Differentiated Instruction

Putting together our presentation on differentiation of instruction proved to be very helpful to the way I think about education. We read many articles that all confirmed the success this approach can allow students to have and read many strong and distinguished voiced on the subject. One person who kept popping up in our research was Carol Tomlinson who seems to be the leading voice on Differentiation. He passion to ensure EVERY single student learns and to the best of their ability was inspiring and it was comforting to know there are such great pioneers in the field out there. Some points about Differentiation that I found to be the most interesting were the fact that EVERYONE can benefit from it (not just L.D. or gifted students, but everyone in between), and that it engages students in more real world problems and critical thinking skills. On the first point that it benefits everyone, we found that when you implement differentiation into your lessons that the strategies end up being just good teaching skills and allow most students to learn more effectively than the standard teacher-driven lecture and typical test at the end of a unit. Usually individualizing instruction and anticipating ways that students will struggle and need extra help will benefit every student in you class, not just the ones you set out to differentiate for in the first place. On the second point about differentiation utilizing critical thinking skills, the approach is great to help relate material to students lives as they are actually lived. When you incorporate content that is a reflection of students lives, they will make a connection with it and be much more interested in doing learning. We all know that learning is cool and have sought out topics that interest us for further research, but some students won't grasp this concept unless we use content that they can relate to and show them the wealth of relevant information that is out there. I hope all of you enjoy our presentation on Monday and find the information as helpful as I have.