Tuesday, March 26, 2013

Differentiation


Differentiation 

What and How and Does Technology Impact it?

Not all students are the same, some may differ ethnically, ability-wise, in family setups, and in personalities. A teacher needs to recognize and accept that their students may not have all the same needs and skill and that it  the teacher's job to alter and present lessons in a way that all his or her students will fully grasp and understand the knowledge they are being taught. Doing this is differentiation in the classroom. 
In a differentiated classroom a teacher can change content process, expected outcomes and even the learning environment to meet a child's needs. Differentiation is based on the individual children's needs, not the grade-level's. To help teacher's effectively teach in a differentiated classroom they can look to Blooms Taxonomy Questions for some guidance. 

I have seen differentiation be extremely effective in the classroom, but I have also seen it fail and/or not be used in the classroom. Teachers in my high-school have used to to help students with learning disabilities be successful in the assignments and fully understand it. I feel that the growing availability of technology to schools is important and beneficial to differentiation in schools. It opens new doors and ways to explain and manipulate content and lessons in ways that may not have been able to work before technology. For instance, a student who may miss a large amount of schools do to illness can now use a robot with a web cam to still attend and interact with their teachers and peers at school while home or in the hospital, this in my opinion a way that differentiation is being aided by technology.

5 comments:

  1. I agree with you about how the availability of technology to schools is important and beneficial to differentiation! I also like your definition of differentiation!

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  2. I completely agree with the fact that the growing availability of technology will allow differentiation to be more effective in classrooms but I also believe that incorporating technology could become difficult in some areas where technology is not as prevelent. whihc in return could make differentiation much more challenging.

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  3. You're thoughts on differentiation are really well put.

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  4. I agree with most of your thoughts on differentiation. It is up to us as teachers to try and reach all of our students. We are taught to “teach to the middle”, but I don’t think that is enough. To me everyone is able to learn if we frame the content correctly. We have to create lessons that are engaging and within the student’s Zone of Proximal Development. We need to push our students, but not overwhelm them. I don’t necessarily see technology helping to differentiate. It might or might not depending on how the teacher uses it.

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