Differentiated Instruction 1-7 by Kayla Pohl

Differentiated Instruction is a phrase that we hear so often, especially in the schools we have been placed at. Although, after reading this section, it seems that the way that teachers think they are differentiated but in all actuality they really are not. The only aspect of differentiated instruction I have seen in my current placement so far has been the division of groups based on how many letters the students knew the first week of kindergarten. Based on the assessment of having the students identify the letters, the teacher placed the students in both reading and math groups. She placed the students that knew all their letters in a group, then the students that know most of their letters, and then the students that knew just a few letters in a group. She kept these groups the same for both reading and math. This was seen as differentiation in the classroom. Through the placement of groups, the teacher did not take into consideration that a student in the class may not know all the letters, but could be really good at math skills. Also, only one aspect of all the students is being assessed and used to differentiate. As we often talk about in our class discussions, the whole child was not considered when the groups were made in the classroom. Aspects such as multiple intelligences, personalities, and other subjects were not considered when forming the small groups. I feel that the “flexible grouping” mentioned in the reading would be a great option for me to consider in my placement classroom. Here, students are not constrained to one group based on one difference/characteristic. Each student should be a member of multiple groups because the student can be different in multiple ways.

I loved the figure 1.1 because it helped me connect the idea of having a differentiated classroom that involved both whole group and small group instruction. It also shows were students can have individualized choice too. I feel too often exploration is left out and we often need to go deeper into exploring something the students may have found interesting or learned more about. I love the idea that students can dig deeper into what they interested in and then when the whole group comes back together having them share what they have learned. I want to take this idea into thought when I am planning my unit for my teacher work sample. I would love for the students to learn off of their interests, and I think often this will come from them exploring in small groups or as individuals and bringing it back and sharing it with the whole group.

The quote from Dewey also really stuck out to me, “if school isn’t for today, it will often turn out to be nothing.” If we don’t want school to turn out to be nothing then we should look at all the students differences and create the differentiation from there.