Teach Now (Teacher Certification): Differentiation and Collaboration

Module 5 Unit 2 Activity 1

Differentiation and Collaboration

Note that differentiation relates more to addressing students' different phases of learning from novice to capable to proficient rather than merely providing different activities to different (groups of) students.

—John Hattie, Visible Learning for Teachers

As stated above, differentiation is not just giving different students different activities to do. It is knowing students, their levels, the way they learn, and then adjusting the environment to encourage a positive learning climate. Differentiation can take place in process, content, product, and occurs with the students’ interests, willingness and learning abilities.

Student Diversity

In the near future, I envision myself working at an international school with elementary school children. I believe that if the school is anything like the international school I attended, the young learners will be mostly native, and a then have a few that are either TCKs, or children from parents who move around due to their jobs.

The students will be fluent in English which will be a great change from the low level students I currently teach, and if I manage to stay around Asia, I would believe that these students would be generally well behaved.

Currently I have no students with disabilities, but it is more than likely that I will encounter a student with either a physical or learning disability. Being able to teach a differentiated classroom will be great help for the teacher and the students in this situation as well.

I would like to teach children from the third grade up to the sixth grade and perhaps even consider teaching middle school after a few years teaching elementary students. With international school children and students coming in and out of the school knowing how to teach a differentiated classroom will be very helpful and hopefully ease different students into achieving high standards without having a negative impact on their attitude towards school. The major factor will be getting to know my students and their abilities and carefully figure out how to maximize their learning as a whole class.

Language Arts Class

I have chosen the lesson plan below because if I do teach at an elementary school, Language Arts or English will be one of the core subjects my students will most probably take. The lesson below can be taught in different levels by adjusting the difficulty of the lesson and though this particular lesson is for lower elementary grades, it can also be flexible enough to be taught in middle school if adjusted properly.

Lesson Objective:

• Students will be able to recognize the ending punctuation and the four different types of sentences which are: declarative, interrogative, imperative and exclamatory.

Preparation Time: 20 minutes

Resources: http://www.studyzone.org/testprep/ela4/o/typesofsentencesl.cfm          http://www.time4writing.com/writing-resources/types-of-sentences-and-punctuation/

http://www.studyzone.org/testprep/ela4/o/typesofsentencesl.cfm          http://www.time4writing.com/writing-resources/types-of-sentences-and-punctuation/

Lesson Plan: The teacher first thoroughly explains what a period, question mark, and exclamation mark is. After the students are familiar then the teacher explains the four types of sentences and what they are used for. The teacher will then give the students some examples and then they will read a few sentences and find the end mark together with the young learners. Then the teacher would give the students a worksheet of sentences with no punctuation and get them to write what type of sentences they are based upon their understanding of what was just taught to them.

One way to differentiate between the students with different levels is to ask questions using lower order questions of Bloom’s Taxonomy to lower level students such as when writing an exclamatory sentence, asking these students for the correct punctuation at the end of that sentence. For higher level students, the teacher can ask higher order questions of Bloom’s Taxonomy to higher level students such as to come up with another exclamatory sentence as an example for the rest of the class.

Another way to differentiate the class with this particular lesson is when after the teacher explains the four types of sentences there are as mentioned above, they will then give examples of different sentences and demonstrate how to use the correct ending punctuation with each (I, do). Then the teacher will have some examples on the board and he/she will do it together with the student (We, do). Afterwards the teacher can give out worksheets for the students to write the correct punctuation endings (You, do). This will be in a paragraph form where the students will have to read the text in context and write the correct pronunciations at the end of each sentence.

Next, the teacher would correct the paragraph together with the class giving them an opportunity to correct their mistakes and ask questions. For lower level students, having them concentrate on just the endings could be a challenge, but for more advanced students’ practice, the teacher can ask the students to write their own paragraph demonstrating an example of each of the four types of sentences. The students will produce two distinct types of products.

One last way to differentiate this particular lesson with the students is to make them all write the four different types of sentences with a given topic. In the beginning the teacher will indicate what particular sentence on the worksheet, i.e. declarative. Then when the sentences are done, the students can put them together and form a paragraph about that certain topic. For higher level students, they will still get a chance to write the paragraph but it will be broken down into steps.

All of the lessons are scaffolded and the activities are be broken down into steps and slowly introduced and built up. This can help reach students of all levels be a bit more even. Each activity is also tiered where more advanced students are challenged and lower level students are still encouraged and helped. Asking questions depending on their cognitive and language ability are also a great way to keep the students challenged at all times without feeling threatened as long as the teacher knows the students’ capabilities while having high expectations for them.