Week 4
For this week, there were two articles that were assigned for reading. The first article, Food For Thought on Differentiated Instruction and 3 Ways to Plan for Diverse Learners. In the first article, I thought that it was important as to how it stated what differentiated instruction is and is not. It is NOT individualized instruction, which is what I thought differentiated meant. However, it was rather that differentiation means that a teacher makes time for a whole group, small group, and work with individual students. The teacher does different things for the whole classroom rather than 30 individual students. The first article also talked about flexible grouping meaning that teachers pair students of all different strengths in a group together. This is not putting one student in the same group with the same skill leveled students, but rather, giving them more opportunities to work with students who may have one strength that they are not as strong in.
I particularly liked the part of the article where it talked about the “middle” students. These students typically struggle in one part of a lesson and not in others. These are the students that tend to get “passed on” through the years because they perform “just fine.” However, these are students that need attention just as struggling or excelling students do. In many of my placements, this also seems to be the case. This is similar to another blog post that I had in which the “good” students are often not remembered or paid attention to because they don’t need the teacher's help. This is a similar situation in which students who are doing “just fine” are often ignored. That seemed to be the case in many of my placements. I never heard about the students who struggled in some areas and did well in others. It always seemed as if the student did not have enough “struggles” to pay attention to. The article stated that every student should be on the teacher’s radar, and I believe this type of student needs to be on the radar just as often as anyone else.
In the second article, it talked a lot about what it means to plan for differentiated instruction. At the thought of it, it seems overwhelming, at least to me it does. I wish I knew how experienced teachers do it. Yet, that is what the article was talking about. The article talked about how teachers already have the tools at their fingertips. The article stated that teachers prepare content, process, and product. These are areas in which teachers already understand and know how to do. The content is the knowledge and how teachers present that information to students. The process is the type of formative assessment, as to understanding what students do and don’t understand about what they learned. The product shows how the students show what they learned through a more formal area of assessment. The differentiation comes in as to how the teacher gives choices for the students to pick from to present information.
I am not going to lie, the idea of differentiated instruction still scares me a little. I worry about how I am going to meet the different needs of all my students at once. However, I do remember a few times in my educational career where past teachers did allow me to choose what way I wanted to present my information rather than a test or quiz. I always loved when teachers did this because I was able to decide how I wanted my information to be presented. I think of that and I think that is one way in which I can allow students to show me what they learned rather than in the form of a test. As for field placement, I have not seen many teachers allow students to pick how they want to show what they learned. Most of the time, it has been in the form of a test or a project. The lessons that lead up to the test were also the same. All the students had to do the same reading, project, or other activity as everyone else. There was one time in a placement of mine where I think differentiated instruction applied. During the literacy part of the day, students were placed into groups based on their reading level. Students who were higher up in their level read more challenging books and had more questions. The students who struggled read easier books and those that were “average” read the normal reading level for their grade level. This allowed all the students to participate in the same content, literacy, but each student were learning at their appropriate level.
I particularly liked the part of the article where it talked about the “middle” students. These students typically struggle in one part of a lesson and not in others. These are the students that tend to get “passed on” through the years because they perform “just fine.” However, these are students that need attention just as struggling or excelling students do. In many of my placements, this also seems to be the case. This is similar to another blog post that I had in which the “good” students are often not remembered or paid attention to because they don’t need the teacher's help. This is a similar situation in which students who are doing “just fine” are often ignored. That seemed to be the case in many of my placements. I never heard about the students who struggled in some areas and did well in others. It always seemed as if the student did not have enough “struggles” to pay attention to. The article stated that every student should be on the teacher’s radar, and I believe this type of student needs to be on the radar just as often as anyone else.
In the second article, it talked a lot about what it means to plan for differentiated instruction. At the thought of it, it seems overwhelming, at least to me it does. I wish I knew how experienced teachers do it. Yet, that is what the article was talking about. The article talked about how teachers already have the tools at their fingertips. The article stated that teachers prepare content, process, and product. These are areas in which teachers already understand and know how to do. The content is the knowledge and how teachers present that information to students. The process is the type of formative assessment, as to understanding what students do and don’t understand about what they learned. The product shows how the students show what they learned through a more formal area of assessment. The differentiation comes in as to how the teacher gives choices for the students to pick from to present information.
I am not going to lie, the idea of differentiated instruction still scares me a little. I worry about how I am going to meet the different needs of all my students at once. However, I do remember a few times in my educational career where past teachers did allow me to choose what way I wanted to present my information rather than a test or quiz. I always loved when teachers did this because I was able to decide how I wanted my information to be presented. I think of that and I think that is one way in which I can allow students to show me what they learned rather than in the form of a test. As for field placement, I have not seen many teachers allow students to pick how they want to show what they learned. Most of the time, it has been in the form of a test or a project. The lessons that lead up to the test were also the same. All the students had to do the same reading, project, or other activity as everyone else. There was one time in a placement of mine where I think differentiated instruction applied. During the literacy part of the day, students were placed into groups based on their reading level. Students who were higher up in their level read more challenging books and had more questions. The students who struggled read easier books and those that were “average” read the normal reading level for their grade level. This allowed all the students to participate in the same content, literacy, but each student were learning at their appropriate level.
Samantha I agree with you that the thought of using differentiated instruction in my classroom. I worry that I may not do it correctly and it will caused more harm for the students than help. I am sure most of us will make some errors doing this to start. We will learn what works and doesn't work and we will get better. As I was reading the article and it was talking about the middle student, I realized that was me in school. I understood a lot of the lessons, but there was always some that I had trouble with. I bet if more teachers used DI then I would have picked up on lessons quicker and did better than I did.
ReplyDeleteHey Samantha! I also feel nervous about the idea of differentiating lessons because there always seems to be a shortage of time in the classroom. As a result the "middle of the road" students don't always get the attention they need, since there are others with larger "needs". I did like the idea of the planning differentiating into the lesson plan to help ALL of the students in the class. Teaching does seem a lot like parenting, there is never enough time for everything and the kids who are less of a problem, get less attention. Planning goes along way I think in the classroom and at home, if there is time for planning at home 😊. But planning to have one-on-one time with each kid at home or student does need to be part of the program somewhere, somehow. I have seen a few teachers be really good at connecting personally to the students because they were able to get to know each student. As a teacher, planning to differentiate and somehow work with each student are goals I would like to aim higher each and every school year.
ReplyDeleteI so agree that we need to give attention to the middle students as well as the excelling and struggling students. They often get overlooked and left behind because it looks like they are doing okay. They shouldn't be left behind because they aren't the highest or lowest in the class. Even though they may not need the extra help or need specialized lesson plans, they may need some encouragement or just some attention. The last thing is that I want some of my students to think is that I didn't care about them because I didn't pay any attention to them.
ReplyDeleteI can see how giving students options for final projects can be freeing and more exciting that a set project. However, I struggle with extremely open-ended standards for a project. I am extremely left-brained this way. If I'm asked to write a paper, I want to know how long an appropriate length is. If I'm asked to do a final project, I need some specific standards about what the project should look like. I think giving both options: a pre-defined project as well as being able to have alternative projects approved by the teacher allows for even better differentiated lessons for the students.