Curriculum Initiative

Curriculum Initiative >> ENCHANTED FARM: A Classroom Without Walls

By Jp Villanueva, Brent International School Baguio

Much of what I learned from my formal education I learned from within the confines of a classroom. I grew up in one of the major cities in the Philippines and the elementary and high school I went to was located at the city’s center. Most of the campus, from the playground to the classrooms, is concrete.

I claim to know how to garden, but the knowledge I have are from the books I read as a child, and from teacher demonstrations. I know that the best type of soil is loam. It is darker in color, as seen in a picture from the book I borrowed from the library. Until now, I have yet to be successful in keeping a plant alive.

This kind of traditional teaching approach was proven in many studies to be not the most effective. For students to fully understand or demonstrate understanding on a certain topic, concept or subject, students need to be engaged and participate in their own learning (Hackett, 2016, Winsett, et. al., 2016).

The concept of experiential learning was first developed by John Dewey, Kurt Lewin and Jean Piaget through their own experiential work, but was later on developed as a unique perspective on learning and development by David Kolb in 1984 (Sternberg & Zhang, 2000). The emphasis is on the word, “experiential” highlighting the significance of experience differentiating it from other learning approaches. Learning through experience is a ‘‘process whereby knowledge is created through the transformation of experience. Knowledge results from the combination of grasping and transforming experience’’ (Kolb,1984 as cited by Gross & Rutland, 2017).

The challenge in teaching three International Baccalaureate (IB) courses is to find a good combination of maximizing student learning based on an extensive course content, preparing the students toward achieving assessment objectives, and motivating them to maintain their sanity until they finish their senior year. For us to have an out-of-syllabus activity, we may have to forego several hours of class time, without guarantee that the learnings from this activity can suffice what were missed.

Since I started teaching IB, I have had plans for educational/exposure trips that may provide my students opportunities for experiential learning that are related to the courses I teach, and to advocacies on agricultural development, poverty & human dignity, and social responsibility. The new syllabus of IB Business Management introduced new concepts like for-profit and not-for-profit social enterprises, and old concepts that has more emphasis such as ethics and social responsibility. I also found support from our IB/CAS coordinator where links to the CAS Program made this trip more concrete.

Our students, accompanied by several of us teachers, were able to visit the Gawad Kalinga Enchanted Farm (GKEF) some 200 kilometers away from where our school is, a 6-hour trip from Baguio City last September 2017.

GKEF is the main flagship project of Gawad Kalinga (GK). They transformed this wide parcel of idle land in Bulacan, a province north of the capital, where insurgents used to linger, into a thriving self-

sufficient community, initially providing them access to decent housing. After which, social enterprises were established within the Enchanted Farm by residents themselves and GK volunteers, where they utilize the abundant resources available there and create wealth for themselves, for their families and for their community. The end goal of GKEF and GK is to take these families out of poverty, through their own means and become self-sufficient and regain their human dignity.

The students were able to meet volunteers of GK who come from various parts of the world, listening to their testimonials on how GK changed their lives, and how they are going to replicate the GK model in their own countries. They met social entrepreneurs in the Enchanted Farm and witnessed first-hand the production process of these social enterprises. They were able to immerse themselves in various farm activities, like waking up early in the morning to plant rice in the fields, make fertilizer from a combination of chicken dung and loam soil, and plant bamboo.

Learning from experience requires four capabilities, namely: (1) an openness and willingness to involve oneself in new experiences (concrete experience); (2) observational and reflective skills to view these new experiences from a variety of perspectives (reflective observation); (3) analytical abilities to integrate ideas and concepts created from their observations (abstract conceptualization); and (4) decision-making and problem-solving skills to put these new ideas and concepts in practice (active experimentation) (Kolb, 1984 as cited by Lin, et. al., 2016).

Without explicitly discussing these capabilities to the students or trying to pry these capabilities out from deep within each of these students’ characters, they came out freely and naturally. The realizations and lessons that the students derived from this two-day activity are priceless, and to hear them talk about their experience among themselves and to the other students in school is invaluable.

Aside from providing them an avenue for experiential learning, I had other “hidden” agenda when I was planning this trip. First, to convince at least one of them to write their Internal Assessments (IA) about a social enterprise, where they can conduct a research on an existing problem and provide possible solutions for the enterprise to solve this problem. Secondly, to increase awareness of this type of firms, so that more people will be encouraged to establish social enterprises and provide opportunities for the poor and the marginalized in our society; and, lastly, to spark a spirit of volunteerism in them, so they can be able to have that heart of compassion, and be catalysts for change when they become leaders of the future.

