Week Four
Happy Saturday, everyone!
The topic of the content this week was differentiated instruction. The first article emphasized what DI is NOT. It offered that differentiated instruction is not individualized, chaotic, a way to provide homogeneous grouping, or just for outliers. I am actually really glad this article was assigned to read. I think the term "differentiated instruction" is a bit intimidating because of the emphasis that our program- and I suppose many other education programs- put on its utilization in the classroom. To quite honest, I was not 100 percent sure what it entailed until the articles assigned this week. The part of the first article that resonated with me was the idea that DI is NOT a way to provide homogeneous grouping.
I think that schools in the past often utilized the practice of grouping students with those of similar intellectual abilities together in the classroom. In fact, I do not think that this practice is completely eradicated. As recently as a year ago, my son told me that a teacher in his school has all the smart kids sit together, all the class clowns sit together, etc.... He further explained that all the groups were given different work in class. This is why the idea of NO homogeneous grouping resonated with me. I think it's so important that students are grouped with others that have different strengths and weaknesses. Most time, students can learn a lot from peers. Furthermore, no homogeneous grouping promotes a positive classroom environment, and allows students to have a chance to feel good about themselves when they help classmates learn and process material.
The second article, " 3 Ways to Plan for Diverse Learners: What Teacher's Do" was a really awesome article in the sense that it broke down how it works, and gave examples of implementation. I learned a lot from reading how teachers break down DI in the areas of content, processing, and product. After I read the article, I realized that I am doing a lot of DI in my lesson planning in all three areas, and that made me feel more confident for future lesson planning.
I definitely think that current educators are moving in the direction of implementing at least a little bit of DI into their classrooms. I know in this program, it is stressed in EVERY class we've had. I think that it is very telling that every instructor I have had has stressed it's importance, and discussed the results they have seen firsthand. There is no arguing with the very real experience of seasoned educators! I look forward to using this information going forward with my studies, and implementing some of the examples that were available in the article.
'Til next week!
The topic of the content this week was differentiated instruction. The first article emphasized what DI is NOT. It offered that differentiated instruction is not individualized, chaotic, a way to provide homogeneous grouping, or just for outliers. I am actually really glad this article was assigned to read. I think the term "differentiated instruction" is a bit intimidating because of the emphasis that our program- and I suppose many other education programs- put on its utilization in the classroom. To quite honest, I was not 100 percent sure what it entailed until the articles assigned this week. The part of the first article that resonated with me was the idea that DI is NOT a way to provide homogeneous grouping.
I think that schools in the past often utilized the practice of grouping students with those of similar intellectual abilities together in the classroom. In fact, I do not think that this practice is completely eradicated. As recently as a year ago, my son told me that a teacher in his school has all the smart kids sit together, all the class clowns sit together, etc.... He further explained that all the groups were given different work in class. This is why the idea of NO homogeneous grouping resonated with me. I think it's so important that students are grouped with others that have different strengths and weaknesses. Most time, students can learn a lot from peers. Furthermore, no homogeneous grouping promotes a positive classroom environment, and allows students to have a chance to feel good about themselves when they help classmates learn and process material.
The second article, " 3 Ways to Plan for Diverse Learners: What Teacher's Do" was a really awesome article in the sense that it broke down how it works, and gave examples of implementation. I learned a lot from reading how teachers break down DI in the areas of content, processing, and product. After I read the article, I realized that I am doing a lot of DI in my lesson planning in all three areas, and that made me feel more confident for future lesson planning.
I definitely think that current educators are moving in the direction of implementing at least a little bit of DI into their classrooms. I know in this program, it is stressed in EVERY class we've had. I think that it is very telling that every instructor I have had has stressed it's importance, and discussed the results they have seen firsthand. There is no arguing with the very real experience of seasoned educators! I look forward to using this information going forward with my studies, and implementing some of the examples that were available in the article.
'Til next week!
Hi Lisa,
ReplyDeleteI agree that the DI approach has been stressed and highlighted in all of our coursework at Trinity. It's one thing to talk and read about DI, but once we have our own classrooms and students, it will be nice to put it to work and see the benefits of how the DI approach can help our students. I look forward to seeing it all unfold.
I also agree about grouping students based on various strengths and weaknesses. We can all learn a lot from each other. I've seen this work first-hand when a student takes on a leadership role or a facilitator role within a group - the student's confidence sky rockets. Pretty cool to see!
Great post!
Thanks,
Kirsten
Lisa,
ReplyDeleteThough I agree with the lion's share of your post from this week, one thing that I feel isn't new is the students who tend to group with people like themselves. At least when I was in school, the "nerds" sat with the other "nerd", "jocks" with "jocks", "theater kids" with "theater kids", ect...
I also am glad that the first article told us what DI is not. Most people though that it was making differentiated lesson plans for everyone else, and sometimes it can sound like that. Personally, I sure am glad that we do not have to in order to properly use DI.
Lisa,
ReplyDeleteI like your point about the first article. When it stated that D.I. was not individualized instruction I took notice. So many times I thought that we had to teach each student differently every lesson. I was glad to find out that we as teachers must be fluid in our delivery and plan to teach objectively. That is interesting that your son noticed the grouping. When I was younger the teacher use to put the "smart kids" together because he didn't want the "class clown" slacking off.