Differentiation

Differentiation instruction is the principle of adjusting your lesson plans to target the individual learning styles of all students in a classroom. The main goal is to individualize each lesson to each child in the classroom. This requires the teacher to find the strengths and weaknesses of each child in the class and tailor each lesson to meet the needs of every student. In a large class, however this could be very challenging because of the size and lack of time to make each lesson individual for each student. Also with too much individualization children may learn to depend too much on it and not learn how to learn from different learning styles other than the one that works best for them. This is linked with the No child left behind act that present Bush put into effect. Differentiation tries to keep all kids in the classroom learning the same rate and passing the same test by teaching lessons specific to them.

Technology in the classroom can always be a pro or a con. For Differentiation I feel that technology is a huge pro. With today's technology it is easy to meet several learning styles in one lesson. Throw the smart board it is easy to create a power point that involves a physical interaction, maybe a game, and then have notes printed out to assist the visual, physical and tactile learners. This improves on the overall learning for the whole class. Technology also allows the teacher to have one lesson fully developed and can be completed with the time in class and for all students no matter how large the class is.

Classrooms today are reaching up to 30 students in them and each student is a different learner and has different needs. Some students may be special education and are being included into the regular class. Through differentiation the needs of these students can be met; but how realistic is this? For me, as an aspiring teacher, this is not realistic. I think that there is not enough time in the class to everyone in the room’s specific learning styles constantly. I think that through grouping and smallgroup learning it is more possible but still can’t be done the entire time. This is especially true with the younger ages. With the younger children they don’t even know what learning style will work for them so it is challenging to know where each child is best going to learn. It is better for the whole class to use different methods throughout the year for them to best see how they learn.