Differentiation

What is differentiation? Is it creating a low, middle, high activity for the three basic strengths/weaknesses in your classroom or is it meeting each individual need of your students in your classroom? Although the first option is quite easier, the latter is the correct answer. We as teachers must strive to meet each need in our classroom. If you have 20 students in your classroom, you have 20 different needs to meet by using several different strategies. Having the mindset that each student in your classroom is different and each might need to be taught a little differently will help all students benefit from your teaching. Differentiation means that you know what type of learning styles you have in your classroom and you base your instruction from those. For each lesson, there should be differentiated activities and assessments that best benefit each student. Differentiation means that you KNOW your students. You know what their interests are and you use those to motivate your students to learn. I learned that differentiation has to be in every lesson. It can not be something that you do three days a week. Differentiation impacts students' learning because it meets the individual needs of every student. Not only does it meet the needs, but it also uses their interests to make for a more engaging learning environment. I will use differentiation in my future classroom from day one. This is something that is not optional in the classroom. Every child is the different. Every child has different strengths and weaknesses. Every child has different likes and dislikes. Every child has a different home life. Every child has potential to learn. It is our jobs as teachers to take all of that knowledge about our students and use that to help our students learn and succeed to their full potential! Differentiation is KEY!

The video below is a demonstration of how to have a mindset to differentiate in your classroom!