Hill 1

Mr. Himan 8th grade Social Studies: Differentiated Learning/Exceptional Learners

Mr. Himans classroom is a classroom built for every student at Gilbert. He knows how to

include differentiated learners and exceptional learners into his classroom. However he only

really sticks to a couple teaching styles and classroom activities and only teaches in a few ways,

mostly in lecture style.

In Mr. Himan’s classroom he acomonates for those students who are falling behind by

either requesting them for success center (which is a time that students may use as a study hall

if not requested by teacher for extra help) to give them extra attention. Mr. Himan will also

request students during this time if they receive a low grade on a test to reteach the unit and

allow them to prove to him that they understand the concept and then giving them a chance to

take a harder version of the test for a new grade to replace their old one on the test. For those

students who are more advanced the assignments allow for them to just show a higher quality

of work rather than an alternative assignment.

The activities I observed in his classroom was popcorn reading of either the textbook or

a speech by throwing a stuffed animal around the classroom to show who’s turn it is to read.

This activity is kinaesthetic because it gets the students moves and learning by tossing and

catching. I most often however observed Mr. Himan reading text to his students which is

auditory. He most frequently stuck to this and then had the students read the text by themself

after and then group and answer open ended questions that they wrote about the text.

Overall I like the way that Mr. Himan runs his classroom because it worked for me when

I was in his class but I understand that using only one style of teaching does not work for all
 Hill 2

students and will only work for some. I would say out of this aspect of his teaching the only

thing I wish to carry into my own classroom is his popcorn reading activity with the stuffed

animal because I thought that was an activity that seemed fun for the students.