In this Educational Leadership article entitled,
Teach Up for Excellence,
differentiation guru Carol Ann Tomlinson (University of Virginia) and EDEquity
founder Edwin Lou Javius note that until quite recently, U.S. schools were
legally segregated and unequal based on race. Today, there is still significant
racial and economic separation within schools. “The logic behind separating
students by what educators perceive to be their ability is that it enables
teachers to provide students with the kind of instruction they need,” say
Tomlinson and Javius. “All too often, however, students in lower-level
classrooms receive a level of education that ensures they will remain at the
tail end of the learning spectrum.”
The deepest wounds
that schools inflict on students, they continue, “are wounds of underestimation.
We underestimate students when they come to us with skills and experiences that
differ from the ones we expected and we conclude they’re incapable of complex
work. We underestimate students when they fall short of expectations because
they don’t understand the school game and we determine that they lack
motivation. We underestimate them when we allow them to shrink silently into
the background of the action in the classroom. We underestimate them, too, when
we assume they’re doing well in school because they earn high grades, and we
praise them for reaching a performance level that required no risk or
struggle.”
This is a shame, they
say, because low-achieving students flourish when they’re exposed to high-level
instruction. We know the human brain is “incredibly malleable, and that
individuals can nearly always outperform our expectations of them… Virtually
all students would benefit from the kind of curriculum and instruction we have
often reserved for advanced learners – that is, curriculum and instruction
designed to engage students, with a focus on meaning making, problem solving,
logical thinking, and transfer of learning.”
These convictions
bring Tomlinson and Javius to seven principles for “teaching up” – that is,
creating classrooms that give all students access to high achievement:
• Accept that human
differences are normal and desirable. “Each person has something of value
to contribute to the group, and the group is diminished without that
contribution,” say Tomlinson and Javius. “Teachers who teach up create a
community of learners in which everyone works together to benefit both
individuals and the group.”
• Develop a growth
mindset. This means “doggedly challenging the preconception that high
ability dwells largely in more privileged students,” say the authors. “The
greatest barrier to learning is often not what the student knows, but what the
teacher expects of the student.” Growth-mindset teachers emphasize hard work,
set clear learning goals, and provide support and feedback along the way.
• Work to
understand students’ cultures, interests, needs, and perspectives.
“Teaching any student well means striving to understand how that student
approaches learning and creating an environment that is respectful of and
responsive to what each student brings to the classroom,” say Tomlinson and
Javius.
• Create a base of
rigorous learning opportunities. This includes discipline-specific
knowledge and skill expectations, connections with students’ lives,
collaboration with peers, looking at different perspectives, and having
students create authentic products for real audiences.
• Understand
students’ varied entry-points and curriculum speed. “Teachers who teach up
understand that some students may feel racially and culturally isolated in
their classes,” say Tomlinson and Javius. “Therefore, they find multiple ways
for students to display their insights for the group. These teachers understand
that every student needs ‘peacock’ moments of success so classmates accept them
as intellectual contributors.”
• Create flexible
classroom routines and procedures. The trick is to draw on classroom
assessments, formal and informal, to accommodate the inevitable range of
student needs. “Teachers who teach up carefully select times when the class
works as a whole, when students work independently, and when students work in
groups,” say Tomlinson and Javius. “They teach their students when and how to
help one another as well as how to guide their own work effectively.”
• Be an analytical
practitioner. Effective teachers are students of their students. “They
empower students to teach them, as teachers, what makes students most
successful,” say the authors.
REFERENCE
Blog written by:
Kim
Marshall, consultant
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