A parent recently told me her son’s teacher refused to let him submit a project in a different format that was more interesting to him, because “she doesn’t teach that way”. The high schooler asked if he could do the same project to achieve the same lesson objective, but through a creative writing instead, since this is where his interest lies. The student’s mother contacted the teacher who confirmed her son’s story – she would NOT consider any other project format for any of her lessons.

So the mother contacted the school guidance counselor who stood behind the teacher. He advised that while differentiating lesson approaches to accomodate different student learning styles was a teaching method, this particular teacher didn’t use that technique, and that’s just the way it was.

Some people may say students need to learn how to follow directions, and that’s what this teacher is trying to achieve. But when a student is at the high school level, if they don’t know how to follow simple directions they’re going to be in for a rude awakening come graduation. High school should be a time to really identify your interests, and skills and it’s a teachers job to encourage that in students.

A study was recently published by an Indiana University Professor who spent the last 14 or so years studying common links between master teachers. Below is an excerpt from that book – Talent Abounds: Profiles of Master Teachers and Peak Performers, noting that one Master Teacher trait IS differentiating lessons:

“…[These teachers] are able to diagnose where that individual is and then what set of stimuli or tasks are needed to raise the student to the next higher level of performance, or knowledge, or insight.” As a result, these teachers would personalize the instruction for their students. All of the master teachers also had a curiosity that allowed them to develop new domain knowledge and improved ways of teaching.”

Understandably, some teachers face more difficulties than others in achieving this level of instruction because of class size, or the general level of student cooperation within the classroom. The more a teacher needs to deal with certain behavioral distractions during classtime, the less
time will be dedicated to productive learning. This post is directed at the smaller teacher-student ratio classrooms with community support and adequate funding, as in the case of the teacher from this post.

Are your school’s teachers catering to student interests and skills?

For more information on the book goto: http://newsinfo.iu.edu/news/page/normal/9885.html