***This thread has been cross-posted in the Math and Numeracy, Science, and Reading and Writing groups.
The LINCS Learning Portal houses self-paced, freely accessible online courses developed by U.S. Department of Education, Office of Career, Technical, and Adult Education-funded initiatives.
This discussion thread is related to the LINCS online course entitled Differentiated Instruction and Lesson Planning that is available in the LINCS Learning Portal. During and after you complete the course, you are prompted to write reflections on the issues below. Please share your thoughts and experiences with your colleagues.
- Consider a lesson you currently teach. How would using differentiated instruction change it?
- Consider a lesson you currently teach. Does it have effective learning objectives that are specific, observable and measurable? If so, how do these shape the lesson? If not, how would effective learning objectives change the lesson?
- Write a reflection on how what you learned in this course shaped the lesson plan you produced and/or the success of your lesson.
Comments
There are several ways in which this course affected the lesson I produced.
After taking this course, I realize that I have already been using elements of DI in my lessons. However, this course has given me a better understanding of the terminology as well as more of the research that has been done in this field. One of the things I found very interesting was in the reading for the first module. There was a discussion of research done on the brain.
Researchers Tomlinson and Sousa (2011) state that, ”Recent discoveries regarding how the brain learns substantially support the components of differentiation” (p. 13). New technologies, including functional MRIs (magnetic resonance imaging), have traced the locations of varying brain activities. Additional research shows that environments – positive or negative – affect the brain’s biochemistry and, hence, its ability to learn. For example, asking a student for an answer she doesn’t know or expecting performance on a task that is too difficult can be perceived as threatening, negative and stressful. In such an environment, the brain stimulates hormones that raise anxiety levels, which produces responses aimed at mere survival, not learning. Conversely, in a positive, supportive environment, the brain stimulates a different set of hormones that leave it free to address new information, associating novel stimuli with neural pleasure centers, and responding with improved focus, memory and motivation.
This is not to say that learning should always be comfortable. Indeed, according to a concept called the “zone of proximal development” (ZPD) (Vygotsky, 1978; Tomlinson & Sousa, 2011), which has been used for many decades in teaching reading, maximum learning is achieved when tasks are a little bit beyond a student’s reach. If a student has the appropriate support to help her achieve that task, she is more likely to undertake it and succeed in learning. Tasks that are too easy may be seen as boring; those that are too difficult may be seen as threatening. Both reactions can interfere with learning.
I found the reading from the above article very interesting. To paraphrase this article, I think that much of teaching is deciding where to set the bar for your students. If you set the bar too high, they will feel discouraged and threatened. If you set the bar too low, they will feel bored. If you set the bar just a little bit out of their reach, they will feel challenged and will feel a sense of empowerment when they complete the task.
This is how the DI modules affected the lesson I produced for my multi-level ESL class. I built in several steps to the lesson: Step One for beginning low students: spell and pronounce the vocabulary for items in the home. Step Two for beginning high students: write sentences about the pictures/vocabulary using prepositions. Step Three for intermediate students: write a paragraph about the picture of the house or about your own home using prepositions.
My hope is that students of all three levels will be able to feel comfortable learning at their own pace. Also, that there will be multiple scaffolding opportunities for all three levels.
I'm thinking of a current sentences worksheet I designed and would now differentiate it in this manner: for the more competent students I would ask them to refer to an sheet with a list of adjectives and complete the sentence with an adjective of their choice. For the students who need more support, I would provide a limited word bank on the paper. For students needing the highest level of support, I would provide 2 choices at the end of each sentence.
My one lesson about work and employment includes completing a general job application. To meet students' diverse backgrounds, some students may not be able to complete all sections of the application. However, my learning objective will still include the specific, observable, & measurable components: "Given a 5 page general job application, students will complete at least 4 out of 5 pages using clear and legible penmanship." The specific and measurable objective helps me focus my instruction and keep reasonable expectations in mind for student outcomes when they come from so many different background experiences!
