Educating Everyone

The first thing that must be considered when planning a lesson is how each of your students learn best. A successful lesson allows each student to become engaged and express themselves using their individual strengths. When you are able to include activities that address all learning styles each student has a chance to display their potential.

The next thing that must be considered before planning the lesson is each students prior knowledge to the topic. Some students may need more explicit instruction that others. Some students may need additional support, while other students may require a more challenging task. Keeping the needs of individual students in mind a lesson can be created based on differentiated instruction.

The use of center based instruction allows students to explore different learning styles and learn at their own pace. Students can be grouped based on ability in order to provide the instruction at various cognitive abilities. In this setting all students in the classroom are working on the same curriculum, but the levels of difficulty for each task range from beginner to intermediate to advanced. The teacher should observe and intervene where necessary. For example, beginner groups may need teacher facilitated instruction. Assignments should vary from hands on activities, to listening activities, and visual activities to address they ways that each student prefers to learn.

I have included a link for you to visualize an example of how this type of instruction works within a classroom, published by Edutopia
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kg38A1ggYiE

Do you feel that this type of instruction would be beneficial to your classroom? What other strategies have worked in your classroom to differentiate instruction?

Inclusion in the General Education classroom

In the past it seemed as though students who had learning disabilities could not thrive in the General Education classroom. In schools today we see more and more children with Individualized Education Programs (IEP) learning alongside their peers in General Education classrooms. The reason for this is that students learn best in what is called the least restrictive environment. Lev Vygotsky's Sociocultural Theory of human learning backs this idea. According to psychologynoteshq.com, Vygotsky believes that children learn through social interactions. There are far more opportunities for this to take place in the General Education classroom setting. Psychologynoteshq.com states, "According to Vygotsky's sociocultural theory any person who possesses a higher skill level than the learner with regard to a particular task or concept is called a more knowledgeable other or MKO. This person may be a teacher, parent, an older adult, a coach or even a peer" psychologynoteshq.com.  This idea shows that students can learn from a variety of sources, even the other students in their classroom. As teachers we need to provide students opportunities to express themselves through a variety of social interactions. Readingrockets.org shares several strategies to get students actively involved in learning. Student-centered activities are key to create an environment where meaningful learning takes place. I have shared the links to both articles referenced in this post below. I am open to your thoughts on strategies to be sure that all students are held to their highest level of success. How can we incorporate all styles of learning within the classroom? My next post will discuss this topic further. 

https://www.psychologynoteshq.com/vygotsky-theory/

http://www.readingrockets.org/article/inclusive-literacy-learning