PHILOSOPHY OF EDUCATION
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When teaching, I always remember my one important philosophy, CHILDREN LEARN IN MANY DIFFERENT WAYS.
As a teacher, I have to be able to give my best to my students. I always have many questions about how to transfer knowledge to my students and how to prepare my students to be qualified people in the future. In finding out the answers I usually read books and find some information in the Internet. Sometimes I also have a discussion with my colleagues. But most of the time I find the answers from my own experiences. After several years of teaching different students in different grades, I finally know that children learn in different ways, have different styles, and build on very different backgrounds of experience, and I cannot give the same ‘treatment’ to every student.
As a teacher, I have to be able to give my best to my students. I always have many questions about how to transfer knowledge to my students and how to prepare my students to be qualified people in the future. In finding out the answers I usually read books and find some information in the Internet. Sometimes I also have a discussion with my colleagues. But most of the time I find the answers from my own experiences. After several years of teaching different students in different grades, I finally know that children learn in different ways, have different styles, and build on very different backgrounds of experience, and I cannot give the same ‘treatment’ to every student.
Differentiation in the Classroom
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I am teaching in a classroom that contains groups of children with a wide range of individual differences. These differences include various physical, perceptual and mental disabilities, as well as giftedness in children who need academic challenges of various kinds or vice versa. There are also children who are different in age, children with different ethnic origins and those who speak English as a mother tongue. All these children require provision, which is responsive to their special individual needs within the regular classroom.
It is also being increasingly recognized that children have a much wider range of capabilities than they have usually shown in the regular classroom. In order to show these capabilities, however, they need learning environments, which are responsive to the many individual differences, which influence learning. Some children, for example, have a special interest in, and early mastery of, body systems. Others understand best through much and varied hands-on manipulative experience.
From this understanding, I usually change the classroom setting several times in a year so students can have new situation and will not get bored easily. Beside that, I also like to create small activity corners in my classroom. There are reading corner, math corner, IT corner, and unfinished work corner. These corners can help me when there are early finishers.
When teaching in my classroom, I always try to use differentiated instructions, which are instructions in a variety of ways to meet the needs of a variety of my students. Usually a differentiated classroom is proactive. After teaching for several years, I realize that individual students have different needs. Because of this, I have been trying to plan a variety of methods to get students to express learning. According to Tomlinsen (2001), where a traditional lesson changes reactively when learning is not occurring as planned, a differentiated lesson is proactively planned so that individual needs are addressed before the lesson occurs.
I also conclude that differentiated instruction is more qualitative than quantitative. Differentiated instruction is not about the amount of work given to students, but rather putting students in a learning environment in which students can achieve learning. For example, a student who has already mastered a concept in math should not be given more problems, but should stop practicing that skill and move on to a subsequent skill. In addition, giving more problems to a student who is struggling fewer problems is less effective. This student may need more assistance or an alternative way to express knowledge.
Tomlinsen also said that during instruction, teachers are conscious of three elements, content (what students learn), process (how students make sense of content), and product (how students demonstrate what they have learned). When using the differentiated approach in the classroom, teachers can offer different approaches in what students learn, how they learn it, and how they demonstrate what they have learned.
However, there are still people who believe that differentiation is useless because it is too abstract and very difficult to do the assessment. Usually these people are those who like to have traditional teaching styles, such as: teachers who like to use only text book and when explaining the students just sit and listen, and teachers who like to have a two-hour written examination at the end of the learning. By having that kind of test, the students’ assessment is much easier to collect.
A good teacher should really be able to do differentiation in their classroom since the school believes that every child is special. The school’s previous coordinating principal, Helen Morschel said that differentiated instruction is student centered. A differentiated classroom is one that allows the student to think for his or herself. The teacher does not tell the students everything but rather allows the student to discover concepts independently growing at his or her pace. Lessons are designed to engage growth in all students. These statements are supported with the IB program, which we are using now.