There were several who did their IA on a social enterprise. The “Happiness Club”, an extracurricular organization was initiated by two students primarily to conduct community service activities locally. These students are now more aware of the poverty and the inequality in our society now. Small, baby steps toward the greater goal of changing humanity.

These are truly priceless lessons from the Enchanted Farm, where no walls stand to prevent anyone from being creative, innovative and excellent toward the goal of wealth, success and greatness. I am hopeful for this world’s future because this next generation of leaders who have sharp minds and caring hearts will transform the world, a world where opportunities are provided equally to all, a world where everybody lives with dignity, a world where no one is left out.

earcos.org cois.org

EARCOS-CIS Institute on Higher Education Admission & Guidance

Date: 21 - 22 September 2018 Location: Shangri-La Hotel, Bangkok, Thailand

The two-day event includes general sessions and fairs for both universities and schools. This is the perfect opportunity to connect and build international relationships that will support students’ search for the best-fit university. www.earcos.org | www.cois.org

Curriculum Initiative >> Constructing a Table: The Redesigning of a Spanish Language Acquisition Program

By Sarah Sánchez Armstrong and Mary Taylor-Boehm Spanish Language Instructional Team at Busan Foreign School

Constructing a table out of the disparate remnants of repurposed wood is often more difficult than building a new table from scratch. To pose an even greater challenge is to build a table that others, with their unique plans and perceptions, have already begun to build. Often, we as educators work to extend, mend, deconstruct, and redesign existing programs laid in place by our predecessors. Individual program components may function independently, creating an experience for our students which is fragmented, discontinuous, and at times, repetitive. Thus, in order to be most effective, we must mend the very foundation of our practice. With this metaphor in mind, we aim to redesign, unify, and strengthen the K-AP Spanish language program at Busan Foreign School into one that is holistic, retains a higher percentage of our students, and fosters confident communicators. This article specifically addresses the challenges and successes we have faced in the high school program.

This 2017/2018 school year, we aspire to discern the effectiveness of language acquisition as an approach to foster interpersonal communication growth at the individual level, with an emphasis on our learners within their second and third year of high school Spanish, whose skills and needs vary drastically as a result of their foundation. This year, Spanish 2/3 was offered as a combined level course which we are co-teaching. The students in this course began their Spanish education with a foundation in language learning (the study of the Spanish language, much of the time in English), which resulted in low level functioning in terms of interpersonal communication skills (writing, speaking, and listening comprehension). When compared to our first year students who have only experienced language acquisition (exposure to language used in context through comprehensible input2 strategies), the differences in the accuracy and performance levels between these two groups are striking. The Spanish 2/3 group generally struggles with confidence, fluency, and retention, as well as with maneuvering through and manipulating different verb tenses. In stark contrast, after only six months of Spanish immersion, our beginning students are confident, fluent and adaptable when speaking, and have retained enough language (both vocabulary and grammar) to sustain basic conversations, ask questions, and read/comprehend articles in Spanish with ever increasing linguistic complexity. How then were we to repair this section?

After identifying the disparities in our learners’ needs, and aligning their needs to our program goals, we designed our Spanish 2/3 course with the purpose of targeting the students at their individual performance levels to foster their interpersonal communication skills and fortify the program as a whole. The process has been bumpy; yet, we learned from our failures, which have ultimately propelled us toward our current successes. Through continual data collection in the form of student maintained portfolios, periodic portfolio review, the creation of student growth goals, and feedback looping1, coupled with strategies that we have acquired during professional development workshops and independent studies2, we developed a routine which is proving effective in helping us to achieve our current and overarching program goals.

The students in the combined Spanish 2/3 course are now divided into two groups. One group contains students who perform (in terms of Kagan Cooperative Learning3) in the mid-high to high range when compared to all the students in the course, despite the number of years that they have been studying Spanish. The second group are those who perform in the mid-low to low range. Due to the complex school-wide scheduling of students and teachers, on Mondays and Fridays all Spanish 2/3 students come together in a single classroom. The learning activities on Mondays focus on listening comprehension and structured speaking, revolving around a central theme that builds off the background knowledge that both groups of students share. Several students, through their aforementioned, self-created goals, recognize their need to develop these two areas and this format is conducive to that growth. On Fridays, all students are engaged in Readers and Writers Workshop.

