Team+Meeting+Log+1

** Members Present: **Peter Garretson, Tom Wenger, Cheryl Bittner, Paula Cox, Doris Friedman, Brian Alderette, Mark Pelloni, Jason Haskins ** Team Goals and Questions: ** Initial goals are to research and study established methods of differentiation, design our own original methods, and implement these new strategies in our classrooms. While most of us agreed that we already use some degree of differentiation in our lessons, our goal is to improve and build on those pre-existing strategies with an initial focus on our highest and lowest functioning students. ** Resources studied/viewed: **“What Is a differentiated Classroom? “ The Differentiated Classroom: Responding to the Needs of All Learners. Also, all group members were asked to take with them one or two of the text books provided to review before next meeting. ** Essential concepts and learnings: ** A fully differentiated classroom is the ultimate goal of our learning group. However, expectations to immediately differentiate for every student can be initially overwhelming and counterproductive if not done right. To effectively implement higher quality differentiation into our lessons, we will start by choosing one area of need amongst our students (highest functioning / lowest functioning) and focus on developing and implementing strategies for that area first. Once success with that area is achieved and comfort and ability level with differentiating has increased, we will systematically work to implement differentiation across all areas of need in our classrooms. ** Team Reflections and Decisions: **As teachers in Alternative Education Programs, diverse learners in our classrooms is the norm. Our population of students demands high quality differentiation and our ability to provide that for them will determine our success. ** (Attach individual plans of action)  ** ** Implementation Outcomes: **First Meeting. Implementation outcomes will be provided after future meetings. ** Emerging Questions: ** Is it possible that a student’s ability level is beyond differentiation? How do differentiate for the lowest functioning students(non-readers)? ** Plans for the next meeting: ** Review and discuss information from provided text books. Each group member was provided with at least one of the provided text books to review and draw information from for our next meeting. Also, each member was encouraged to implement some form of differentiation into a lesson before next meeting. We will use the research and the reflection of the lessons to guide further discussion and formulate a plan for the remaining meetings.
 * Team Meeting Log **
 * Team: __Planning and Instructing to mMeet the Needs of Diverse Learners__ **
 * Date: __9/04/2009__ **

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