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Meeting the needs of academic diverse learners is the responsibility of their instructor. These diverse learners may include students who are one or more grade levels below classmates and the gifted student who is that much above. How can educators meet the needs of these students when their learning abilities are found at opposite ends of the instructional spectrum? The answer is planning successful lessons involving engaging activities, a variety of texts, technology implementation, and flexible grouping. The following is a lesson I implemented covering these key components.
The title of such an engaging lesson is “Life Changes-Details of a Life Cycle” which deals with the concept of changes living things go through as part of their existence. This lesson covers the Language Arts Florida Standards by using key details to retell a story, answer questions, and demonstrate an understanding of the central message Florida Department of Education (2014).My group of literacy learners have their own uniqueness of acquiring knowledge thus, this science lesson on life cycles must adhere to his or her individuality of learning ability. Powell and Powell (2012) suggested instruction should go from topics to concepts and have enduring value through personalized learning.
This personalized learning begins with S-A who is the highest achiever in the group. This lesson provided S-A with the opportunity to use technology to analyze and manipulate two different life cycle stages. This was an introduction to comparing and contrasting for a future lesson. S-A’s technology experience continued as she created a class presentation of a life cycle. Her life cycle included pictures and text utilizing Clip Art and Word. As an independent learner and re...
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...ust take place. First, informal assessments must occur to understand the learning level of students and skill areas needing to improve. Using interest surveys help in planning for activities to keep students engaged in the learning process. Next, assignments must match the student’s learning and instructional level. In addition, incorporating flexible grouping by learning styles, interests, and intelligences affords the learner a better chance of success. Finally, differentiated instruction is slowly leaning towards personal learning where students choose their own paths through the curriculum reported Richardson (2012b). In my opinion, this will be the future of education, as classrooms of this nature will cultivate self-paced, self-interested, and self-motivated students who fully take on the responsibility of their education, while doing so alongside the teacher.
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 .
Rothstein-Fisch, C. & Trumbull, E. (2008). Managing Diverse Classrooms. Alexandria: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.
This source will equip the argument for utilizing diversity as an educational apparatus that supports student development and learning. The showcase of impact of diversity student engagement will definitely be useful for providing a strong reasoning for showcasing how the experience of students in the US schooling system shapes the educational experiences of diversified student group.
Cloran (n.d.) suggest teachers need to have a broad understanding of giftedness and learning disabilities, a variety of identification measures and the ability to modify the curriculum and implement differentiated teaching strategies to meet the unique needs of all students. A graduate teacher recognises that students learn in their own way and should understand and be able to identify a number of teaching strategies to differentiate and meet the learning needs of all students. They may create groups based on previous assessment results and set clear or modified instructions for each group based on ability or learning styles. To address the specific learning needs of all student abilities, multi-sensory strategies using charts, diagrams, outside lessons and videos, as well as posters around the room or information on the desk could be used. Tomlinson (1999) suggests that differentiated instruction aims to build on student’s strengths and maximize their learning by adjusting instructional tasks to suit their individual needs. Ensuring teaching and instructions are clear, revising and prompting students during lessons and providing templates and assisting student in breaking down tasks into achievable, systematic chunks are some additional examples. Lucas, (2008) suggests highlighting key vocabulary within the text to focus students on the central concepts within the text. Quick finishing students should be provided with the opportunity to extend themselves with extension tasks that have a specific purpose and
The importance of having a curriculum that accommodates diverse learners, it allows the child to learn at their own level or ability. A child with emotional and intellectual challenges may not have the verbal or comprehension skills or the ability to control their body as their peers. With this in mind, classes with diverse learners can excel with an adjusted curriculum. An activity for example, using large Legos to teach the entire class their colors or numbers can help the intellectual challenge by asking to build a building by using on certain colors or amounts. By doing this activity the students can have fun and learn at the same time with using very little words. Also in a group activity the emoti...
...ualized plan due to time constraints, it is reasonable to treat each student as they do have an individualized education. Teachers should know their students well enough to individualize the classroom activities so all students have strengths in each lesson. Through collaborative efforts, teachers can gain knowledge about the students and new ways to teach according to different learning styles. Working together, each student can receive an individualized education where their full potential is used.
