That students differ may be inconvenient, but it is inescapable. Adapting to that diversity is the inevitable price of productivity, high standards, and fairness to the students. (Sizer, 1984) The educational system in the United States is going through significant changes. Higher standards along with student diversity are the focus of most schools. Even in a cluster room like mine, where all students are language learners, differentiation is vital. I have various students from different cultures. From Africa to Vietnam my students come with different cultural perspectives that shape their interests. Coming from a different country that may have different educational expectations also poses a challenge for a classroom like mine. Their academic readiness fluctuates greatly. Culture or interest, readiness, and language levels are the three main characteristics that I look at when I think of differentiation for my students.
With ongoing assessments in place, you can begin differentiating three aspects of your curriculum: content, process, and product (Laureate, 2011). Choosing how to deliver the content of any lesson that is tailor for language learners is hard work. I have to make sure that I use tools and strategies that tap into all the language domains and build vocabulary. For this lesson, I will use pictures, diagrams, and videos to convey the content. Using visuals will help support vocabulary. These delivery methods will help my auditory and visual learners. Along with my visuals, I will use gestures and movement to practice vocabulary. Engaging student in kinesthetic activities will help them retain vocabulary and boost comprehension. Teachers can appropriately differentiate the actual content (versus ways in which student...
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... lot of time and reflection. However, I understand that if I want my students to be successful, I must offer quality teaching and meet their needs. This is exactly what differentiation delivers to all learners. If, our passion is our students differentiation must be part of our lessons.
Works Cited
Laureate Education, Inc. (Producer) (2011) Differentiation, Part One.
Sizer, T. (1984). Horace’s Compromise: The Dilemma of the American High School (p.194).
Boston: Houghton-Mifflin
Tomlinson, C. A. (2010). Differentiating instruction in response to academically diverse student populations. In R.Marzano (Ed.), On excellence in teaching (pp. 247-268). Bloomington, IN: Solution Tree Press.
Tomlinson, C. A., & Allan, S. D. (2000). Leadership for differentiating schools and classrooms.
Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.
While differentiating instruction and being able to design lessons geared towards the needs of diverse learners are currently highly prized skills for teachers, this has not always been the case. The history of education in the United States is a history of segregation. Even today, schools and curriculum are designed to meet the needs of a core group of students, which does not include students with disabilities (Hitchcock, Meyer, Rose, & Jackson, 2002). In the past, learners who were different, out of the mainstream, or did not fit into the mold to which teachers taught (were not part of the core) learned how or lost out on learning. This is not to say that teachers of the past did not care about their students, about being effective teachers, or about student learning. However, as schools are mirrors reflecting mainstream societal norms (Chartock, 2010; Delpit, 2006)—and, given that our society has not always valued diversity in people, be it due to disability, class, culture, or race—teachers in the past have largely focused their efforts where they could earn the largest return on their investment: the average student .
Alger, Jonathan. "The Educational Value of Diversity." The American Association of University Professors. Academe, January/February 1997.
Ugbu, J., U. (1992). Understanding cultural diversity and learning. EDUC 160 Urban Education (Spring 2014, pp. 213-228)
racie Allen of the comedy team of Burns and Allen was once asked how one should speak French. She replied, “Well, you speak it the same way you speak English; you just use different words.” When trying to assist in instructing English language learners, they usually have many concepts and language abilities that they need to master, as do the teachers that are trying to teach them. With the incorporation of the concepts and approaches to identify and assess the issues and concerns that we have learned in our classroom instruction, such as lesson preparation, building background, and comprehensible input, we can indeed teach our future English language learners all the right moves with all the right words.
Rothstein-Fisch, C. & Trumbull, E. (2008). Managing Diverse Classrooms. Alexandria: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.