Tuesdays through Thursdays, the groups work apart, with the same designated teacher, in two separate classrooms. Though both groups often study the same theme or cultural topic, the teacher presentations are differentiated: targeted grammar instruction, comprehensible input and language acquisition activities are all based on the group’s ability. This strategy has proven to be advantageous for many reasons. First, it halved the overall size of the larger class, allowing for stronger relationships. Second, it has allowed students within each group to flourish within the ranks of similarly leveled peers. For example, a student in the mid-low range, who initially struggled and was overshadowed when placed amongst others who routinely performed at a significantly higher level, now has the ability to rise up and be a leader amongst peers at or below his/her own proficiency level. Finally, it allows for more level-appropriate instruction and gives both teachers freedom of design.

The strategies implemented during our modified Readers and Writers Workshop on Fridays further allow us to target the diverse levels of the group. The writing prompts in the mini-lesson are derived from student-generated goals or areas of need which arise during our weekly formative assessments. The post-writing, regardless of the topic, is then evaluated based on either an all writing rubric or a single point rubric4 which the students know well. Aligning with the current shift in language acquisition classrooms toward Free Voluntary Reading, students choose novels that are individually challenging;

and the freedom of choice expands as students increase in language proficiency level. Students at the lowest spectrum of the class read common texts that can be easily guided and monitored for comprehension. In addition, during the twenty-five minute reading block, students participate in one-on-one conferencing with the teacher, allowing for authentic interpersonal communication in Spanish and for time to check-in and demonstrate progress toward their personal goals.

How do we know if our efforts have been effective? Through feedback looping [1], we ask the students to comment on their experience and to periodically revisit their goals, showing proof of personal growth. We often compare work samples and student performance on assessments. Further, as colleagues we check-in with one another daily, and utilize our monthly Professional Learning Community meeting time to adjust our strategies. Redesigning the Spanish language program at Busan Foreign School has been anything but “The Case for Comprehensible Input,” Language Magazine, 17 July 2017, www.

simple. Yet, upon completion of the combined level course, we are confident that one more section of our program “table” will have been rectified, offering our students an enriched base as they continue forth in their Spanish language education. It is our hope that, through our research, strategy development, and proof of success, Busan Foreign School will continue to hire teachers capable of cultivating and further enhancing our vision of a holistic K-AP Spanish language acquisition program. We believe this will result in more rapid and balanced student growth, higher achievement and retention levels, and students who function with increased confidence

1 This practice stems from the understanding that, when asked the right questions in the right way, students can articulately communicate their social-emotional and academic needs. It also improves the quality of the work students produce and increases student investment in their learning. If you wish to understand the process of Feedback Looping more fully, please visit the Professional Growth and Development 2016 and Beyond page on Sarah’s website.

2 Bex, Martina. The Comprehensible Classroom, https://martinabex.com/. Accessed 25 Feb 2018. and success at the highest AP level of Spanish. ¡Olé!

languagemagazine.com/2017/07/17/case-for-comprehension. Limacher, Ute. “ Language Acquisition Versus Lanugage Learning,” Ute’s International Lounge, 2016, www.utesinternationallounge.com/language-acquisition-versus-languagelearning. Saffran, Jenny R., et. all. “The Acquisition of Language by Children,” PNAS, Nov 2001, www.pnas.org/content/98/23/12874.full.

3 “Forming Teams.” Kagan Cooperative Learning: It’s All About Engagement, Kagan Publishing & Professional Development, p.24.

4 Gonzalez, Jennifer. “Meet the #Single Point Rubric,” Cult of Pedagogy, 4 Feb 2014, www.cultofpedagogy.com/single-point-rubric/. Hashem, Danah. “6 Reasons to Try a Single-Point Rubric,” Edutopia, 24 Oct 2017, www.edutopia.org/article/6-reasons-try-single-point-rubric. Sánchez Armstrong, Sarah. “Taller de escritores y lectores_Written Assessment Rubric 1,” Google Docs, 15 Jan 2018, https://docs.google.com/document/d/1YYLE-tPg4VJltBoqqDsVq4NZqyDO6kpEdUR6LUrgcSg/edit?usp=sharing. Sánchez Armstrong, Sarah. “Taller de escritores y lectores_Written Assessment Rubric 2,” Google Docs, 26 Jan 2018, https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Ca 6EllIKz4IKliCqBJc0f1-v3cpeBtIa-EtuWegCGtQ/edit?usp=sharing.