Shore, Marietta Saravia. (2011). “Diverse Teaching Strategies for Diverse Learners” Chapter 2. Educating Everybody's Children: Diverse Teaching Strategies for Diverse Learners. http://www.ascd.org/publications/books/107003/chapters/Diverse-Teaching-Strategies-for-Diverse-Learners.aspx
In today’s educational environment, all students expect to receive the same level of instruction from schools and all students must meet the same set of standards. Expectations for students with learning disabilities are the same as students without any learning difficulties. It is now unacceptable for schools or teachers to expect less from one segment of students because they have physical disabilities, learning disabilities, discipline problems, or come from poor backgrounds. Standardize testing has resulted in making every student count as much as their peers and the most positive impact has been seen with the lowest ability students. Schools have developed new approaches to reach these previously underserved students while maintaining passing scores for the whole student body. To ensure academic success, teachers employ a multi-strategy approach to develop students of differing abilities and backgrounds. Every student is different in what skills and experiences they bring to the classroom; their personality, background, and interests are as varied as the ways in which teachers can choose to instruct them. Differentiated instruction has been an effective method in which teachers can engage students of various backgrounds and achieve whole-class success. When using differentiated instruction, teachers develop lesson strategies for each student or groups of students that provide different avenues of learning but all avenues arrive at the same learning goal.
There being many benefits to this type of instruction, one of them is that it helps the teachers to address the learning needs of each and every student. This is able to be done by targeting the student characteristics that we discussed earlier that Tomlinson has identified (readiness, interest, and learning profile). When wanting to plan for differentiated instruction, knowing your students' interests and dominant learning styles can permit the teacher to plan learning lessons and activities that categorically target what students would like to learn and how they learn best (Servilio, 2009). When teachers are able to target and teach to the students' readiness level, they can accommodate a student who has mastered the lesson content and is ready to be challenged and similarly for a student who is struggling with the lesson content and is in need of a modified lesson that will guide them in mastering the content. Once a need is identified, the teacher should respond by finding a method or a solution to answer the need that has been presented in order for all their students to be successful in learning (VanSciver, 2005). As
As teachers we plan our lessons and think to ourselves, "my students are going to love this lesson and will be able to understand what I am teaching", but sometimes that isn 't the case. You may plan a lesson in hopes that your students understand but it doesn 't go as planned. Every student learns differently and thinks differently and because of this we, as teachers must learn to differentiate our lessons. This may require us to change the way we deliver our lesson, change the activities for our lessons or even change the wording of our material so students understand. In this paper, I will be differentiating a lesson plan based on student readiness, student interest and student learning profile for content, process, and product.
Author unkown (2003, March 9). In gifted classrooms is diversity lacking?. Salisbury Daily Times. Retrieved March 10, 2003, from http://www.dailytimesonline.com/new/stories/20030309/localnews/1142640.html
The world is currently undergoing a cultural change, and we live in an increasingly diverse society. This change is not only affect the people in the community but also affect the way education is viewed. Teaching diversity in the classroom and focusing multicultural activities in the programs can help improve positive social behavior in children. There is no question that the education must be prepared to embrace the diversity and to teach an increasingly diverse population of young children.
There are many factors that play a role in the learning process for every human being. Race, religion, language, socioeconomics, gender, family structure, and disabilities can all affect the ways in which we learn. Educators must take special measures in the delivery of classroom instruction to celebrate the learning and cultural differences of each of their students. As communities and schools continue to grow in diversity, teachers are searching for effective educational programs to accommodate the various learning styles of each student while promoting acceptance of cultural differences throughout the classroom. It no longer suffices to plan educational experiences only for middle-or upper class white learners and then expect students of other social classes and cultures to change perspectives on motivation and competition, learning styles, and attitudes and values that their homes and families have instilled in them (Manning & Baruth, 2009).
According to David O. McKay (2013), multicultural education is constructed to prepare pupils for citizenship in a democratic society by facilitating them to take into account the needs of all individuals; it shed light on how issues of language, ethnicity, culture, religion race, abilities/disabilities, and gender are entwined with educational content and processes. A multicultural curriculum is needed to accommodate for diverse learning and teaching styles of facilitators and pupils and to expose biases, stereotypes, and policies that can restrict achievement. What is more, a multicultural curriculum is also needed to help pupils, faculty, and staff become advocates for multicultural awareness, to ensure that content is fair, accurate, and inclusive, and to prepare pupils for diverse workplaces and multicultural environments. In writing this paper, the author will describe key issues of culturally diverse students, recommend a curriculum approach to address the issues, and discuss the challenges and benefits expected. In addition, she will describe three key issues of male and female students recommend a curriculum approach to address the issues, and discuss the challenges and benefits expected. In closing, she will describe three key issues of students with disabilities, who are mainstreamed, recommend a curriculum approach to address the issues, and discuss the challenges and benefits expected.
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