Analyzing learners/Chapter 5

This chapter was easy to understand for me because these are things that I do all the time as I teach 4th grade, although not as in-depth. I am constantly evaluating what the students do and don't know, and adjusting the instruction to fit needs. One thing that came to mind while reading this is a topic that comes up a lot in our school meetings. It is, focusing on what is within our circle of influence. Our school has a large at-risk population and that is sometimes frustrating. We realized that we can't control things like what the parents do, socioeconomic factors, etc. We also can't control how the media/legislature sees us, new policies that are rolled out, etc. These fall within our circle of concern.  But, we focus on what we can control- such as classroom environment, quality of instruction/instructional strategies, etc., and this is what will help us to reach our goals Really, the whole ID process will help your focus on the circle of influence rather than the circle of concern.