Amy Garrett 7 November 2013 ELED 300 Module 4 Writing Prompt

Differentiation is when the teacher plans accordingly to the needs of diverse students. These needs can include social, emotional, physical, motivational, and language. The teacher should value student differences and always be clear when teaching content material. Assessment and instruction should go hand in hand. It is important to assess students beforehand to determine what they already know. Flexibility is key in a differentiated classroom. The teacher should be able to adjust content when needed to match the students interests and learning readiness. Teachers and students should work collaboratively to reach their goals. One effective teaching strategy to create differentiation is chunking, or breaking down activities into more manageable parts. My mentor teacher, Ms. Toma, uses differentiation in her second grade classroom in several ways. She pairs students together during reading time. The pairing is done at random and the students are to work together to find a book that they both want
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Amy Garrett 7 November 2013 ELED 300 Module 4 Writing Prompt

to read. If one student is struggling with the book, she instructs the other student to help guide them or listen to them read. Ms. Toma groups her students together on Flashlight Friday. She turns off the lights and allows a group of three or four students to read one book quietly while each member takes turns shining the flashlight on the page and reading it aloud. She allows for peer tutoring in many ways such as students assisting each other while they are working on their alphabetic order. Some students excel in putting words into alphabetic sequence while others have difficulty understanding what letters to look at to understand the pattern. She instructs the students who have this task down to walk around the room and assist their classmates. Ms. Toma uses cooperative learning in her classroom everyday. She has students work in groups and encourage each other to share their thoughts and ideas with the group. She often has her students conduct surveys. She has her students get into a small group and together they are to come up with a genre such as favorite animal, food, movie, etc.
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Amy Garrett 7 November 2013 ELED 300 Module 4 Writing Prompt

Her goal is for the group to work collaboratively and come up with one main idea that the group can agree on. They must find subcategories under each genre and then ask their peers what they choose. When the class finishes their surveys, they meet and have a discussion about their results. In my classroom I will create a balance of whole class, group, and independent learning. I would use cooperative learning in my classroom to promote learning and friendships among diverse students. I could do this by dividing the students into teams to create a Jigsaw technique. Each student within the team would contribute by becoming an expert on a particular part of the assignment and would then teach their section to the rest of their team. The lessons would be structured to require high levels of critical thinking. I could incorporate peer tutoring by having my students write in their own shared writing journals. I would give them a topic to write about for each journal entry, and then have them swap their journals with another student. The students would
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Amy Garrett 7 November 2013 ELED 300 Module 4 Writing Prompt

stay on task by making corrections, and write positive notes about the journal entry they read. This will help students give and accept feedback from their peers. I will provide assignments that fit for students with different levels of achievement. Most importantly, I will set high expectations for all of my students. My goal will be to meet each individual needs and extend their learning experiences past the core curriculum.