Hi everyone,
I am traveling to India for my Fulbright Teachers For Global Classrooms Fellowship this summer!!
I am super pumped to be going to India!! It is a place I have wanted to go to for a very long time especially since two of my good friends from college studied abroad there for a semester. I still have the fabric they brought back as a gift hanging over my night stand next to my bed. As part of the fellowship I will be meeting with educators and students in schools in New Delhi and Bangalore to exchange ideas and learn about the education system in India. I will be using this blog to take notes of my experience. I’m also hoping to expand my horizons and include video in this blog - might as well make use of the 21st century technology.
This blog will also be used as part of my final capstone project that I will be working on throughout the summer, which will largely be a website with global education resources for teachers here in NYC. I am also focusing on a guiding question, which I have struggled to come up with and there’s a very good chance I *might* change it. I made my guiding question before I knew I would be going to Bangalore and would be hosted by a principal who has taught science for 26 years. So there’s a non-zero chance I might switch it to something more science education related. However, the question I have as of now is.....
Guiding Question: To what extent and how do teachers in India differentiate for struggling and advanced learners?
Now, I’ve done my fair share of differentiation professional development in my seven years of teaching. I have also taken a graduate course on Autism Spectrum Disorders to better serve the population I work with (we have a special ASD program at my school that collaborates with a research team from New York University). So really the last thing on my teacher mind was like “yes let’s do more work on differentiation!!”
HOWEVER, upon meeting with the India cohort from last year, they explained in their field experience the class sizes were so large with limited resources that differentiation happened more on a student to student level. My understanding was that students in the class understood to some degree it was their responsibility to help their peers learn and it was not uncommon for students to be teaching other students to help them along. This sounded pretty magical to me and I’d love to see that in practice, which is how I landed on this guiding question.
As an educator in the USA I work hard to build a culture of respect and openness within a class where all students are valued and to be honest, not every class gets to that point by June. Sometimes they do, but not always. This year I had 3 out of 4 classes accomplish this. One of the best moments this year was a student who relentlessly and unapologetically complained about his group at the beginning of the year (seats get switched every unit). The last unit I put him back with that same group and their whole attitudes towards each other moved from annoyance and frustration to acceptance and humor. It was one of my favorite moments this school year when I realized that same student was cracking jokes and the others would respond lovingly and wittingly. It would be silly to assume that was done by my work alone, as it takes several adults to facilitate growth in a growing teenage boy. Anyone who works at a school knows this. That is the beauty of the classroom.
I am traveling to India for my Fulbright Teachers For Global Classrooms Fellowship this summer!!
 |
| 2018-2019 Fulbright TGC Cohort from our DC Spring Symposium |
I am super pumped to be going to India!! It is a place I have wanted to go to for a very long time especially since two of my good friends from college studied abroad there for a semester. I still have the fabric they brought back as a gift hanging over my night stand next to my bed. As part of the fellowship I will be meeting with educators and students in schools in New Delhi and Bangalore to exchange ideas and learn about the education system in India. I will be using this blog to take notes of my experience. I’m also hoping to expand my horizons and include video in this blog - might as well make use of the 21st century technology.
This blog will also be used as part of my final capstone project that I will be working on throughout the summer, which will largely be a website with global education resources for teachers here in NYC. I am also focusing on a guiding question, which I have struggled to come up with and there’s a very good chance I *might* change it. I made my guiding question before I knew I would be going to Bangalore and would be hosted by a principal who has taught science for 26 years. So there’s a non-zero chance I might switch it to something more science education related. However, the question I have as of now is.....
Guiding Question: To what extent and how do teachers in India differentiate for struggling and advanced learners?
Now, I’ve done my fair share of differentiation professional development in my seven years of teaching. I have also taken a graduate course on Autism Spectrum Disorders to better serve the population I work with (we have a special ASD program at my school that collaborates with a research team from New York University). So really the last thing on my teacher mind was like “yes let’s do more work on differentiation!!”HOWEVER, upon meeting with the India cohort from last year, they explained in their field experience the class sizes were so large with limited resources that differentiation happened more on a student to student level. My understanding was that students in the class understood to some degree it was their responsibility to help their peers learn and it was not uncommon for students to be teaching other students to help them along. This sounded pretty magical to me and I’d love to see that in practice, which is how I landed on this guiding question.
As an educator in the USA I work hard to build a culture of respect and openness within a class where all students are valued and to be honest, not every class gets to that point by June. Sometimes they do, but not always. This year I had 3 out of 4 classes accomplish this. One of the best moments this year was a student who relentlessly and unapologetically complained about his group at the beginning of the year (seats get switched every unit). The last unit I put him back with that same group and their whole attitudes towards each other moved from annoyance and frustration to acceptance and humor. It was one of my favorite moments this school year when I realized that same student was cracking jokes and the others would respond lovingly and wittingly. It would be silly to assume that was done by my work alone, as it takes several adults to facilitate growth in a growing teenage boy. Anyone who works at a school knows this. That is the beauty of the classroom.
 |
| My students working on circuits 2/14/19. (From my Polaroid Camera) |
