Early Childhood Education - New Teacher Guide (Group Assignment)

Early Childhood Education New Teacher Guide

Instructing Students with Varying Abilities

How can the teacher determine the varying abilities of each student?

In any classroom there are different types of learners with varying abilities. Therefore it becomes essential for teachers to assess the varying needs of each student so that instruction can be planned to address every student’s needs. These specific abilities and the requirements of each student can be done through assessments. In many places around the world, such as Germany, United States, South Korea, New Zealand, Early Childhood assessments are mandatory in education programs.

These assessments are conducted through:

1. Observations - This can be done by giving students tasks and allowing them to complete it with minimal or no intrusion. These are a part of informal assessments such as Formative Assessments. During this process a teacher observes all aspects of development, including intellectual, linguistic, social-emotional, and physical development. These observations need to be done on a regular basis.

2. Portfolios - These are a well organized collection of a student’s work. These form a part of formal assessments and these are essential when it comes to partnering with parents and experts to help a student with special needs. These assessments also help a teacher determine how a child has grown in his/her abilities and change in interests, allowing the teacher to plan instruction accordingly. A student’s learning ability is not reflected through one activity therefore a collection of assignments helps reflect abilities more accurately.

3. Standardized Tests - These are tests created to fit a set of testing standards. These tests are administered and scored in a standard manner and are often used to assess if students are placed at the right group level and have the performance abilities adequate to meet the requirements of that level.

An important element of assessment is for a teacher to understand:

1. Why am I carrying out these assessments?

2. Am I documenting the assessments in photos, documents and recording for later reflection?

3. Am I enhancing the student's self confidence and self belief through my assessment?

4. Are my assessments holistic and do they give the student the opportunity to prove his/her overall skills and all round development?

How can the teacher plan to maximize instruction for all students in a whole group setting?

Plan your lessons around the whole group class setting

• Morning meeting

• Calendar math

• Large group literacy

• Math circle

• Phonological Awareness

Be strategic when calling on students.

• Take the time to have students seated where they can have a good view of the lesson, you, and the board. Focus on all the students and then go over the lesson in small groups for more student support.

• Take this opportunity to call on students that may be a little shy. This is their time to shine.

• Teaching in whole group teaching- teach in a fishbowl

• Sometimes you can increase the involvement of particular students even though you are working with the whole class.

• The teacher leads the discussion with her questions and challenges, and the students in the inner circle answer and talk about the ideas.

• The students on the outside observe, participate in the discussion if the inner group is stuck, and perhaps write answers to the same questions.

Maximize student responses

• There are many better schemes for this that allow more student thinking and response, such as think-pair-share. Here the teacher asks a question but has the kids talking it over with each other before answering (the smallest configuration for this can be pairs, but the pairs can then talk to other pairs, and other schemes make sense as well). This increases the degree to which everyone thinks about the question and tries to figure out an answer.

• Multiple-response card: With simple yes-no tasks, thumbs up-thumbs down may be sufficient.

• Let’s Talk: Start off the whole group discussing an open-ended question. Use this strategy to engage everyone within the class in an interactive activity.

How can the teacher plan to maximize instruction for all students in a small group setting?

• While grouping students into small groups it is important for teachers to use assessment data to assess the students' learning which helps for planning instructions and grouping students based on their skills and needs.

• Students need to be grouped between three to six students by group.

• Use engaging and interesting activities to help students learn while they are engaged.

• Provide appropriate materials and tools to help students learn and improve skills.

• Concrete objects and manipulatives are very beneficial for ECE students.

• Plan for a short period of time for each activity as the attention span is very short for the younger students.

• Plan three to four small activities while students rotate and participate in all the class activities.

• Teachers should direct at least one activity based on the needs of the students .

• Teachers also can supervise and move around the small group activities that are planned to be done independently to check on students' performance.

• Make sure that your small group activities are far from noisy areas such as block or house corners, using tables and carpet can be very effective for students to work.

• Teachers can be able to make observations and extend students' learning based on their performance while visiting one small group at the time.

• Teachers can make mini lessons with a small group of students which can be more effective than the whole class.

• Planning small groups help to group students by needs and abilities as the teacher can plan challenging tasks for advanced students and more practice tasks for the low abilities students. Small group activities can definitely help to meet the needs of individual students in class.

• Plan activities for small groups of students where they can take ownership of their learning and the teacher can just facilitate or give directions for the activity planned.

• The activities should be meaningful in terms of reinforcing the concept study and need to be changed based on the concept study.

• All material should be organized and supplies easily accessible to students.

• The preparation time should be allocated. Well designed small group instruction can make a significant difference for each student.

When would you utilize heterogeneous grouping?

• Grouping students with high abilities with low abilities so the advanced students can help the others but also create great interactions. It can also help teachers working with one small group at same time as the others are working cooperatively.

• Grouping ELL students with English speakers, so they can be engaged in discussing while working and can help ELL with language.

• Grouping mixed age can also make older students help and guide the younger students during task time.

• The grouping can also help the students that mastered the concept to teach others.

• It can help active learners and hard workers to motivate the ones who do not want to participate in the activities.

When would you utilize homogeneous grouping?

• During Guided Reading. It is important to group students with similar reading abilities into the same groups so that they can read at the same pace, respond at a similar rate to comprehension questions, and participate equally in discussions. Heterogeneous groups should be avoided for Guided Reading groups as higher ability students will read at a much faster pace, respond to questions faster, will not be challenged enough, and will quickly become bored and disengaged. Lower ability students may find the texts too advanced, become self-conscious of their own ability, and may not participate as much as they would in a homogeneous group.

• During small group work for maths. Working in groups based on ability in maths allows the teacher to differentiate appropriately for the specific needs of the learning groups. Teachers can ensure that students with a high ability are appropriately challenged in their fluency, problem-solving and reasoning, and that they are working towards mastery. Students in lower ability groups will require more guidance and time, and they can work all together in their small group with a teacher towards solving problems as a team. Students in this group will focus more on fluency questions with the goal of eventually working towards problem solving and reasoning.

• During whole-class phonics lessons. While most students can sit on the carpet during phonics lessons learning about different sounds (i.e. /ar/ in the words car, far, part, bark, lard, etc.), high-ability students can sit together at a table to the side doing differentiated work that still follows the main focus of the lesson. For example, while students on the carpet focus on identifying the sounds in the words and writing them, high-ability students can think of sentences including the words to write on paper or on a whiteboard. Students working at a lower-ability can sit together with a teaching assistant following the lesson while receiving extra support in writing the words.