Heacox Reflection

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by Amanda Nelson2 views·Updated Feb 15, 2022
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  1. This is my reflection on the Hickox text for Ed 6. 32.
  2. Um,
  3. I'm going to talk about three things that really stuck with
  4. me and that I really want to use in my classroom.
  5. Um, so the three things are the differentiation part,
  6. the flexible instruction
  7. and tiered assignments.
  8. Some of these things I'm already using in my classroom. Um,
  9. but there are some things that I'm going to tweak a
  10. little bit based on what I've read in the Hickox text,
  11. The first thing being differentiation. So just a little
  12. about it is there are many different ways
  13. to differentiate in a classroom. You can differentiate through content.
  14. You can differentiate through the process of learning.
  15. You can differentiate on the products that you want
  16. your students to
  17. produce or to turn in as an assignment.
  18. And you can differentiate by
  19. different learning environments within your classroom.
  20. Um, two things that I'm going to focus on are the content,
  21. um, differentiation and the learning environment differentiation.
  22. So, for content differentiation,
  23. um, this is just giving students different options of how to complete assignments.
  24. So one way that I thought of immediately when
  25. I was reading about the differentiation and content was
  26. when my students being a kindergarten teacher,
  27. we really focus on learning letters and letter sounds.
  28. So at the beginning of the year away, I could differentiate. The content is, too.
  29. Assign them different assignments. So we use sea salt a lot.
  30. And so there are different activities that I
  31. could assign through seesaw for them to complete
  32. based on their knowledge,
  33. if they are working on the letters or if they are working on letter sounds.
  34. Um,
  35. the other part of differentiation that I'm going
  36. to talk about is the learning environment.
  37. So learning environment is giving students the option
  38. of where they would prefer to work.
  39. Or, um,
  40. if you have the options in your school to give them another classroom or another, um,
  41. room in the in the building. I do not have that option.
  42. But one thing that I am going to try to implement before the end of
  43. this school year is to give students a choice of where they want to work.
  44. So, yes, we have our home spots at our tables, um, which I think is very important,
  45. especially for kindergarten to learn how to sit at a table
  46. but I'm going to try and give them options of
  47. if they would like to sit somewhere else, not necessarily by someone else,
  48. but if they want to sit somewhere else in the classroom.
  49. Um, the next part
  50. I would like to talk about is the flexible instruction.
  51. Um, so in the Hickox texts, they talk about
  52. many different things within that instruction.
  53. But one thing that really stuck with me,
  54. um
  55. is the student grouping So sorry I'm gonna go back to the kind of
  56. what flexible instruction is Is being able to change the ways of teaching,
  57. Um, so that it fits your student's needs.
  58. We we know as teachers that all students have different needs.
  59. They all come from different backgrounds, so being able to fit their needs
  60. as best as we can is extremely important as a teacher.
  61. So with that being said, um,
  62. student grouping is one way that you can be flexible in your teaching,
  63. and that is creating those groups based on the student needs.
  64. So one example that I thought of right away was my small group reading.
  65. So I have my students grouped anywhere from two students to four students.
  66. Um and they're kind of group done
  67. their reading levels and where they are with their
  68. knowledge of letters and letter sounds and words and,
  69. um, those basic phonics skills.
  70. Um,
  71. another way that I have done in the past and have
  72. not started or done it this year is math grouping.
  73. So, based on how their math skills are and grouping them
  74. so that they are
  75. learning with
  76. students
  77. that have similar needs or similar learning styles,
  78. um, again flexible instruction extremely important,
  79. especially in the kindergarten classroom.
  80. When you have students that are
  81. all over the place with their academic knowledge,
  82. the next part of the book or another part of the book that really struck with me
  83. is the tiered assignments.
  84. So Tiered Assignments is using those flexible instruction groups
  85. that I had just talked about and giving students the
  86. assignments that kind of match their skills.
  87. So
  88. obviously, we've learned from reading this book and
  89. just our basic teacher knowledge. We know that all students do not learn the same,
  90. and so expecting them to produce the exact same product
  91. and
  92. turning that into you as a one size fits all assignment is not appropriate.
  93. Um, in kindergarten.
  94. It's a little bit harder for me to think of ideas and how to do tiered assignments,
  95. because they're really just learning how to do school.
  96. But one thing that I looked at was the complexity part of it. Um, I can
  97. tear by complexity.
  98. This kind of goes back to those small groups that I was just talking about,
  99. and you can give them the same assignment.
  100. So whether it's learning letters or letter sounds or learning sight words, um,
  101. you can have them do different tasks to
  102. give you that same outcome. So I have students that
  103. we do word work during our daily five, and each student has a different word
  104. list.
  105. Um, and so they are you able to use that word list?
  106. But some students like to write with just a crayon,
  107. and they like to do rainbow writing,
  108. and they're still practicing their sight words
  109. the way that they
  110. feel best for them to learn. But they also have options of using Play Doh.
  111. So maybe they are more hands on, and they want to feel the play doh in their hands,
  112. and they want to form those letters with the play doh
  113. they're still practicing those sight words that I want them to practice,
  114. but they're doing it in a different way.
  115. Another example is I have a chalkboard so very similar to a crayon.
  116. But it's a different, um,
  117. input texture when they are riding with a piece of
  118. chalk versus writing with a crayon or a pencil.
  119. And so they're still practicing those sight words, but
  120. they are doing doing it in a different way that is best for their learning.
  121. Um, so to kind of summarize my
  122. presentation, um,
  123. three things that really struck with stuck with me were the differentiation
  124. of the assignments,
  125. the flexible instruction of having those
  126. small groups based on the skills of
  127. your students in your class and grouping them
  128. with similar skills and then the tiered assignments in
  129. giving students
  130. the same assignment as in working on sight words but
  131. giving them a different way to work on it,
  132. or a different way to produce the product that I want them to do.