Saw Some Good Things Today!

In earth science, there is a lot of diversity on student levels. The teacher provides for differentiation by giving the students work to be submitting individually but done in groups; students are told explicitly to work together. The lecture PowerPoints and assignments are on the class website, and then students are encouraged to research further information online. The textbook is used by some students as an extra resource, but the Internet is considered equally valid. This is good for students who learn better by pictures and diagrams (who are encouraged to go to Google Images) and who would find a hard time reading through the textbook. Everyone goes at their own pace; if students finish one assignment early, they can go to the next one, but students are given more time to complete their work if they need it. 

Speaking of technology, students are also making a brochure and preparing a presentation on Infogr.am. The presentations look so sharp, and I love how interactive the process is of making them. It's fantastic and absolutely something I am going to use in my survey class this summer. I have just been having my students make brochures the old-fashioned way, and they kind of made fun of me (or they told me that their children made fun of the assignments). Now I know why: construction paper brochures are a thing of the past. 

Finally, speaking of talented and gifted students, I was reminded of my experiences teaching the gifted Kindergarten class in Korea. Those kids were terrific academically, and their parents, my cooperating teachers, and I had to scramble to make sure the children were pushed reasonably close to their limits. On the other hand, a couple of the students used their intelligence to read people's intentions and try to control their behavior (they were still Kindergartners). 

One student, M., was only six years old Confucian and had parents who were really uninvolved with his hygiene, school performances, parent-teacher conferences, etc. The other children were able to make him cry all the time (I think M. was also used to crying as a coping mechanism for not getting a ton of attention). Another student, D., never stopped trying to manipulate me. I would catch him all the time saying things that he knew adults normally thought was cute coming out of a child's mouth, and he would constantly test me. 

I guess my point is that all children are still kids. We can expect some behavioral differences as a secondary effect of their differing abilities, but it's important to remember that they are all still children. If students are too advanced for the work we're giving them, they will get bored and cause mischief; if students are totally clueless about what's going on in the class, they'll get bored and cause mischief; if students are in the middle but run out of work to do because the teacher planned insufficiently, the children will cause mischief.