How to Optimize Responsive Instruction: A Working Theory of Inquiry by Zach Peters Paulo Freire (2000) describes people as uncompleted

beings, conscious of their incompletion, and educational inquiry as an attempt to be more fully human (p. 7). As a selfdeclared humanist, I subscribe to this view of education as a means not so much of filling young minds with knowledge or even preparing students through skill-building to better function in the world, but more importantly making people into better human beingshuman beings that can think critically, take responsibility, demonstrate empathy, and value both themselves and the larger world of which they are a part. But what does this look like in the classroom? It begins, as most good practices do, with an effective model, in this case a good teacher. If our students are to learn to become better human beings in the ways described above, then our teachers must show them howand they can do so through responsive instruction. Responsive instruction is the design and implementation of lessons based on the specific needs demonstrated by the students at hand (Tomlinson & McTighe, 2006). In other words, the teacher needs to understand who his students are and where they are in terms of academic ability. Now, given that your average high school teacher might see 120 students daily, it can prove a challenge just to learn all of their names, let alone their specific needs as learners. With this limitation in mind, I became interested in exploring how to provide personalized feedback to my students in a way that would be both useful to them and efficient for me. As part of this exploration, I created research questions concerning the degree to which students value and use feedback to improve their learning, the degree to which they wish to provide feedback to teachers and peers, and how best to help them discover a voice that is valued

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by others. I thought about the differences between oral vs. written feedback as well as personalized vs. whole-class feedback. I also considered Tomlinsons & McTighes (2006) assertion that evaluation should be based not only on achievement of goals or effortful work habits but also on progress made toward goals. To grade in this way, a teacher would have to be able to compare where individual students started academically with how far they have advanced based on their own personal progress and not on any class average or norm. I know that some teaches will not look at students names on papers until after grading in order to avoid the influence of their own biases. However with Tomlinsons &McTighes notion in mind, I took student identity into account in order to grade their writing based on progress. For instance I did not grade poor grammar as harshly in the case of students for whom English is a second language. I took a straw poll of students regarding whether they preferred to receive returned schoolwork with comments attached or if theyd rather just check their grades on Schoology, the website on which we post assignments (seven of thirty-three said they would prefer written comments). Not long after this poll, in preparing to grade my students first essay project, I outlined a specific plan for providing feedback based on Linda Christensens (2009) model of starting with what is working, then moving to only the most essential areas of improvement so as to encourage and guide the student rather than overwhelm them. Notice that despite the fact that only seven students said they valued written feedback, I proceeded to provide them all with feedback nonetheless. Indeed, as the inquiry process continued I began to realize that my initial inquiry questions were not the most essential ones to be asking because it is frivolous to research the value of something I already believe to be

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valuable. A research project concerning this, then, would be not only biased but also inconsequential in the development of my own teaching practicesfor feedback will always play a major role for me and, by extension, my students. So instead of focusing on what type of feedback to provide or how much my students value it (which is difficult to quantify anyway), I realized I should be looking at how to set up and run my classroom in such a way that optimizes my ability to provide and receive feedback in order to base my instruction on the specific needs of my students. With this new goal in mind I began asking how I might structure my classroom in a way that allows more time for getting to know students personally. By interacting with them individually or in small groups on a more regular basis, I would increase my ability to provide responsive, differentiated instruction. The answer to this new question suggested by my academic readings and student teaching experience was, surprisingly, an increase in studentcentered group work. The reason this was surprising is that as a student I have always been skeptical of group activities. Weinstein (2007) outlines a plethora of pitfalls that can happen during group activities including unequal participation by group members, student selfsegregation, inefficiency of collaboration, and difficulties of cooperation. I would add to this list the risks of students misinterpreting information, misleading each other, and overlooking key points. These potential pitfalls are always at the back of my mind along with the notion that the teacher, while definitely not an expert, is generally speaking the most experienced person in the room who for this reason must necessarily take a leadership role. This notion suggests that an overly student-centered classroom ends up depriving the students of the imperfect yet very real wisdom and leadership of the teacher.

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Yet in my student teaching experience it cannot be denied that the best days are the ones involving in-class group projects. I filmed (Video Artifact) myself during a discussion-based, yet still fairly teacher-centered class, and it went okay. Most students were paying attention and I accomplished the things I set out to do, but it wasnt exciting. Now, on project days, the students engage with me, they engage with one another, and they seem to have fun. I find that I too enjoy my own classroom more when I have willingly relinquished some of the control to the students. It should be noted, of course, that neither my personal enjoyment nor even the students increased enjoyment of the class is necessarily demonstrative that any more learning is taking place than would happen in a less interactive teacher-centered lecture. People are more willing to engage with material, however, if the process of engagement is enjoyable and meaningful for them. It is the responsibility of the teacher, then, to meet the need for balance between student construction of meaning and teacher guidance (Tomlinson & McTighe, 2006, p. 85). This need for balance is something that has become personally important for me. Despite the more traditional teacher-centered notions (with which I entered this program) of what a classroom looks like, I have realized that I do not like being the center of attention for an entire class period. I find it logically unfeasible to truly sustain the engagement of 33 different minds simultaneously because they all have different types of intelligence, different learning preferences, and different needs. I have seen plenty of instances in which even a similarly sized group of Ivy League graduate school students could not remain engaged for a whole class period, so how could I expect a group of teenagers to do so? Group activities, then, provided they are properly structured, grounded, and modeled, may be more valuable than a traditional lecture, and I plan on making them a regular part of my