Submit an Article >> The EARCOS Journal

We are currently planning the Winter issue with a submission deadline of December 1, 2018. As you can see from our previous issues, we have moved to more of a magazine format with regular features. We invite you to share the great things going on at your school with the other schools in the EARCOS region.

What can be Contributed? Welcome New Member Schools, New School Heads, Principals and Associate members. Faces of EARCOS – Promotions, retirements, honors, etc. Campus Development – New building plans, under construction, just completed. Curriculum Initiatives – New and exciting adoption efforts, and creative teacher ideas. Green and Sustainable – Related to campus development and/or curriculum. Service Learning Action Research Reports - Summaries of approved action research projects Student Art – We will highlight ES art in Fall issue, MS art in Winter issue, and HS art in Spring issue. Student Writing – Original short stories, poetry, scholarly writing. Reading Corner - Book reviews

Submit your article to Bill Oldread at boldread@earcos.org or Edzel Drilo at edrilo@earcos.org

Curriculum Initiative >> Uniting the Mind: Teaching to the Right Side As Well As the Left Side of Our Brains By Memri Tagle Writer, Education Consultant, and Language Acquisition Specialist currently teaching and coaching at the Surabaya Intercultural School, Indonesia

It is 2018, and educators around the world continue to search for best practices to improve instruction, and while there is no magical remedy, or a one size fits all strategy, there is a humane approach worth considering that could enhance the educational experiences of our students. I recently conducted an action research study to look at the importance of “uniting the mind,” or planning instruction that engages students’ strengths as well as develop all parts of their intellect. While high test scores may indicate success in teaching and mastery of a particular subject at that particular time, it doesn’t necessarily mean that they have fully grasped the content enough to use it or recall any of it six months later. I have found that teaching to the creative side of the mind, the more holistic and imaginative side as well as the preferred linear and logical left brain, we, as educators, can make teaching and learning more enjoyable and go beyond preparing students for formal assessments. These strategies are not new, but quite often diminished in high school classrooms. In balancing instructional programs in secondary schools, educators can serve to further ignite creativity and innovation, for using both sides of our brains broadens our ways of knowing and serve to sculpt and strengthen long term memory rather than the short term memory most often fostered for test taking. Affording students with a range of opportunities to engage in content, concepts and practices using their right as well as their left sides of the brain is perhaps one of the best ways for students to stop regurgitating facts and extend their thinking, their reasoning and encourage creativity with imaginations to make profound meaning of what they learn, and perhaps, use it for the benefit of humanity now and in the future. In first grade, kids love to create, use their imagination, color and draw, but when they get older, they begin comparing and measuring their drawing to others; they start judging themselves and begin restricting their own creativity. In secondary school, most students will tell you that they can’t draw, yet when given an artistic or more imaginative task and they use the right side of their brains, the results reveal different ways of knowing and understanding, and move more towards developing their long term memory. In conducting the study, I gathered data from a hemispheric dominance test from students in grades 10-12. The results indicated that the majority of students were left brain dominant, meaning they leaned towards linear, logical learning tasks, which was not surprising since the order in our western modeled society and classrooms is left brain centered in teaching, learning and living.

In comparing the grade levels, the hemispheric dominance results showed that tenth and eleventh grade classes were similar with nearly two thirds of the students left brain dominant, one fourth were “both,” neither right and left dominant, and less than one fourth as right brain dominant. The twelfth grade class results, on the other hand, showed nearly half of the students as right brain dominant and only a little over one third as left brain dominant. This could possibly explain why this class continued to be the most behaviorally and academically challenging group of students in the entire high school. After teaching them for one and a half years, they had made incremental gains in writing and discourse, yet they were still a constant group that seemed to be hitting the reset button nearly everyday.

Most of these right brain dominant students were the ones who had a hard time sitting down, staying on task, bored quickly, were consistently late to class, and for the most part, very sensitive, and tended to be more emotional. This isn’t to say the left brain dominant students were never late to class or could be creative, but the right also had the most outside of the box thinkers who seemed to be more inquisitive. This didn’t mean they were necessarily the most artistic. I also conducted a coloring assessment task where they were given three rules to color shapes drawn around their name, including: 1. use as many of the eight colors as you like, 2. try not put the same colors next to each other, and 3. do not leave anything white. The left brain dominant students pretty much followed the rules and most looked similar, yet there were some that indicated more artistic ability and creativity, indicating there were left brained dominant artists. And, the students designated as “both” or “right” brain dominant students weren’t necessarily the most artistic, but they seemed to have more that didn’t follow the rules and were the most unique. So what does this mean for teaching and learning when the structure of schools from scheduling to classroom lessons tend to favor left brain dominant thinkers? As educators we do not need to invent anything new, we just need to create balance in teaching and learning.

