The article I read was “Problem Solving and At Risk Students” by Roberts. The teacher explains how difficult it was moving to an urban school where the students were angry and underprivileged. Her teaching methods just didn’t seem to work. One thing this teacher did was to activities that integrated team building. This article discusses that children “think as a byproduct of the activities, assignments, and so on we ask them to do.” She decided that she needed to create activities that allowed the students to feel successful so they do not become angry with failure and give up. She also started by using problems that had only one answer so students didn’t feel like they were taking a risk to make a claim. Roberts learned to model many ways of solving problems to reach the wide variety of student thinking. With her guidance, students became more accepting of the different solutions for one problem. She also build up student confidence because she gave rubrics in class and had students do reflections of their work to show progress, even though their report cards may not have been the reflection of the progress they were indeed making. Her strategy here was student centered assessments such as dialogue journals between her and the students. All of these strategies helped to foster positive thinking from students about mathematics and they serve as great practical suggestions for classrooms with at risk students.
A concern that I have after reading this article is that if I have at risk students I won’t have the answers about what to do to help them. Children are so diverse in their needs that I worry I may not find a way to connect with and help at risk students. I think what I can take from this article is to never give up trying and to always use my resources to seek help with at risk students.
I feel that it can be really hard to teach children who are at risk. It is also a concern of mine about having the answers to how to help them. They can take a lot of your energy and patience, but we need to remember that it is important to support them in their needs (who knows what they go to at home...it could be good or it could be bad).
ReplyDeleteThank you for your good wrap-up of the article. I really like the idea that report cards not always showing the progess a child is making. This is true in a lot of situations and therefore, as teachers, it is important to remember that we need to make comments and keep in touch with children and families thoughout the year (not just when it is time for conferences or report cards).