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classroom as a result of their success so far in my current classroom. One such successful activity was the Character Playlist (an idea I borrowed from my CM), which students had the option of completing independently or with a partner. Given this option, a majority chose to work with partners, and some even tried to go beyond the instructions to form three person groups. Not only were these projects fun, but the students did an amazing job and in doing so built understanding of the novel being read, improved close reading skills, and drew connections between classroom material and the present day world. Working from the success of this project, I am currently structuring a Debate with a similar synthesis of student goals; alongside these I place my personal teachers goal of using group work time to engage my students more personally. Another upcoming unit of mine will draw from Linda Youngs (2007) work with generative writing groups. Young has her students engage in creative poetry writing exercises in groups in which each member has a very specific role. For instance, one student is responsible for incorporating figurative language while another works on creating rhythmic sound patterns while a third is responsible for generating imagery. This division of roles makes students accountable not only to the teacher but to their fellow groups members. It also allows students the opportunity to learn from each otherto explain why this word choice is better than that word choice or why this metaphor has more power in stanza one than in stanza two. Students are learning about the technical aspects of poetry while building both social skills and writing skills. Such utilization of group work has two major functions. The primary function is of course the enhancement of multi-faceted learning as described above. The secondary function is the focal point of my developing inquiry. For if students are taking on much of the responsibility

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for their own learning by way of these group projects then I, the teacher, am free to spend more time circulating amongst student groups doing personalized assessments of student progress, challenging student assumptions, managing behavior problems, answering questions, and building relationships. This brings us back to the original question of how best to use responsive instruction to create better human beings which is the ideological backdrop for my working inquiry question: how does a move toward an increasingly student-centered classroom affect my own ability as a teacher to use class time to personally address students individual needs? In addition to the reasons already discussed, this question arises from the realization that my classrooms current structure allows an unacceptable number of students to underperform without much intervention on my part. There have been several occasions when students have not turned in major assignments, have missed several days of my class in a row, have not followed directions on assignments, have cheated, or have simply stopped paying attention during a lesson. I have, of course, attempted to address these things as frequently as possible, particularly the cheating issue, but just as often I forget or neglect to address an issue simply because there is not enough time in my day or because a larger concern distracts me. Were I spending less time engaging in whole class instruction, I would have more time for individual interventions. With this in mind, one of the units of measurement for this inquiry will be whether these problematic behaviors decrease in correlation to my increased ability to attend to them. A more qualitative measure will be my own perceptions of the degree to which I can come to know my students as individuals in both the academic sense and the personal. The biggest measure will be whether an improvement in the abilities of students on all ends of the academic spectrum

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correlates with the differentiated instruction that the balance of group work and teacher guidance should provide. For instance, in the area of writing, are the lower level writers improving their abilities to use correct grammar while at the same time advanced writers are learning to take creative risks in style and subject matter? The major challenge I see in the implementation of this project concerns the front-loading of information, skills, and expectations that will be necessary to facilitate the level of student independence I am proposing. So far I have noticed in myself a weakness when it comes to making sure that students know in advance exactly what is expected of them and what strategies they might use to meet these expectations. I tend to rush through some instructions, assume preexisting knowledge the students may lack, and/or fail to emphasize the difference between the major requirements and the peripheral details. One of the first steps I will need to take is to consciously strengthen this aspect of my teaching. Then, when I have done everything in my power to set my students up for success, I can begin to truly explore the implications of this inquiry project by focusing in on the students who remain unsuccessful in order to find out why. The short-term goals (accomplished this year) of the project are to improve student performance and to find an optimal teaching style that allows me to engage individual students more personally and more regularly. The long term goals (potentially lifelong) are to become a better teacher and to help my students become better human beings. The first step toward this last goal is to get to know them as human beings. The purpose of this project is to explore the next steps.

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References Christensen, L. (2009). Teaching for joy and justice: re-imagining the language arts classroom. Milwaukee: Rethinking Schools Publication. Freire, P. (2000). Pedagogy of the oppressed (30th anniversary ed.). New York: Continuum. Tomlinson, C. A., & McTighe, J. (2006).Integrating differentiated instruction & understanding by design connecting content and kids. Alexandria, Va.: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development. Weinstein, C. S. (2007). Managing groupwork. Middle and secondary classroom management: lessons from research and practice (3rd ed., pp. 237-273). Boston: McGraw-Hill. Young, L. (2007). Portals into poetry: using generative writing groups to facilitate student engagement with word art. Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, 51(1), 50-55.