What do these words mean?
In January of 2008, I couldn't even spell these words, and even now have to mutter my way through them each time I type them, similar to humming Jiminy Cricket's song when I type "encyclopedia" (did you hear me?). Anyway, PHS is changing, along with the rest of Georgia's high schools, to a one-diploma system for this incoming class of 9th graders. That means that we won't put our students in ability groups any more (College Prep and Tech Prep); except for the Honors students, all the students will be in mixed-ability classrooms. Our first reaction to this news was, "How will we ever deal with all these different learning levels in one room?" But now the three of us 9th grade Language Arts teachers (and two Special Ed Inclusion teachers) feel confident that we can effectively teach all our students, because we concentrated on learning and making plans during this semester that just closed.
First, we formed a team of teachers who were interested in moving to the new 9th Grade Academy. All of us are familiar with the 9th grade curriculum and have 25 years of experience, combined. Next, we began to meet on a regular basis during our planning period, to map our curriculum and strategies for success. Then, realizing that we needed a broader understanding of this "new" way of teaching, we asked our assistant principal for a workshop to teach us what "differentiated" means, and she found us an on-line course through Georgia Southern that proved to be very helpful. Additionally, I concentrated on learning all I could about the relevant educational theory through my classes in college, and shared that with my colleagues. I'm attaching my paper here (click on "Files" to the right) so that if you are interested you can see some of the research and theory behind heterogeneous grouping and differentiated instruction.
We know that this coming school year will bring many challenges and opportunities for our professional growth. For one thing, we want to change this teacher page into a place where our students can see what all three of us are doing, what their assignments are, and later, with their permission, feature some of their own work. We hope to allow the students to make many of their own choices about projects and other learning, similar to what I offer in Honors 9: choose 4 of 6 books for Summer Reading. Most importantly, we want to challenge each student to reach his or her full potential in this important first year of high school. It will certainly be an adventure in learning, and a journey we look forward to.
