Jane Gladstone was student teaching in a sixth-grade classroom. She had been there for several weeks, helping with activities and occasionally leading specific activities that she had devised herself. She liked the students and felt that she had been developing good relationships with them. One morning Ms Wilson, her supervising teacher, had to leave unexpectedly. “Something’s come up, Jane, and the principal needs me to come to a meeting right away. It could be awhile before I’m back, so you’ll need to take care of things. But you know the routines now, don’t you?”

Jane was surprised and a bit worried, but also excited by the challenge. She did indeed know the routines, so she smiled cheerfully as Ms Wilson went out the door. “OK, everyone,” she said. “We’ll start with language arts. Turn to where we left off yesterday, page 46.”

“But Ms Gladstone,” said Paul, “We actually left off on page 32.”

“No, dummy!” chimed in Katherine, “You were absent yesterday, and the day before we had an assembly. Remember?” Suddenly three or four students were discussing where in fact the class had left off in the book, and therefore where Jane ought to begin. Jane was wondering that herself. “Page 46!” she said firmly—actually more firmly than she had intended. But the students agreed, and the lesson began. The lesson turned out to be a short story about an athlete who trained hard as a runner for a local competition. Students took turns reading selections from the story, and in this way got about half way through it. Then Joe raised his hand.

“Ms Gladstone,” he asked. “Do you think athletes should be arrested for taking steroids?” Jane was taken off guard by this. She had been determined to finish the lesson smoothly. All she could think to say was, “Well I don’t know. That’s a hard question.”

“My dad says they should be arrested, and that no one should have any doubts about that.”

In seconds the language arts lesson was forgotten and students were arguing about whether athletes should take drugs. For the moment Jane was on the sidelines.

“My uncle took steroids at university,” said Frank, “and it never hurt him.”

“Gross!” called out Jill from across the room. “I suppose you take them too, then?”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” asked Frank, obviously annoyed.

“She’s saying your too fat, Frank,” said Joe. “That’s what steroids do, you know.”

Jane was getting worried. How could she get the discussion back on track? Students were just getting more worked up.

“I’ve never taken any drugs!”

“Not real drugs—steroids—you weren’t listening.”

“I bet you have, though…”

On it went, with some students getting annoyed and others clearly tuning out. What if Ms Wilson came back now?

“BE QUIET!” Jane shouted, surprised at hearing herself be so loud. Everyone got still instantly, stunned and surprised. But not for long.

“Be quiet!” someone mimicked softly from the back of the room. A few snickers. Then someone else said it, with sarcasm dripping from the words. “Be quiet!” Jane glowered at the class, wondering what to do next.

The following are excerpts from two parts of the Individual Educational Plan (IEP) for a fourth-grade student named Joey who has an intellectual disability. The excerpts list various performance objectives and actions, but only some of these are complete. For others—marked with question marks (??)—relevant information or plans have been deliberately left blank. Read the excerpts and then respond to the questions that follow:

Part 1: domain—communication

Part 2: domain—academic/cognitive

Rosemary had planned a lesson for her second grade class about personal and social management, but she was not satisfied with it. She had taken the general goal directly from the state’s official curriculum guide for health education: “Students will identify positive communication skills,” it said. But the guide said nothing about how to translate this goal into practice.

She was thinking that she would use puppets to demonstrate how to communicate in positive ways. The puppets would engage in dialogue, during which they would nod their heads appropriately, focus on the speaker, not interrupt, and keep still while listening. Maybe she would include a few communication mistakes as well—times when a puppet might interrupt in appropriately, for example—and challenge students to identify those moments.

Her plan seemed fine as far as it went, but she felt unsure about two things. One concern was how to make sure that students got the point of the activity, and did not regard it simply as entertainment. How should she introduce the activity? What should she say about it, either beforehand, during, or afterwards? What exactly should she tell students she is expecting from them?

The other concern was with the very format of the activity. She did not want students just to know about good communication skills; she wanted them to use them as well. The puppets did not seem to help with this latter purpose. How, she wondered, could she get students to take responsibility for practicing good communication? Was there a way to modify or extend the puppet activity that would do this? Or perhaps additional activities that students could do?

Think of the range of instructional strategies available to Rosemary. Then answer each of the following questions.

Mr Cullen teaches fifth grade at an urban elementary school, where one of the normal curriculum topics is about “where people live.” The general goal of the unit, as expressed in the curriculum framework document from the State Department of Education, is for students “to understand the nature and purposes of houses and how they are affected by the circumstances of their society.”

To get started in planning the unit, Mr Cullen brainstormed the conceptual web of ideas and topics shown below as Figure 1. He also introduced students to making conceptual webs about houses, one of which is shown below as Figure 2. Part way through the unit, in addition, he took the class on a simple field trip to look at the houses in the residential neighborhood near the school. His notes about that field trip are shown as Exhibit 1.

Figure 1: Mr Cullen’s conceptual map about houses

Figure 2: Jill’s conceptual map about houses

Scene 1: Barbara Fuller makes plans

It is late August.

Barbara Fuller, a third grade teacher, peers about her classroom, wondering how she will organize her program for the coming year. She wants to try some sort of collaborative group work because she has heard good things about it—especially that it gets students talking to each other in ways that are productive rather than mere chit-chat. Ms Fuller is thinking of trying a group project for social studies that she is calling “How many people does it take to raise a child?” Students are supposed to explore how people outside the family contribute to the welfare of infants and children. If they do collaborate successfully, then students can pool their research, share ideas and interpretations, and present their results to class more effectively.

Ms Fuller has read some very specific literature about how to get started with collaborative group work. One book recommends, for example, that she assign the members of each group rather than letting students select their own groups; this procedure is supposed to avoid cliques and ensure that everyone is included. But it also means that some group mates may not be each other’s first choice. Ms Fuller considers this trade-off carefully, and finally decides to go ahead and assign the group members herself. To minimize possible complaints, she also decides to give each group an immediate task: choose a leader as well as a name for the group.

Scene 2: Collaborate groups that don’t collaborate

Two weeks into the term, Ms Fuller begins the collaborative project about community helpers. She describes the purposes and advantages of group work: students can help each other, cover more reading material, and enjoy each other’s company. They will also be challenged to explain what they learn to each other and to justify to each other their ideas for the final report and presentation. Once the work begins, she begins noticing a variety of reactions from groups and the individuals within them. In one group (Ms Fuller dubs it “Group 1”), for example, Tom complains to her that he is the only boy in the group. “You’ll be fine,” she says to Tom. “If you look around, you’ll see that most people are with other people they don’t know terribly well.” Tom looks uncomfortable with her response, but continues working.

In Group 2, Jasmine takes over almost immediately; everyone seems to agree that she should have this job. Unfortunately Jasmine is not pleased to be in charge: she issues orders reluctantly (“Kyla, you look up about nurses”), to which her group happily agree.

In Group 3, Ken and Serge confer about the project, but ignore the girls in the group. The girls soon are chatting about activities outside school, doodling in their notebooks, and apparently daydreaming.

In Group 4, Ms Fuller can hear voices periodically rising in anger. She can’t make out who is saying what, but it seems to involve Jennifer, Sean, and possibly Lavar. The other two group members are sitting quietly, simply observing the argument and presumably waiting for it to be over.

When Ms Scanton taught second grade, she kept a journal about her experiences. Sometimes she simply recorded interesting facts or information individuals, but other times she commented and reflected on individuals at more length. Here are three of her journal entries.

P.S. If you are interested, the book about invented spellings that Ms Scanton mentioned in Document #3 is listed in the bibliography.