Chapters 5 and 6

I was able to learn a lot about how I can be a good teacher for differentiation in my classroom. I have to describe a brief history of where I come from in the education world. For the past four years I have been in a junior high classroom working with the resource students and I have also been working with an adult with low functioning autism.
Even though I feel like I have been a big help to those with special needs that I have come in contact with I haven't been the best teacher to them. In chapter 5 the part that hit me the best was the "Curriculum and Instruction that are Demanding." I never thought that the people that I have worked with could do instruction that was demanding on them. It states in the book, "Students not only have more respect for classes that are demanding, but they also have more respect for themselves when they are in those classes." This means to be that I know that each one of my students can handle demanding instruction as long as I make sure I differentiate my instruction for all my students to make sure that they are all feeling that it is demanding for them but yet not too demanding so they can feel like they understand and can achieve what is being taught. It also talks about says that the tecaher should not exclude any students from complex thinking. Thats is what I would have done as a teacher before I read chapter 5.

I decided to specify my findings on chapter 6 on "Use of a Variety of rubrics to Guide Quality."
The reason why I wanted to specify about rubrics is because I hated them when I first came into the program because I couldn't understand them as well as I know other students understood them. However, now I like them because I do understand them and they help remember the guidelines that are required for a specific assignment. The book says that rubrics, "provide students with elements of successful work and descriptors of how those elements might look as they escalate from minimally acceptable to expert-like." I feel that rubrics are another way we as teachers can scaffold for our students so they can achieve "expert-like" status on assignments.