I teach adult incarcerated men with widely different NRS TABE levels in Reading, Language, and Math. I am unsure if I am on the right track regarding DI with this plan. Perhaps I have been on the right track in developing DI lessons and have not realized it. I got the memo: differentiated instruction is NOT individualized instruction. That is one principle that jumped off the page from the start. I understand differentiated instruction is NOT limited to classrooms with special needs or 504 adult students but can be executed in any classroom or training setting.
UPDATE: Students Will Be Able To plot points on a coordinate plane.
Here is a lesson plan for teaching the Coordinate Plane:
Teaching the concepts of the coordinate plane is one of my favorites. I love how the Pomegraphit Desmos Classroom Activity makes students think about ways to represent two things at once, an underlying idea when we represent something using coordinates. Further along in concept development, students can engage with something more formal.
One lesson that I do with my students in writing could easily be differentiated. After choosing a topic for study, I would introduce new vocabulary. After spending time learning the vocabulary, I would ask students to write sentences using the vocabulary. The low beginning students could label a picture using the vocabulary. The next level could take words written on index cards and put them in order to create a sentence. Then, they could copy the sentence correctly using correct writing mechanics such as capital letter and period. The intermediate level could write two sentences. The advanced level could have an activity that required them to use the vocabulary to write a paragraph, an email, or short story.
My name is Shirley Lake and for a number of years, I worked as a tutor with the Adult Education program at Chesapeake College. Now, I am a new ABE/GED Instructor, teaching a small class of talented adults who are all working on different levels of readiness. Designing a lesson plan to meet the needs of all students makes complete sense instead of using a one dimensional lesson plan that may meet the needs of some while leaving other students feeling left behind.
I realize how DI will shape my lesson plans and students success. A key takeaway was the importance of aligning learning objectives with assessment methods. This clarity will help me refine my objectives to be specific, observable and measurable.
I will emphasize diverse teaching strategies and will incorporate collaborative activities that engage students and foster a supportive environment.
I currently teach a lesson on family wellness where adult learners create a daily schedule hour by hour of the activities they need and want to accomplish. After student feedback, I differentiated by providing options to create a daily to do list instead of a schedule and allowed for learners to write or talk about their plans based on proficiency level and goals.
My current lesson on Family Wellness has the following learning objective:
Students will be able to understand personal values and write an action to incorporate each value into their daily schedule.
This learning objective is specific but does not contain a measurable goal. To include this I will rewrite it as:
Students will demonstrate their understanding of values by writing actions into a daily schedule and sharing it with a small group.
Students are reading for comprehension along with the main idea of a paragraph and identifying details to support the main idea. Each student is reading at a different reading level. Students are put into groups of the same level of reading based on their TABE reading level. The teacher models a very basic level of reading passage identifying the main idea and details that support the main idea as whole group. The teacher then models a more advanced reading passage also identifying main idea and details that support the passage. All students are exposed to the varying levels of passages and see the relationship of main idea and details still support the main idea even when the reading passages vary in difficulty. Lessons are effective in learning objectives because they are specific to the students needs, they are observable in the fact that students are actively working to identify the main idea and details, are working cooperatively with others of similar academic strength and measurable as students can show progress and growth through exit tickets of that lesson and measurable in the future through growth during the TABE books and tests. Students that are not showing growth are given additional assistance from the teacher. The learning objectives could change depending on if the student is not able to identify details from a passage but can identify the main idea. The teacher could lower the level of the passage even more to find a baseline of understanding and then increase the level of the passage to show and further growth of understanding by identifying the main idea with details in higher level reading comprehension of the passage.
Students are all at varying degrees of their learning path. All students should be given positive praise of the lesson they are currently at and continue to focus on growth and understanding so discouragement does not hinder the learning process.
As a special education teacher by day, I live by the differentiated lesson plan model as it is required for all my students. By evening, my adult learner students are these same students 20 years from now. They are the ones that didn't get the concepts the first time around and or life happened to them. Differentiated instruction is the way of teaching in this present day. We have identified many students with learning difficulties that may or may not have been diagnosed and have fallen through the cracks of the educational system. I did learn that specific measurable goals is important to have instead of general non-specific goals.