viernes, 16 de noviembre de 2012

Meeting individual needs

After reading Peter Westwood and Wendy Arnold's article on individual needs, I can reflect on some points about differentiating instruction.

As I have written about this topic in the previous entry, I will not talk again about the definition of differentiated instuction, but I will reflect on some interesting ideas from the article "Meeting individual needs with young learners".

First, as it is said by the authors, differentiation is desirable but unfortunately, sometimes is not feasible. This means that, a big number of teachers want to recognize the differences among the students and cater for all these differences, but it is not as easy as it seems to be. In several countries, teachers find important hindrances when they try to sustain differentiation such as the size of the class, prescribed textbooks, lack of time or rigid curricula.


Fortunately, there are still a quantity of teachers that try to approach their teaching methodology to differentiation using strategies like:

- Differentiated resource materials: worksheets, books or videos between other materials, that can be leveled for every student.

- Whole-group activities: focused on practical work in which students can give their best but also taking in account their different interests. 

- Small group activities: all groups rotate through different activities and the teacher can be a guide.

- Projects: they enable children to pursue their own interests while they are learning.

- Student and teacher interactions: are the base of differentiated instruction since the teacher has to connect to every child in order to personalize the teaching methodology to the students' characteristics and needs.

- Computer supported learning:can help to match students abilities and interests to the learning process.

- Multiple intelligences: Gardner's theory is a guide to set a differentiated instruction because helps teachers recognizing every students' learning style. So, the teacher can cater for all the learning styles in order to reach every student.

I have found a picture which explains this last idea, it shows how to help every student depending on their learning style:


To conclude this reflection I will say that although it can be very difficult to differenciate our instruction as teachers, but it is necessary to connect to all students' needs. If we want to be effective teachers this is our main challenge.




 




In this link you can find 7 facts about differentiated instruction, which are very useful for teachers

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