting to work on the next task at hand. 

After participating in a successful morning meeting, our professor asked us what this had to do with differentiation and why it might be important. Why spend so much time on learning about them? We answered that everyone is different and morning meetings help with classroom community and using their differences as strengths, rather than weaknesses. 

I personally love the idea of morning meetings. I'm excited to learn more about them and I'm excited to learn more about differentiation and how I can become a more successful teacher with students from different backgrounds.