October 2018 Edition

Maria’s teaching strategies are
multiple and contextdependent.
More important,
each teaching strategy is
inspired in her philosophy of
education. For example, she
believes in the strategy of
cooperative learning because
her philosophy of teaching to
the whole child accentuates
skills such as collaboration,
critical thinking, and
communication. Another example is her use of instructional and assessment
differentiation. This differentiation strategy is rooted in her belief that teachers need
to meet students where they are without compromising the high expectations of
learning that characterize her classroom. Maria’s classroom has students from all
over the world, but many are Students with Interrupted Formal Education (SIFE) who
need a differentiated instruction and assessment for effective learning.
Finally, Maria uses a progressive scaffolding as supported by the concept of the zone
of proximal development (Vigotsky). In Maria’s classroom, students will experience
an increased level of rigor as they grow in their English language learning (i.e., oral,
listening, reading, and writing), their US History content knowledge, and their
success skills (i.e., collaboration, critical thinking, global citizenship, innovation, and
resiliency). Throughout their learning process, students will move to higher levels of
cognitive and language ability that allow them to identify root causes behind our US
History.
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