Reflective Essay On Student Diversity

According to Human Relations For the Educators: Meeting Challenges For Today and Tomorrow, student diversity is the existence of dissimilar students contributing to the unique experiences found in the classroom. I personally like this definition because a classroom full of students will benefit from the uniqueness of diverse students. Every teacher will face a diversity of students in his or her classroom, which is why it is so important that we, as educators, can provide multiple strategies to meet the needs of all of our students. First, there are many faces of student diversity, and I believe that it is important for me to understand, value, and respect each of their individual differences. There will be students with different backgrounds,

Every student has a unique way of learning and is intelligent in their own way which is supported by the theory of multiple of intelligence. I believe that differentiating instruction is a great way to encompass the multiple intelligences in the classroom because it meets the needs of student differences in interests, readiness, and learning needs. In one of my practicum fields, I was able to observe a differentiated instruction. The teacher had expressed differentiation through choice boards, allowing students to choose among different options that best interest them. For example, one option was to draw out a state flag of their choice and give facts about the state on the back of the flag. A second option that was given was to allow students create a brochure of the state that included all the information a normal brochure would contain. Being able to observe what a choice board provides, gave me a better sense of what it means to differentiate the product and allowing multiple choices of assignments that appeal to different

Scaffolding is something you do first with the students, and then differentiation may be needed for the students who are struggling, in which case, accommodations in assignments or readings will be made. I believe that more teachers need to understand in order to suitably scaffold and differentiate; we also have to know the each student’s zone of proximal development. The zone of proximal development will vary from student to student and it connects back to having a diverse group of learners. From both the strategies I was able to start formulating ideas that I could implement in my lessons by making connections that could touch base on each face of