Differentiation

Standard 3.1- Demonstrating Knowledge of Students

In the book “The First Days of School”, Harry and Rosemary Wong maintain that “effective teaching is all about teacher-student relationships” (pg. 68). Standard 3.1- Demonstrating Knowledge of Students is a perfect platform for this statement. This standard not only shows the importance of knowing your students as individuals but also the importance of the teacher recognizing students’ knowledge, skills and abilities. Differentiating student work and teaching strategies to ensure effective student learning.

In my 6^th grade Language Arts classroom, I have two groups of students that need consideration when lesson planning, Special Education students and Talented and Gifted students. To effectively support these opposite groups of learners, I use a number of strategies the most common being collaborative groups. “Working collaboratively with peers is an excellent way to challenge every student in your class…You can provide scaffolds like question prompts and sentence starters for lower-level students, and they’ll learn from the modeling provided by their peers as well. Higher-level students often enjoy sharing their knowledge, and they’ll enjoy the challenge of trying to impress their peers with well-structured and thought-out responses.” (Davies, 2015).  

In the provided lesson plan you can see evidence of differentiation for both Special Ed. students and Talented students. The first is the provided sentence starters for Special Ed students. This support is given to the students with writing accommodations, as well as, to one student who is prone to not engage if lengthy responses are required.  The sentence starters allow these students to quickly engage in the daily warm-up activity.

Collaborative group activities are another means of differentiation. Groups are assembled with consideration of the desired learning outcome. For this particular lesson, groups were a mixture of levels with each group having a higher-level student leader to guide responses and act as a peer mentor.  The breaking up of the comprehension questions into stations is a great way to keep students engaged. “Brain research tells us that students can actively listen to their teachers for as many minutes as their age. That means, for a middle school student, 15 minutes is about the longest time they will sit still and listen before they need to get up and move.” (Campbell, 2014). The combination of peer mentors and movement serve to keep students on task and engaged. Revisiting the day’s Learning Target (LT), either as an Exit Ticket or oral discussion, gives the students a voice and myself (the teacher) a system of formative assessment for future planning.

As a new teacher, the concept of successful differentiation is overwhelming. Factoring in and adjusting for the wide range of student abilities and levels seems an all-consuming task. In this area, I feel dedication and experience will be beneficial, as well as, taking advantage of advice and guidance from veteran teachers.

References

Campbell, K. (2014, March). Get Your Students Moving. Retrieved January 01, 2017, from https://www.amle.org/BrowsebyTopic/WhatsNew/WNDet/TabId/270/ArtMID/888/ArticleID/390/Get-Your-Students-Moving.aspx

Davies, E. (2015, March 02). 6 Steps to Differentiated Instruction. Retrieved January 01, 2017, from https://blog.remind.com/6-steps-to-differentiated-instruction/

Wong, H. K. & Wong, R. T. (2009). The first days of school: how to be an effective teacher. Mountain View, CA: Harry K. Wong Publications, Inc.