Getting to know each and every student in your classroom can be a very overwhelming thing to think about. How does a teacher carry out a lesson that can keep each child engaged and included with so many different personalities and cultures filling the room? How does a teacher express his/her own personality and opinions without stifling those of the students? I feel that encompassing an entire community of learners is a very difficult, necessesary, and exciting task. I feel that succeeding at this would be a very rewarding experience. How to get to know each student and how to get each student to know and understand their classmates can be a tricky task. I really liked the idea of the I am poems. I think that an autobiographical poem is beneficial especially when accompanied by a disscussion. When we were disscussing our poems in small groups we were able to figure out that despite differences in personality and background we all defined ourselves with similar characteristics. Almost everyone in my group mentioned siblings and sports. We all incorporated food into our ideas. We also all had very different characteristics as well. Discussing these created opportunities for us to learn about each other.
On the idea of discussion I found the Weinstein book very interesting. So many teachers are leading a classroom on what they think is discussion based learning but they are incorrect. I found the discussion on recitation vs. discussion really interesting. It worried me in the sense that I hope to never make the mistake of confusing the two. This class, as well as others, is making me realize how important it is for a teacher to step down as leader and step up as facilitator in a classroom because doing so enables the students to come to a higher level of thinking. It promotes the sharing of ideas, disagreements, and the fabulous idea of multiple right answers. I've really taken to heart the idea of not quizzing students as an excuse for discussion. If you pose a question and a student answers correctly and you acknowledge their correct answer, there is no longer any room for challenging, additional information, or disagreement.
The article I was assigned to was the Goldenberg article on Instructional Conversations. This tied many of the Weinstein ideas into it. It discussed proposing a focus topic and kind of getting the kids to share and observe different points of view. I feel that the Weinstein and Goldenberg texts can help to kickstart a classroom community where diversity is accepted, researched, and understood. By taking in different points of view and proposing some of their own perspectives; students not only begin to understand each other but they also give the teacher insight on what's going on with each student and how each mind is working and understanding things.
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I completely agree with you about that fact that getting to know every student in your classroom as an individual seems quite overwhelming. Diversity is occurring more often than not in American classrooms and it is very important to embrace cultures different than one’s own. I also wrote about using the “I Am” poems as a means to get to know your students. I like how you explained that when we wrote and shared our poems in TE, similarities were able to be seen despite all of the differences between group members. I believe that by using these poems in a classroom and pointing out to students that no matter how different someone may seem from you, everyone has similarities in some way, students may become more acceptable of diversity. This can also help students who may be immigrants or ELLs to feel a connection with their classmates and to gain some comfort in the classroom. Another idea which you brought up that I liked was about the article you were assigned to. By initiating instructional conversations you can really help to promote diversity in the classroom. This would be a great way to get students to lead their own discussion (with a little guidance from the teacher) which can provide further insight into the way that your students are thinking. Do you think that conversations such as this could lead to uncomfortable students and if it did, what would you do to fix this problem? Different points of view could really allow you to see the thought process of your students and could also give students the opportunity to talk about their own experiences during discussion.
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