1. Pushing All Students Above and Beyond

2. The Situation
As teachers, we assume certain things about our students based on
Family educational background
Family's financial status
Student's past academic performance
Student's behavior
We use this information to make judgments about student's academic abilities and behavior

3. The Issue
These assumptions and judgments affect how we approach the student.
We may plan different, making false assumptions about the student's ability to meet expectations.

4. Why is this an issue?
Our expectations for a student are the highest they will go
If we only assume a student can read at grade level, it is more than likely that the student will never read above grade level
Regardless of their natural talent or abilities

5. How to fix this Issue High expectations Scaffolding
Enabling strategies
Encouraging all students
Focus on skills instead on content knowledge

6. High Expectations Hold all students to a high bar
Use the next year's content expectations as a guide
Provide all students with opportunities to be exposed to information

7. Scaffolding
Provide students with activities that slowly step them toward the final product.
Instead of asking for the final product right away, guide students through a good thinking process
Showing students the steps that successful students take will allow them to follow similar processes in the future

8. Enabling Strategies
Like scaffolding, enabling strategies shows students what processes good learners go through.
Many struggling students are not aware of what strategies will help them succeed
Think-alouds allow the teacher to show what they are thinking during the learning process.
Walking through an activity allows students to see this as well.

9. Encouraging All Students
Although preconceived notions may cloud judgment, it is important that teacher continue to encourage all students
Each student deserves an encouraging teacher that believes that they can succeed.

10. Skills instead of Content
At the end of the day, we need to foster good citizen skills
Although we all love our content, we need to keep what is NECESSARY in mind (enduring skills)
We want to produce productive citizens!
By helping them build problem solving skills, we give them a leg up for living in a competitive world.