Got Differentiation?

As I reflect on the past two months in the course Reaching and Engaging All Learners through Technology, I feel confident on ways to differentiate in my classroom. All too often I have complained that we are given many reasons why we should differentiate but often not told how to differentiate. This course and network of peers has provided many “how to” ideas, strategies and resources.
One of the greatest resources I have found is the NING.com site. I have already created a network for my school and am looking for a way to use this in my classroom with all my students. The amount of resources available due to the internet can sometimes be overwhelming but having this network to share ideas and have other preview and try sites saves time and energy and allows us to use more of our time creating actual plans not searching. The most beneficial for me with this network was having teachers in other disciplines share resources and then trying to incorporate them into my plans. I created some interesting and creative lessons revolving around fine arts that I would not have thought of without Alisa Rourke’s posts.
This is very valuable for me as I begin a new position trying to bring math to life for my students and try to reach them and turn math on for them individually. Many times it is the artistic right-brained students that do not like math and can not click with math concepts but using these resources and lessons will be one way to acknowledge their interests and hopefully make a connection to the math curriculum through art.
Having to create a lesson that differentiated based on readiness and style has provided me with the practice and strategies necessary to develop many more activities based on required standards. I have wanted to develop a style in my class using menus and applying that lesson plan style I created will support this format and will make creating these standards based menus easier for this coming year. Of course having networks to share ideas and activities will also increase my success with following through with my ideas.
As I have mentioned in many posts and assignments, today’s students just expect technology so I need to learn ways to meld my lessons with technology and I need to start right from the beginning. Creating a simple survey to get to know my students and then having them reflect in a diary type log online in a NING network will be great strategies to ensure my inclusion of technology daily. This will provide the opportunity for me to learn about student interests and learning styles quickly and easily. This along with my reports from their standardized tests will certainly assist in creating a differentiated classroom.
No student is alike nor learns in the same way and despite the idea that “we all learned this way”, it is time to insist on making changes in our educational system. Hopefully teachers like us will take our information, strategies and new found confidence and show that it is not only possible but not very difficult. Actually when up and running a differentiated environment that promotes engagement requires less work on the teacher’s part and allows the teacher to be the facilitator and leaves the children to do the work. With careful planning the teacher puts the energy in on the front end but becomes the “guide on the side” throughout the year and the students are better off for it!