Carol Ann Tomlinson Quotes
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It's important to know how to lead and manage a classroom with flexibility. Students of all ages are quite capable of learning these routines and contributing to their success once the teacher is comfortable guiding students in that direction.
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We need to develop a robust set of tools - strategies and routines - that help us address student variance. It's easy to come to rely on two or three "trusty" instructional strategies like worksheets and lectures. Those are of little help in planning for a variety of student needs. As we develop a better toolbox, we're empowered to meet students where they are.
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Readiness is a student’s entry point relative to a particular understanding or skill.
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When challenge and skills are in balance the activity is its own reward
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A gifted teacher has an unfailing eye for magical classrooms & loses sleep over anything less than the highest quality.
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The best educators I have met never stop asking questions. Some of them have taught for forty years and continue to be energized by new possibilities.
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[Students] are also accustomed to having quick access to information. The idea of "storing" data in their heads can seem pointless. I find that they are also much more interested in learning through problem solving and group collaboration than in the past.
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Creating a classroom environment that encourages students to take the risk of learning. We've known for a long time that when students lack a sense of safety or of belonging or of contribution, learning takes second place to meeting those needs.
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It is not so important to have all the answers as to be hungry for them.
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[Students] often have a "We can figure this out - don't just tell us" attitude. In that way, they can be less patient with "traditional" approaches to teaching.
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Interest refers to student’s affinity, curiosity, or passion for a particular topic or skill.
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Sometimes educators suffer from the "I already do that" syndrome. In those cases, we feel inadequate if we admit we have a distance to go as learners of our craft.
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We aren't quite sure what we're trying to differentiate, and therefore can't quite see how to do it other than giving some students more to cover and some less. That rarely works.
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We need teacher educators who regularly spend a great deal of time in classrooms so they have a deep understanding of where they students will teach.
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[Students] are exposed to many things the majority of their teachers didn't encounter until much later in their growing up years.
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We have students at the university say on a regular basis, "You're asking us to think and no one has ever done that in school."
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I have find that today's students are often more tolerant of human variance than students in earlier generations might have been. On the other hand, some of our students need much more interaction with a wide variety of peers so they level of understanding deepens and so they are prepared to live in a world that is only going to get smaller.
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We're teaching a generation of students who've been schooled to produce quick, right answers on demand. They are not comfortable with ambiguity. The implications of that in the long term are discomforting.
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In differentiated classrooms, teachers begin where students are, not the front of a curriculum guide.