Uniting the mind, the left and right hemispheres, requires reflection on our own ways of thinking and how we present information. Educators willing to make a conscious effort to provide a balanced learning environment for left brain dominant students to use their right hemisphere and the right side dominant students more opportunities to create with their dominant side perhaps all students will feel embraced and empowered. In high schools, teachers unintentionally tend to neglect the right brained students’ needs. Quite often, right brain students, but not always, tend to be disruptive in restrictive left brain structured classrooms where the focus is on maximizing time with linear instructional lessons. These and even left brain dominant students can become bored and disruptive, and they need a break. When I sense students have hit a wall with left brained discourse, I will stop and allow them a power nap or draw symbols and motifs from the story on the chalkboards, “play” a game, play music or connect what we are learning to something in their lives and just talk with them and not at them.

During a multiple choice, matching and short essay response test on Frankenstein by Mary Shelley, I observed one of my twelfth grade students struggle with his test. He was anxious the entire time, constantly looking around, and bouncing his legs up and down. After he turned in his test I gave him the coloring assignment with the various shapes and crayons and explained the directions on how to color the shapes, but unlike the literature test, it was not a distressing experience. It almost acted as a sedative as I watched him calmly transform and become thoroughly engaged in the activity. This particular student struggles with reading and writing at grade level on left brain tasks, but I know he can understand concepts. In the first semester, I assigned him the role of Geoffrey Chaucer, the author of the infamous Canterbury Tales, during a mock trial where Chaucer was charged with blasphemy. I was quite pleased to see this young man argue in his defense better than his attorneys, but had he only had the chance to write his argument, he may have not been as successful in articulating his ideas.

This doesn’t mean I do not teach writing. It tells me that I need to model writing and diversify my instruction between right and left brain activities. Diversification and creating balance in our instructional programs allows for the use of our less dominant side of our brains. The right hemisphere is the analogical, creative and imaginative side, to engage, make connections, ask questions, and manipulate what they learn in a multitude of ways so that what they learn becomes part of their long term memory and who we are. The right benefits from the predictable structure of the left while the left brain dominant students can benefit by extending their understanding in creating and making meaningful connections.

Another student whose first language is Korean, has been acquiring English within the content of high school level courses in World and American literature over the last two years. She is a hard worker and her writing has improved greatly, yet she rarely speaks in class and her written assessment tasks and verbal presentation demonstrate minimal evidence that she understands major concepts at grade level or in depth. However, when I gave her a drawing assignment to illustrate a character from the novel, The Secret Life of Bees, with the instructions to depict the character from a feminist viewpoint and portray the character’s unique perspective, her drawing was beautifully insightful and right on. I had taught literary criticism with a focus on feminism theory, and I had assumed that those concepts may be too difficult for her to see in the texts as the concepts required one to connect historical, cultural and geographic realities. However, when she finished her illustration, I was pleasantly surprised to see how she really understood the novel, the role of the character, the author’s purpose and the overall themes of the story.

The lateralization theory, the understanding that each hemisphere of the brain processes information differently and that one side tends to dominate our thinking, should not be forgotten as children move into secondary schools. Much time is spent in scaffolding learning for younger children, and providing a range of artistic, project-based learning, hands-on activities, and experiential learning to imagine, manipulate and actively engage children in learning. However, secondary teachers minimally employ these strategies in the upper grades and

straight forward readings, lecture, linear presentations is the norm. And although hands-on activities such as the science actively engage students in discovery, in the end, what assessment tasks allow them to demonstrate understanding using both hemispheres of the brain.

We’ve always lived in a right brained world where creativity led the way, that is, before the Victorian Age ratified rigid rules, enforced with brutal discipline and linear practices, and allowed left brain focused schools to become the norm. A focus on left brain teaching to control students in classrooms is not the most effective way to teach and learn if we are to truly strive to nurture genuine intellectual curiosity and build long term memory for students to use in their future. It is perhaps best to be cognizant of the importance to create balance and unite the mind so our students can use their brains to their fullest potential and in so doing the joy of education can be realized.

