Ensuring Learning for All

Our fifth and final belief statement that guides our strategic blueprint really embodies the intent behind the George Evans quote above:

Belief 5: Students have dynamic teachers who utilize various teaching styles and have fun learning together.  Staff serves as an advocate for ALL children.  

Our Pleasantdale teachers strive to provide our students with regular opportunities to engage in a variety of learning activities while doing what is best for each individual learner. As a staff, we are taking the time to dig deeper into differentiation. At our staff meeting this afternoon, Pleasantdale Middle School teachers met as content areas to discuss what differentiation is and is not, a conversation started by reading this post. The teachers also had collaborative conversations about what they are already doing in their classrooms to differentiate the task, process, and product for their learners. They then had time to start digging into some of the data reports generated from our recent NWEA MAP (Measures of Academic Progress) testing and talk about how this data can be used for differentiation. Flexible groupings based on the intention of tasks, differentiated question sets, and targeted mini-lessons based on student need were just some of the ideas generated.

On our October 11 institute day, Pleasantdale Middle School teachers will dig into differentiation yet again with Dr. Jessica Hockett, author of Differentiation in MIddle and High School: Strategies to Engage All Learners. Our staff is looking forward to another day of learning together as we strive to provide every single learner with the optimal conditions for growth and success!