Differentiated Instruction

These chapters really pin-pointed the purpose and benefits of differentiated instruction. “Our best teaching happens when we give students a genuine challenge and then help them successfully meet it.” I thought this quote, which is found in chapter 8, was powerful because it describes the purpose of differentiated instruction. Every student in our classrooms has a different potential; therefore, as a teacher our goals need to be different for every child. With the use of differentiated instruction we can help every child accomplish a task that was once too hard for them to complete.

In many classrooms, students are not choice and every assignment is the same for every student. This is not helping our students reach their academic potential because every student is different and learns in different ways. In my classroom I plan to give students choice on assignments, so they can choose the learning style that works best for them. As teachers we need to never forget we can always learn the learning preferences of our students by observing and discussing with them.