Teacherman

Students for whom differentiated instruction would be appropriate  All my students are English language learners (ELL) in my economics classes. These students range in ability from close to native speaker to just above beginner level, which can make lesson planning interesting. It is very important, therefore, that I differentiate instruction to ensure that none of them get left behind. To this end I remove all ‘fluff’ from the curriculum. Any non-essential vocabulary, or material that would distract from the key objectives, is removed in order to focus the students’ attention on the key points. I also have one student who suffers from a mild visual impairment and another who suffers from mild dyslexia. I will be focusing on the student with dyslexia in this blog. Modifications for different levels of readiness After the first formative assessment I am usually able to divide the class into two groups: those who are picking up the material more slowly, and those who are...

With backwards mapping we learned to start with the end in mind. We began by focusing on the standard and learning objectives, and then worked backwards to consider which assessments would be most appropriate to accurately measure the students’ understanding. The standard I chose, and the SMART learning objectives I created, are as follows: Standard E1: Students understand common economic terms and concepts and economic reasoning.  1. By the end of the unit students will be able to evaluate the relationship between scarcity and the need for choices and provide solutions to problems based on these concepts.  2. By the end of the unit students will be able to make and justify economic decisions based on the concepts of marginal benefit and marginal cost. 3. By the end of the unit students will be able to identify the difference between monetary and non-monetary incentives and will be able to apply those concepts to realistic economic simulations.  With the lear...

My current school doesn’t use any kind of standards. We use a mishmash of AP and SAT courses and parts of the Korean curriculum, and I hadn’t realised until we started this module just what a mistake that was. As a teacher it’s easy to look at the Common Core standards and think, ‘well of course I do all that in class anyway.’ But when you get down to brass tacks and are shown how to actually unpack a standard, then you begin to realise just how much there is to the process. The thought that my fellow social studies teachers are all doing their own thing in their classrooms, just as I was doing in mine, is now faintly horrifying as opposed kind of liberating, as I previously believed. How can you ensure a high standard of tuition without any standard to aim for? You can’t, really. The actual standard itself is just the tip of the iceberg. This needs to be broken down into its constituent parts – the main ideas or concepts, and the skills that will need to be developed to meet the...