Each Student Is Their Own Creature: Unit Planning For All Students
When we came into class on Tuesday and immediately received a beautifully illustrated card with a mermaid on it, I wasn't quite sure what we were in for that day.
Each table received a card with some sort of person on it— a mermaid, a superhero, a circus trapeze artist, etcetera— and an assignment: create an object that would be helpful to this particular person. On the back of each card, a story told in pictures to illustrate the life and personality of the person on the front of the card.
We quickly worked together to craft an underwater microphone/cellphone, and then promptly received three more cards, with the instruction to not flip over the card. Two mermaids of different social classes, a superhero, and a circus trapeze artist were our four "students" in this simulation. We were asked to create a GRASPS (Goal, Role, Audience, Situation, Product, and Standards) assignment for each of these four students, taking into account their different situations and accommodations.
From this assignment, the presentation may be somewhat mystical and fantastical, but the lesson is clear in its purpose. Designing an assignment that works for students who are either shy or outgoing, performative or inwardly focused, poor or rich... it teaches us the value of approaching a lesson with the intention of reaching each student where they are, not where we expect or would prefer them to be. It also teaches us this: students don't come into our class with a helpful card that tells us about their social lives, their family lives, and their interests. They come into our class as they are, and it is our responsibility to facilitate a relationship with the student that not only allows us to understand the student as their own type of learner, but to understand the student in a personal way as well. Never has a study shown that students do better when they are treated as numbers, treated the same way as everyone else in their class. All the data shows that students thrive in a classroom that values them, and that gives them positive attention and that understands their strengths and weaknesses. Teaching is a job that can have a tremendous effect on the people (not just 'children', but people!) we encounter in the classroom.
Each table received a card with some sort of person on it— a mermaid, a superhero, a circus trapeze artist, etcetera— and an assignment: create an object that would be helpful to this particular person. On the back of each card, a story told in pictures to illustrate the life and personality of the person on the front of the card.
We quickly worked together to craft an underwater microphone/cellphone, and then promptly received three more cards, with the instruction to not flip over the card. Two mermaids of different social classes, a superhero, and a circus trapeze artist were our four "students" in this simulation. We were asked to create a GRASPS (Goal, Role, Audience, Situation, Product, and Standards) assignment for each of these four students, taking into account their different situations and accommodations.
From this assignment, the presentation may be somewhat mystical and fantastical, but the lesson is clear in its purpose. Designing an assignment that works for students who are either shy or outgoing, performative or inwardly focused, poor or rich... it teaches us the value of approaching a lesson with the intention of reaching each student where they are, not where we expect or would prefer them to be. It also teaches us this: students don't come into our class with a helpful card that tells us about their social lives, their family lives, and their interests. They come into our class as they are, and it is our responsibility to facilitate a relationship with the student that not only allows us to understand the student as their own type of learner, but to understand the student in a personal way as well. Never has a study shown that students do better when they are treated as numbers, treated the same way as everyone else in their class. All the data shows that students thrive in a classroom that values them, and that gives them positive attention and that understands their strengths and weaknesses. Teaching is a job that can have a tremendous effect on the people (not just 'children', but people!) we encounter in the classroom.
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