Differentiated Instruction

Hello readers! Happy May! I hope your month is starting as good as mine. 

As I mentioned before, I am preparing myself to become a credentialed teacher BUT, even if I was not enrolled at a program right now my years of experience working in school related jobs have proven to be incredibly illustrating because I know I will never stop feeling the need to learn. Why am I mentioning this? Well this is me just checking on and committing to learn new things this month. I will try to set a new commitment each coming month.

Today’s post will embrace the same thing I was mentioning before: LEARNING. Before making this commitment I had to sit and think, how am I going to learn? As it turns out there are several different ways to learn and understand and each individual has its own, mine is visual.

Again, why is this important? You might ask. In order to try and understand about the different learning ways my group has I need to cope with mine and process how it affects me and my students. I understand why every lesson is presented with as many visuals as possible, but I also know that is not what the whole group needs.

Understanding about the needs of your students and learning to work with strategies and resources that provide for them is a huge part of developing a differentiated learning environment. This must be a priority because as years go by the students become more diverse, meaning the needs for last year group might be completely the opposite for this year, even if they are around the same age and grade level. Thus why I am learning to use the resources I have to improve my teaching and give the opportunity to each of my students to have at least one activity within each lesson in which they are able to learn in their own way. For example I try to include visuals, videos, songs, worksheets, oral participation, team work and individual work.

It sure takes time and patience and my lessons might be far from perfect, sometimes they work and others don’t but I don’t give up and keep trying until I can reach their way and when I do their understanding face is the best reward.