Content Differentiation

I believe differentiation in the classroom is vital and all teachers should implement teaching in various ways because we all learn in different ways and aren’t all on the same level. I think the observer did a great job with giving constructive criticism. She was able to give the teacher pointers on how to improve with letting the students be more interactive with the smart board and asking more application type questions. This made me think about the test questions we had to write up for our science methods class. We had to create test questions for a unit and needed to included knowledge, comprehension, and application-based questions. It can be difficult to think about questions that are application-based, but it allows students to think deeper and gives teachers an understanding of whether or not the students are able to apply what they have learned to answer questions of things they haven’t necessarily learned or experienced. Something so simple as including pictures with the vocabulary words was a good tip given to the teacher as well. It helps students who may not understand what the word means, and it also helps students like me to visualize or have a picture to associate with each of the vocabulary words. The puzzle activity was a great way for the students to work together as a group. I was glad to see that the students in each group weren’t grouped together based on their cognitive levels and yet they were given questions that were on their level. I could see myself doing something like this that targets the various cognitive levels of my students so that I am meeting the needs of all of my students.  

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Autumn