portfolio // principle 2 | reflection 1

“Candidates possess the necessary professional knowledge to support and enhance student development and learning, including meeting student needs across physical, social, psychological, and intellectual contexts. Candidates incorporate a variety of strategies, such as technology, to enhance student learning.”

// interpret
In short, this principle is all about differentiated learning.  Part of my job as a knowledgeable, effective teacher is to make sure I am actively engaging my students as much as possible.  Cultivating and maintaining this engagement means varying classroom activities to suit the disparate learning styles, attention spans, and ability levels of my students.

Technological resources offer a host of opportunities for differentiation.  A single computer with internet access can open a classroom to—quite literally—a world of possibilities.  The artifacts accompanying this reflection speak to the use of technology in differentiating instruction.

// select
To demonstrate my use of technology to create differentiated lessons, I have included two computer screenshots from the websites of National Public Radio (www.npr.org) and Time Magazine (www.time.com).  Specifically, the screenshots represent the following online resources:

·         “Study: Drug Can Erase Fearful Memories” (http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=100754665&sc=emaf ) [P2.R1.A1].
This four-minute audio clip from the NPR program All Things Considered talks about a possible new use for ordinary blood pressure medication: blocking the retention of harmful memories.  The piece goes on to say that one of the potential applications of the drug could be in persons suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).
·         “Talismans” (http://www.time.com/time/photoessays/2006/talismans_multimedia/) [P2.R1.A2].
This annotated photoessay, referenced in a November 2006 article titled “The Things They Carry,” documents fifteen men currently serving in Iraq.  Each soldier is pictured holding personal items of some significance that they carry in the field.

// describe
Both of the selected artifacts were used at different times during a five-week short story unit in an honors English I class.  Among the stories we read during the unit were “A Perfect Day for Bananafish” by J. D. Salinger and “The Things They Carried” by Tim O’Brien. 

Both stories deal with poignant, significant topics.  The protagonist of “A Perfect Day for Bananafish,” Seymour Glass, commits suicide in the story’s final paragraph, presumably because he suffers from PTSD related to his participation in World War II.  “The Things They Carried” offers a no less gripping account of the horrors of war, this time through the events (and items) surrounding a company of young men in Vietnam.  War, death, and the trappings of each are centermost in both stories, and I felt that my students might reach a better understanding of these themes if they could approach them with additional outside information.

I used the NPR clip with “A Perfect Day for Bananafish” as part of what I termed an “audio journal.”  I explained to students that, while driving home the night before, I had heard a short piece on the radio that I thought related well to our work in class.  I asked them to listen to the clip (which I had already found online and pulled up on the classroom computer), then respond to the following questions in their journals:

·         Do you think this treatment would be valuable or beneficial, either to PTSD sufferers in general or Seymour specifically?  Why or why not?
·         In your opinion, is this an ethical treatment?  Why or why not?

After giving the students time to write, I asked them to share their responses with their seat neighbor.  We then discussed the responses together as a class.

I used the “Talismans” photoessay in conjunction with “The Things They Carried.”  First, I asked the class as a whole to list as many of the story’s numerous characters as they could remember.   I listed these names on the board, then passed out a handout with my own list of major characters.  This handout provided a brief description of each character (no longer than a single phrase), as well as a quote or two for each character detailing what things each one carried.

I then gave students some brief background on the photoessay, namely that it was from an issue of Time magazine and documented fifteen modern soldiers in a manner similar to O’Brien’s story.  I asked students to carefully view each photo, then discuss in groups of four which character from the story seemed to best align with the solider in the picture.  I turned off the annotations in the online presentation so that students had to identify what each soldier was carrying and consider what personal significance each item might have.  After an individual photo, I would ask each group to tell the rest of the class which character they chose from the story and, most importantly, why they made that choice.

// analyze
I feel my use of these online resources evidences my understanding of this principle for two reasons.  First, it shows my willingness to make technological resources an integral part of my lessons in order to enhance student learning.  Both the audio clip and photoessay provided modern context related to each short story, and enriched students’ understanding of the stories as a result.  In listening to the radio segment and viewing the photographs, students developed an understanding that these stories related to the larger world outside their English class.  Without technological resources, it would have been far more difficult to make this connection possible.

Second, the nature of the two resources and their use in class shows an understanding of differentiated instruction.  These resources communicate with their audience (my students, in this case) in different ways—one aural, one visual—and are thus able to engage the diverse ways in which students process information. 

In addition, the way I used each resource within its respective lesson further exemplifies differentiation.  With the audio clip, students first reflected in writing on their own reactions to the piece and its connections to the story, then verbally shared those reflections at length with others.  With the photoessay, students first engaged in discussion and decision-making within a group, then briefly shared their thoughts with the class as a whole.  Each lesson, then, used different social setups (e.g. solo work and pair sharing versus small group work) as well as different styles of communication (written and verbal) to engage students and enhance their classroom experience.

// appraise
In both cases, I feel the use of technology was warranted and beneficial.  Rather than being somewhat superficial (as a PowerPoint presentation accompanying a lecture might be), the online resources served as key parts of each lesson, providing new and interesting content that students then connected to the literature they had read. 

My informal observations during each lesson also support the conclusion that my attempt at differentiated learning was successful.  Class discussion after the NPR clip was active and insightful, particularly in response to the question of ethics.  While viewing and discussing the photoessay, students reached unique conclusions that they debated quite emphatically.  Overall, students seemed to be highly engaged during both lessons.

// transform
I would change little, if anything, regarding the use of the online resources.  Each one offered valuable contributions to their respective story, and students seemed to respond well to the different perspectives technology allowed.  Of course, with different technological resources, I would have to adjust accordingly; without an LCD projector, for instance, I might have to prepare transparencies of each photo.  In an effort to remain relevant, I might also re-evaluate these resources further in the future and try to find more recent ones that can similarly enhance my lessons.

As it stands, the one addition to these lessons that might be useful is a more formal survey on the effectiveness differentiation.  I currently have only my own judgment to rely on—judgment that cannot be perfectly aware or accurate at all times.  By taking a minute to verbally ask the students “Did you all find this enjoyable or helpful,” or even to ask for a brief (one to two sentence) written response, I could more accurately assess how well my attempts at differentiation are enhancing my classroom.