With two teachers in a classroom differentiation is even easier to do. When one teacher is teaching, the other teacher can cater the other students who have difficulties. When there is a student who really need to be given different expectation, the classroom teacher just simply pull the student out of his/her group, re-explain in a simpler way by maybe using simpler terminologies and give him/her other kind of work, which still has the same outcomes. If necessary, we will lower the standard of the outcomes for certain students since they really need to be differentiated.
It is also being increasingly recognized that children have a much wider range of capabilities than they have usually shown in the regular classroom. In order to show these capabilities, however, they need learning environments, which are responsive to the many individual differences, which influence learning. Some children, for example, have a special interest in, and early mastery of, body systems. Others understand best through much and varied hands-on manipulative experience.
From this understanding, I usually change the classroom setting several times in a year so students can have new situation and will not get bored easily. Beside that, I also like to create small activity corners in my classroom. There are reading corner, math corner, IT corner, and unfinished work corner. These corners can help me when there are early finishers.
When teaching in my classroom, I always try to use differentiated instructions, which are instructions in a variety of ways to meet the needs of a variety of my students. Usually a differentiated classroom is proactive. After teaching for several years, I realize that individual students have different needs. Because of this, I have been trying to plan a variety of methods to get students to express learning. According to Tomlinsen (2001), where a traditional lesson changes reactively when learning is not occurring as planned, a differentiated lesson is proactively planned so that individual needs are addressed before the lesson occurs.
I also conclude that differentiated instruction is more qualitative than quantitative. Differentiated instruction is not about the amount of work given to students, but rather putting students in a learning environment in which students can achieve learning. For example, a student who has already mastered a concept in math should not be given more problems, but should stop practicing that skill and move on to a subsequent skill. In addition, giving more problems to a student who is struggling fewer problems is less effective. This student may need more assistance or an alternative way to express knowledge.
Tomlinsen also said that during instruction, teachers are conscious of three elements, content (what students learn), process (how students make sense of content), and product (how students demonstrate what they have learned). When using the differentiated approach in the classroom, teachers can offer different approaches in what students learn, how they learn it, and how they demonstrate what they have learned.
However, there are still people who believe that differentiation is useless because it is too abstract and very difficult to do the assessment. Usually these people are those who like to have traditional teaching styles, such as: teachers who like to use only text book and when explaining the students just sit and listen, and teachers who like to have a two-hour written examination at the end of the learning. By having that kind of test, the students’ assessment is much easier to collect.
A good teacher should really be able to do differentiation in their classroom since the school believes that every child is special. The school’s previous coordinating principal, Helen Morschel said that differentiated instruction is student centered. A differentiated classroom is one that allows the student to think for his or herself. The teacher does not tell the students everything but rather allows the student to discover concepts independently growing at his or her pace. Lessons are designed to engage growth in all students. These statements are supported with the IB program, which we are using now.
With two teachers in a classroom differentiation is even easier to do. When one teacher is teaching, the other teacher can cater the other students who have difficulties. When there is a student who really need to be given different expectation, the classroom teacher just simply pull the student out of his/her group, re-explain in a simpler way by maybe using simpler terminologies and give him/her other kind of work, which still has the same outcomes. If necessary, we will lower the standard of the outcomes for certain students since they really need to be differentiated.
The Multiple Intelligences
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Once when I was a student, Math was not my strength at all, and my teachers, friends, and parents judged me as a not clever student. I was so stressed and depressed for several years until I find my true strengths, and then feel comfortable and confident with them. I was so relieved that I could reveal my strengths. Some times later I found out that not everyone could discover his/her strengths without any help.
Thanks to Howard Gardner, who formulated a list of seven intelligences. His listing was provisional. The first two are ones that have been typically valued in schools; the next three are usually associated with the arts; and the final two are what Howard Gardner called 'personal intelligences' (Gardner 1999: 41-43).
