"Carol Ann Tomlinson has said, differentiation means giving students multiple options for taking in information (1999)."
Integrating Exceptional Students
1. What are the key foundations of
differentiated instruction that you embrace in your own teaching
practices?
Recognizing my diverse learners in my classroom is the first step in how I will differentiate instruction in my classroom. During my internship I embraced the use of ongoing formative assessments to identify my students’ strengths and weakness, with this information I then used to meet my students needs by creating lesson plans to accommodate them. In my classroom the students are paired up in two or three groups to allow them to collaborate. In this setting they are engaged in accountable talk and then I am able to walk around and observe the students and the students learn from one another if they don’t understand teacher lingo. I like to encourage the students to problem solve especially during math lessons. In literacy class giving them a choice such as allowing the student to pick their own main idea by creating it for a writing topic gives the student a chance to be creative.
2. What struggles to do you continue to have with the notion of differentiated instruction?
Through teaching I have been able to see what works and what doesn’t work and from their I reflect on myself and then make changes to apply that same day again on a different class. Not all differentiation strategies work because all students are different and therefore changes always have to be made to instruction. Another struggle is that sometimes I feel that time flies in the classroom and sometimes the students don’t reach master level because they will need extra time to complete something. I have found the using lunch time is great to allow the students to compete work and projects. For example my CT takes the students to the classroom to eat lunch and allows them to continue to work on their assignments.
3. What questions do you still have or have arisen because of our work this semester?
As a teacher what are some sentences starters to talk to a parent who is in denial about their child with disabilities?
If a child isn’t diagnosed but you suspect they might and you have started to collect data and gather documentation what is the next step from here?
What are some strategies to differentiation instruction to primary grades that are easy for them to understand?
4. While answering these questions share some benefits and challenges from your own personal experience you have had using the philosophy and methods covered in this course. Be specific.
I use RAFT in one of my lessons for the students to do and this was one of their favorites because they connected with “Immigration” because of the classroom cultural backgrounds. I have 4th graders and they enjoyed read lauds done with a picture book and they are always so engaged. After the read aloud based on the book and its travel that character took I used an anchor chart and passed out post it notes to all the students and then they got to place them on the anchor chart for everyone to see. The use of artifacts after the lesson or activity allowed the students to see real things instead of seeing them through a slideshow. They got to see my artifacts that I have collected throughout all my travels around the world.
Recognizing my diverse learners in my classroom is the first step in how I will differentiate instruction in my classroom. During my internship I embraced the use of ongoing formative assessments to identify my students’ strengths and weakness, with this information I then used to meet my students needs by creating lesson plans to accommodate them. In my classroom the students are paired up in two or three groups to allow them to collaborate. In this setting they are engaged in accountable talk and then I am able to walk around and observe the students and the students learn from one another if they don’t understand teacher lingo. I like to encourage the students to problem solve especially during math lessons. In literacy class giving them a choice such as allowing the student to pick their own main idea by creating it for a writing topic gives the student a chance to be creative.
2. What struggles to do you continue to have with the notion of differentiated instruction?
Through teaching I have been able to see what works and what doesn’t work and from their I reflect on myself and then make changes to apply that same day again on a different class. Not all differentiation strategies work because all students are different and therefore changes always have to be made to instruction. Another struggle is that sometimes I feel that time flies in the classroom and sometimes the students don’t reach master level because they will need extra time to complete something. I have found the using lunch time is great to allow the students to compete work and projects. For example my CT takes the students to the classroom to eat lunch and allows them to continue to work on their assignments.
3. What questions do you still have or have arisen because of our work this semester?
As a teacher what are some sentences starters to talk to a parent who is in denial about their child with disabilities?
If a child isn’t diagnosed but you suspect they might and you have started to collect data and gather documentation what is the next step from here?
What are some strategies to differentiation instruction to primary grades that are easy for them to understand?
4. While answering these questions share some benefits and challenges from your own personal experience you have had using the philosophy and methods covered in this course. Be specific.
I use RAFT in one of my lessons for the students to do and this was one of their favorites because they connected with “Immigration” because of the classroom cultural backgrounds. I have 4th graders and they enjoyed read lauds done with a picture book and they are always so engaged. After the read aloud based on the book and its travel that character took I used an anchor chart and passed out post it notes to all the students and then they got to place them on the anchor chart for everyone to see. The use of artifacts after the lesson or activity allowed the students to see real things instead of seeing them through a slideshow. They got to see my artifacts that I have collected throughout all my travels around the world.