When teachers differentiate their lesson, the students are more engaged to learn. Students have some choice in their learning activities, which motivates students to want to learn and also puts more learning responsibility on the students. Some students may prefer to work alone or in groups and some students like to be hands-on. By differentiating the lesson, all students’ needs are being met. “Differentiated Instruction gives students a range of ways to access curriculum, instruction and assessment. DI engages students to interact and participate in the classroom in a richer way. It is based on the assumption that all students differ in their learning styles, strengths, needs and abilities and that classroom activities should be adapted to meet these differences
Diversity in classrooms can open student’s minds to all the world has to offer. At times diversity and understanding of culture, deviant experiences and perspectives can be difficult to fulfill, but with appropriate strategies and resources, it can lead students to gain a high level of respect for those unlike them, preferably from a judgmental and prejudiced view. Diversity has a broad range of spectrums. Students from all across the continent; students from political refugees, indigenous Americans, and immigrants bring their cultural and linguistic skills to American classrooms. Students not only bring their cultural and linguistic skills, but they bring their ethnicity, talents, and skills.
How do teachers enable all students of varying abilities to reach the same goals and standards established for their grade level? Instruction begins with a concept of treating each student as a unique learner whose strengths and weaknesses ha...
Instead, EL students benefit in learning new content knowledge when an instructor methodically produces a lesson with a systematic I do you do approach; while purposely adding visuals whenever possible. Modeling content knowledge can be accomplished when the instructor writes the objective or provides an outline of what the lesson entails in student friendly vocabulary for each lesson where students can visually see. Next, the instructor should discuss what the end goal of the lesson is through hand gestures and changing the speed and tone of the voice to elaborate key concepts. Additionally, teachers should provide visual vocabulary whenever possible. Playing videos, word walls, or showing pictures of key vocabulary in a lesson will help students who struggle with differences in language grasp what is being asked of them more clearly. Lastly, instructor should show examples of projects and essays for reference. This will allow EL students to visualize the end product; allowing them to organize their ideas and
A teacher’s responsibilities are to ensure that every student gets the education that they deserve from a well-structured curriculum and materials. Within the teacher’s responsibilities a strong foundation of instruction has to be implemented, this is why instructional strategies are significant in a teacher’s career. The strategies for instruction vary from teacher to teacher; as a result there are no specific ways to employ strategies within instruction. The main purpose of this essay is to display knowledge of methods that are involved in teaching second language instruction for various ages and levels of students. This essay will also develop from the following components that methods and techniques are important to encourage tactical instructional strategies. These components are comprehensible input, feedback that is on-going, specific and immediate, grouping structures and techniques, building background and vocabulary development along with student engagement.
In fact, at schools there is a lot of diversity. In the classroom cultural diversity should be appreciated because they will want to learn more about themselves and their culture (Borkar). Different groups means that there will be a wide variety of topics to discuss. This benefits the students because they can learn about the many different perspectives of the world around them. They can learn different ways of thinking and n...
The concepts included in providing a more diverse, multicultural education are requiring teachers to review their own issues and prejudices while expanding their knowledge of the many cultures that make up the classroom. These efforts help the educator recognize the various individual and cultural differences of each student, as well as gain an understanding on how these differences impact the learning process. The purpose of this paper is to reflect upon individual and cultural difference research and why diverse students struggle to succeed in school. Furthermore, I will share some instructional approaches I could implement in the classroom to accommodate diverse students. Finally, I will discuss the responsibility of educators in addressing the issue of how our o...
In conducting her research, the author understood that she needed to describe key issues of culturally diverse students, recommend a curriculum approach to address the issues, and discuss the challenges and benefits expected. In reading Cultural and Linguistic Diversity: Issues in Education (2010), s...
Some ways I plan to accommodate student diversity in my teaching is to maintain a diverse learning environment for my students. I understand that not all students learn the same so I plan to use differentiated instruction. Differentiated instruction would include using strategies such as a Jigsaw classroom or Cooperative Learning and would allow students to have different opportunities to learn the
...d a better understanding of differentiation, I have had several of my students tell me that I am the best math teacher they have ever had. They express their happiness by telling me that I teach math in a way they understand. They state, “You do not stand in front of the classroom and explain how to do the problem, give us homework, and move on to the next topic”. I take pride in this. I try very hard to help each of my students understand the necessary standards so when they leave my room, they are able to take a real-world problem and find solutions to them.