Chapter
8 – Social Aspects of Learning
What
do you see that might be engaging to many different students?
The
Visiting Basal Readers Selection Groups (pp249-250) are designed to involve the
students in directing their own learning.
The basal reader is treated as an anthology, this choice driven approach
should be motivating to different students as they get to have input into what
they will be reading. By then
organizing the readings by theme or genre, the teacher offers a way for the
students to connect the readings to one another and their experience.
Literature
Circles (pg250) also offer choice, which is engaging to a variety of students
and allows for different levels of reading to be happening in the classroom at
the same time.
Cooperative
Learning Groups (pg 252)engage a diversity of students by offering each an
independent task that is necessary to complete the whole. This approach allows for both independent
self-directed learning and parallel
social learning.
What
do you see that might meet more than one learning modality?
The
Primary Grade Literacy Workshop (p9258-262) is an extended period of time and
is organized to incorporate a number of different approaches to the
reading/writing task. This variety of
approaches should ensure that a number of different learning modalities are
included each day in the reading and writing tasks.
What
do you see that might support/hinder students
·
with special needs?
Special
needs students generally do not do well when whole class grouping is the sole
approach to classroom management(p245).
Flexible grouping can be helpful to special needs students as they are
not socially stigmatized by this approach.
However, such students do need more direct instruction, so Needs
Grouping should be included as one option (pg247).
·
English Language Learners?
The
Primary Grades Literacy Workshop should be helpful for ELLs, especially when
the Working With Words module of the workshop is geared to the ELL’s needs for
language and skills scaffolding. This
workshop format also includes guided reading and paired reading activities
which should be helpful to the ELL if they are grouped with supportive
partners. Guided reading (pg256) is an
ideal approach for ELLs as it is designed to support the reader when the text
presents too many challenges for independent reading.
What
do you see that might be bias in the language used in the assignments discussed
in this chapter?
The
author is quite biased toward student directed learning versus teacher directed
learning . Though the author notes the
tension many teachers experience in trying to balance the complexities of
multiple needs in their classroom with the personal need for simplicity and
order, the author quite directly states, “a teacher’s decision to use a
particular grouping strategy must be made in full appreciation of the potential
social, instructional, psychological, and moral outcomes of such choice on
children, not just for the ease or convenience of the teacher.”
What
do you wonder about with respect to equity (in regard to what you’ve read in
the chapters)?
Ability
grouping has largely been dismissed as a grouping approach because of equity
issues. (pp245-247) It has been noticed that low and middle group tend to get a
different (inference is lower quality)
kind of instruction than higher level groups. But it is not explained whether this is because it is the type of
instruction that they need, nor is it explained whether there is a significant
difference for the lower groups when they get the same kind of instruction as
the higher groups. The author
acknowledges that more research needs to be done regarding this issue in the
last sentence of the article. “..we need to know more about how flexible
grouping strategies interact to ameliorate the effects of ability grouping for
students with varying needs and abilities.”
Does this mean that we are being encouraged to engage in another
teaching practice that has not fully been tried?