Guided Response: Review several of your classmates’ responses. Respond to at least two and examine their five guidelines to determine student readiness. Provide additional ideas to their guidelines that may have been different than your own. Be sure to respond to any queries or comments posted by your instructor.

1. Tiffany

I work in a community college and we have some high school students taking classes, to attend they must show college readiness.  To find that out they must take a placement test and score a certain score, or provide SAT/ACT scores depending on the score they can exhibit college readiness.  Ability is what a student is able to do like speak English, read, write, and the more they can do the higher their ability.  Readiness is a student’s level of understanding comparative to a specific concept or skill at a given time ().  Just because a student has a gifted ability does not mean they will show readiness for every concept, just because a student has a disability does not mean they do not show readiness. Students react to learning within their zone of proximal development in a positive way, because it represents the next likely step in their open-ended skill development.  ZPD is related to readiness because it shows where a student’s readiness is on the ZPD for the skill at hand.  If a student is on the low level of competence a teacher will have to assist the student to complete the task, and their teacher would not want to give them something on the high challenge side because the student will become frustrated.  If a student is on the high level of competence the teacher wants to give them a higher challenge or they will get bored.  I will determine readiness levels by having each student read to me, and I can see how strong a reader they are, and ask questions about what they just read to see their level of comprehension.  I would have direction following test on the first day or week of classes.  I would have the students work independently and in a group to see how well they can work in both settings.  The guidelines in the text are extremely helpful to determine the level of readiness your students are, and how you can improve their readiness in the tasks. 

Guided Response: Review several of your classmates’ responses. Respond to at least two and examine their five guidelines to determine student readiness. Provide additional ideas to their guidelines that may have been different than your own. Be sure to respond to any queries or comments posted by your instructor.

1. Melissa

Student readiness is how prepared a student is for a particular subject

Student ability is what a student can do

“According to the Zone of Proximal Development a task should be a little beyond the learners’ current reach, and the learner should have a social support system to help them “bridge the gap” between what they know and what they need to know (Sousa,Tomlinson,Ann, 2010)”.

The first way I will ensure student readiness in my class is starting the class out with a pre assessment to determine where each student stands in their education. After reviewing the pre-assessments determine a plan for students that already show mastery skills in unit areas and ones that show some struggles in certain areas (Sousa,Tomlinson,Ann, 2010). To help my students to be even more successful I want to ensure there is equal time to work as an individual and as a group to ensure there is time for brainstorming among student  (Sousa,Tomlinson,Ann, 2010). Ensuring your classwork, assessments and planning align with your students abilities and readiness will ensure each student is successful!

Sousa, D. A., Tomlinson, C. A., & Ann, T., Carol (2010). Differentiation and the brain: How neuroscience supports the learner-friendly classroom. Bloomington, IN: Solution Tree Press.