They are Linguistic intelligence, which involves sensitivity to spoken and written language, the ability to learn languages, and the capacity to use language to accomplish certain goals, Logical-mathematical intelligence, which consists of the capacity to analyze problems logically, carry out mathematical operations, and investigate issues scientifically, Musical intelligence, which involves skill in the performance, composition, and appreciation of musical patterns, Bodily-kinesthetic intelligence, which entails the potential of using one's whole body or parts of the body to solve problems, Spatial intelligence, which involves the potential to recognize and use the patterns of wide space and more confined areas, Interpersonal intelligence, which is concerned with the capacity to understand the intentions, motivations and desires of other people, andIntrapersonal intelligence, which entails the capacity to understand oneself, to appreciate one's feelings, fears and motivations.
In addition, after a while I found out that a student might have strengths in more than one multiple intelligences at once, but there must be one that shows the highest score. It means that that student is able to do things well based on the multiple intelligences but he/she will show a very brilliant result in doing one particular thing. For example: a student can make a nice drawing, can learn different languages easily, and has not difficulties in Math, but she shows a very amazing skills in singing, following the beat of music, and engaging in musical activities very easily. It means that her highest score of multiple intelligences is musical intelligence.
With the knowledge of the multiple intelligences, I can group my students in my classroom into groups based on their intelligence. However, in the daily application I would rather put students who have different intelligences in the same group so that they can support each other. When grouping my students that way, I can see easily how they solve the problems in their group. I can see how they do tutoring with their group members. Another beneficial thing is they can be more independent when working this way.
From the whole working experiences and learning that I have undergone, I finally get something in my mind. Something that can be called a believe, or in this case, a philosophy of education. I believe that children learn in many different ways. I cannot judge a child easily just by looking from one point of view. I must have a bigger picture of the child and then decide what I am going to do to prepare his/her future.
Thanks to Howard Gardner, who formulated a list of seven intelligences. His listing was provisional. The first two are ones that have been typically valued in schools; the next three are usually associated with the arts; and the final two are what Howard Gardner called 'personal intelligences' (Gardner 1999: 41-43).
They are Linguistic intelligence, which involves sensitivity to spoken and written language, the ability to learn languages, and the capacity to use language to accomplish certain goals, Logical-mathematical intelligence, which consists of the capacity to analyze problems logically, carry out mathematical operations, and investigate issues scientifically, Musical intelligence, which involves skill in the performance, composition, and appreciation of musical patterns, Bodily-kinesthetic intelligence, which entails the potential of using one's whole body or parts of the body to solve problems, Spatial intelligence, which involves the potential to recognize and use the patterns of wide space and more confined areas, Interpersonal intelligence, which is concerned with the capacity to understand the intentions, motivations and desires of other people, andIntrapersonal intelligence, which entails the capacity to understand oneself, to appreciate one's feelings, fears and motivations.
In addition, after a while I found out that a student might have strengths in more than one multiple intelligences at once, but there must be one that shows the highest score. It means that that student is able to do things well based on the multiple intelligences but he/she will show a very brilliant result in doing one particular thing. For example: a student can make a nice drawing, can learn different languages easily, and has not difficulties in Math, but she shows a very amazing skills in singing, following the beat of music, and engaging in musical activities very easily. It means that her highest score of multiple intelligences is musical intelligence.
With the knowledge of the multiple intelligences, I can group my students in my classroom into groups based on their intelligence. However, in the daily application I would rather put students who have different intelligences in the same group so that they can support each other. When grouping my students that way, I can see easily how they solve the problems in their group. I can see how they do tutoring with their group members. Another beneficial thing is they can be more independent when working this way.
From the whole working experiences and learning that I have undergone, I finally get something in my mind. Something that can be called a believe, or in this case, a philosophy of education. I believe that children learn in many different ways. I cannot judge a child easily just by looking from one point of view. I must have a bigger picture of the child and then decide what I am going to do to prepare his/her future.