The resources my other group members and I have gathered for our Differentiation Station assignments will become useful tools to have at my disposal. In designing instruction that will meet the needs of the diverse learners that walk through my door every day, one can simply never have too many options from which to choose. When looking for new instructional resources, a fellow educator should always be your first stop. The Differentiation Station has allowed us to come together and share relevant, useful resources in an effort to improve our efficacy as professional educators.
While I would not categorize my learning in this class as “new” learning, I did find it useful. I have always believed in differentiated instruction and the integration of technology to reach all learners. I was already familiar with the principles of Universal Design for Learning, the various brain networks and how they figure into learning, and how to effectively use technology with my students. However, through this course, I was able to further my understanding of UDL and DI, and refine my approach to both. I was able to gather even more useful, engaging, and relevant technology resources for my students, which will have only positive effects on them and their learning.
I have already begun to make changes to my instruction as a result of this course. In fact, the design of my next unit is completely differentiated by readiness, as indicated by my students’ Measure of Academic Progress (MAP) scores. Group Learning Pages have been set up on my class website and Learning Packets have been put together for group use. Students will be using Compass Learning Odyssey to navigate their way through greatest common factors and least common multiples in their Learning Groups. I tried this same approach during the last unit on function tables and was thrilled with how well it turned out. My students naturally helped each other before asking me, which allowed me to focus on those students that needed my attention the most. We were able to come together and work out any “kinks” they discovered and, in the end, agreed it was a very successful unit. We are all looking forward to next week’s learning!
Posts
