Turning Points 2000 Chapter 4

Chapter 4 of Turning Points 2000 explains the process of designing instruction to better meet the needs of diverse groups of students. The chapter begins by laying out instruction’s key connections. Overall, instruction must connect to the curriculum, to the assessments that you will give students to evaluate their progress, and to the students themselves. A quote on page 65 concerning how to connect instruction to your students really jumped out at me. The quote reads, “teachers must also become students of their students”. I think this quote really explains how well teachers need to know their students in order to make their instruction meaningful and engaging. The chapter goes on to discuss a few methods of designing instruction. I am familiar with WHERE, but the one that I seemed to be most familiar with was differentiated instruction. Differentiated instruction is really focused around the students, and how the teacher can cater to all students’ interests and needs. It made me pretty happy to read this section and see how much of this I was already doing in the classroom with students. However, one thing that stood out to me as something I would like to incorporate is the concept of having an anchor activity. I like the idea of having some free time to work with students independently that need extra help, without restricting those who don’t need as much assistance. Another thing that I noticed that came up a lot in this chapter was the idea of tracking. I liked that they stressed throughout the chapter that grouping strategies are okay as long as it does not mean the students stays there forever. Grouping must be fluid as students improve, and as the author says on page 91, “initial ability need not destine a student to permanent placement".