Week 4: Instructional Best Practices & Diverse Populations in the Middle School

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This week's articles focused on differentiated instruction and learning.  What I like about differentiated instruction is that teachers need to get creative and be aware of all the different learning levels in their classrooms.  A one size fits all approach will not work.  Differentiating instruction means teaching the same material to all students using a variety of instructional strategies, or it may require the teacher to deliver lessons at varying levels of difficulty based on the ability of each student.  Teachers who practice differentiation in the classroom include the following: design lessons based on students’ learning styles, group students by shared interest, topic, or ability for assignments, assess students’ learning using formative assessment, manage the classroom to create a safe and supportive environment, and continually assess and adjust lesson content to meet students’ needs.

 I've been in classrooms where differentiated instruction is in action and the classroom reflects a positive, well-working and collaborative environment.  

 One of the article highlights differentiating the content, process, and product.  I enjoyed reading about these three elements of differentiated instruction.  When I recently observed an ELA middle school classroom, the teacher did a great job at differentiating the process for her students.  The students had completed reading a poem and then broke into groups where each group had a different activity, such as journaling, think-pair-share and partner talk.  The groups were productive and the students enjoyed their tasks within the group.  Within my role in math support services, we do a lot of differentiated instruction on a daily basis.  We have students coming from various teachers so they are at different chapters or units within the math curriculum, so we need to break into groups based on levels and content areas.  If we didn't have a differentiated instruction approach our students would be lost or fall off task because of boredom.

Comments

  1. Steven Schaaf's Education BlogMarch 31, 2018 at 10:31 AM

    Kirsten,

    I enjoyed reading about differentiating instruction through content, process, and product as well. I feel like these articles were the first true discussion on what differentiated instruction is and how it can be done. Much of what I have learned up to this point has been a vague overview on what it is. Similar to what you are doing in your math support service groups, I have also been doing with various students and groups of students in the classrooms I work. It is definitely advantageous that we have personal experience with differentiation before we have our own classrooms. It gives us a leg up.

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  2. lisa_pesaventoMarch 31, 2018 at 8:47 PM

    Hi Kirsten,

    I love that you discussed how BORED students would be if differentiated instruction was not incorporated into the classroom because that's a REAL discussion point. Even aside from the obvious benefits that were described in the articles, in our classrooms, and by teachers we know, DI helps to keep students engaged! The more engaged we can make our students, the higher the chances they will come to LOVE to learn, and become lifelong learners. Hoppy Easter, my friend!

    ReplyDelete
  3. Malcom ThompsonApril 3, 2018 at 5:57 PM

    Kirsten,
    You have made some excellent points and I agree with your interpretation of D.I. I can also attest to it's effectiveness in the classroom. Student have to be able to break down the information that is presented to them and it helps to have a group of students that can help each other.

    ReplyDelete

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