Struggle & Success

As I was visiting classrooms last week, chatting with students about the work they were engaged in, one comment in particular left me thinking. I had asked the student what she was working on and she responded she was working on an assignment related to something she had recently read. When I asked what was the most challenging element of the assignment, she responded immediately with, "Finding the evidence in the text." And then she followed with, "If I had known I was going to get this assignment I would have highlighted more as I was reading." When I asked if that would have made writing the assignment easier she nodded her head. "Yes. A lot easier" was her comment.

Finding that right balance as a teacher is always hard. How much do I foreshadow what is coming, and how much do I ask unannounced. We want our students to struggle - to some degree. But we also want our students to succeed. The balance point between the two is a hard one to find, and is different for every student. Differentiation, at it's heart, is all about finding that balance for each student.

Setting the same homework for every student in the class may not strike the right balance for all. Some may find the struggle such that they find no success. Some may find too little struggle as they cruise through the task. For some, the set homework might be just the right balance between struggle and success.

So as you go about setting homework, designing tests/quizzes, creating an assignment, expecting notes to be taken in a certain manner, plan a lesson, etc... consider that balance. And then consider how you might be able to adjust something in the task for some of your students so that for them, there WILL be balance.

Reduce the scope of the homework, give the option of submitting the quiz verbally, let each student choose how they want to take their own notes, give students options for how they present an assignment.

You might be surprised at the level of learning students can show when they can work with the right balance between struggle and success.