Notable Quotes to Encourage Right Brain Instruction and Balance in Teaching and Learning:

It is the supreme art of the teacher to awaken joy in creative expression and knowledge. Albert Einstein Creativity is just connecting things. When you ask creative people how they did something, they feel a little guilty because they didn’t really do it, they just saw something. It seemed obvious to them after a while. That’s because they were able to connect experiences they’ve had and synthesize new things. Steve Jobs

A true sign of intelligence is not knowledge but imagination. Albert Einstein

Sources and Resources for Instructional Strategies Left vs. Right Brain Teaching Techniques http://www.funderstanding.com/brain/left-brain-vs-right-brain-teachingtechniques/#more-513 Left Brain Schools in a Right Brain World by Tim Elmore https://www.huffingtonpost.com/tim-elmore/leftbrain-schools-in-ari_b_3490513.html Hemispheric Dominance Test http://capone.mtsu.edu/studskl/hd/learn.html Left Brain vs. Right Brain https://www.diffen.com/difference/Left_Brain_vs_Right_Brain

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Curriculum Initiative >> Team Teaching and Co-Teaching for Differentiation and Collaboration

By Ed Hagen, Linda Eide, and Karlie Barness International School Bangkok edh@isb.ac.th The elementary classroom is something we love for so many reasons and as lifetime elementary educators, we appreciate that teaching is a profession where we can constantly try new things and grow. This year we have combined team teaching and co-teaching with a group of 42 wonderful 2nd graders. Google team teaching or co-teaching and one will be overwhelmed with the definitions. For the purpose of this article, we will define each practice. Team teaching is when two or more teachers share responsibilities for a group of students. In our case, it’s two elementary teachers teaching a group of 42 students in one large space. Co-teaching is when a teacher with an area of expertise or specialty joins a homeroom class to support a specified group of learners. In our case, our coteacher specializes in instructing students who are learning English as an additional language. We use a variety of models to meet our learners’ needs. Our most common model is parallel teaching. During parallel teaching, two or three teachers are teaching the same (but maybe slightly differentiated) lessons simultaneously. The same teaching point is used with each group, but models, mentor texts, or guided practice may be different. Students are strategically grouped prior to the lesson. Our class has many students who are learning English as an additional language, so usually one of the groups may be formed to respond to this need in the given subject. This provides an opportunity to shelter language and language skills for this group. Our model is based on strong mechanisms to form and manage groups in each content area. This is at the core of our collaboration together. The way students are grouped is based on the subject and content or skills we will teach them. We consistently switch between skill, ability, readiness, and interest groups. The main difference between a single teacher classroom is our grouping decisions happen collaboratively. We reflect and decide using our collective

intelligence. Consistently changing the way students are grouped helps to avoid students being “tracked,” which means staying in the same group with similar ability peers for a long period of time. Within a subject, students sometimes excel in a particular skill set. Grouping and teaching them based on skills helps us better differentiate and individualize instruction. Ability grouping allows teachers to differentiate lessons, materials, and expectations so that learning is within learners’ zone of proximal development. Readiness grouping allows the instruction of new skills and concepts based on a collective body of knowledge about each student’s ability to acquire new skills/knowledge. Interest grouping allows students to choose what or how they want to learn. This allows students to take more ownership of their learning and mobilize themselves as greater stakeholders. Sometimes, we implement, “seminars.” This is when students choose the skills they want to be taught as a group.

We often vary which teacher teaches which group so that students may benefit from our varied backgrounds, areas of strength, and personal connections. One common struggle that teachers have it trying to meet the needs of all learners. By having a larger pool of students and teachers to work with, and by flexibly grouping, we can better work with students who don’t fall into the middle area of ability. Our students who need challenge, can work with other students with similar abilities. Our students who need support can work in a small group with more scaffolds in place, to help them access content and skills. Changes in grouping happen frequently. By doing this, we feel that no negative student stigmas or mindsets develop around learning because changes in groups and the size of groups happens frequently. A learner may not always be in a group they view as less advanced.

We have found that Team teaching can be a flexible approach for teaching elementary school that allows us to better differentiate instruction through embedded collaboration. It also allows us to regularly engage in a multi-tiered problem solving process. No longer are we isolated in rooms throughout the day, with our students exposed to one style of teaching. Is is better than a traditional elementary classroom? It’s not better, it’s different. A team teaching environment provides the context for potentially more differentiated instruction more often. Both students and teachers can benefit from using a team teaching model that best suits a specific group of learners. In our case, we designed a model we thought would be the most responsive and efficient for our group. Each team teaching situation is an opportunity to be flexible and innovate. We have thoroughly enjoyed our experience, working and learning together and hope that this article will support other teachers moving in this direction.