Week 3 Reflection

Are there any strategies that you use to encourage teamwork among your students? What ways are you adopting to instruct students who have varying abilities?

            To encourage teamwork among my students, which I value highly, I have established several “fun Friday” activities which allow the students to bond. The students sit at tables of four which are linked to make tables of eight. I use these tables to establish groups which are consistent for a few weeks. This allows the students to get to know the people at their table and learn how to work with these peers specifically. The large groups of eight become teams for the “fun Friday” activities and work together to earn extra credit. In addition, I encourage students to support one another in their academics. In my senior class the students are doing individual research papers. However, we have set up a system for the students to share their research sources with one another, so that if two students have similar topics, they can benefit from the knowledge of one another.

            One example of my developing abilities to instruct students of varying abilities is also the research paper for my senior class. The students are allowed to choose their topic for the essay. I have encouraged my strong achieving students to branch out in their topics to more difficult research and writing styles. I also provide these students with a different level of feedback for their writing. For my students with special needs or who are lower achieving, I tailor my feedback so as to not overwhelm the students. I focus my attention on aspects of the paper that they must improve to be successful, rather than finding every error with their work. Also, I try to encourage them to write about things they are interested in, yet that they also feel they can be successful with. I have found that simple adjustments like these are essential to making each individual student successful.