Designing a Differentiated Lesson Plan Reflection

 Evaluating and Choosing Instructional Strategies to Differentiate for and Engage Diverse Students

• Readiness differentiation is aimed to provide support students need to succeed at a new level of challenge towards specified knowledge, understanding, and skills (Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development, 2011). I planned for student readiness in this lesson by making careful selections on the texts that were read since the texts were an integral part of this learning objective. By choosing a text that all students were familiar with during the representation portion of the lesson, it allowed the focus to be on the skill being taught rather than trying to focus on understanding the text. The other reading selections that were chosen throughout the lesson were differentiated by difficulty level.
• Differentiating by interest targets to engage attention, curiosity, and involvement to enhance motivation to learn throughout a lesson and make connections between new information and things they already find interesting and worthwhile (Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development, 2011). I differentiated for interest through my instructional strategies by making a lot of them game-like such as the unscrambling of story events and creating their own story timeline and paragraph. Creating and working together as a group to solve a problem provided engagement and motivation to enhance their ordering skills.
• The goal of differentiating by learning style is to teach in ways that students learn best and prefer in order to extend the ways in which they can learn effectively (Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development, 2011). Knowing that the students this lesson was aimed for are highly visual learners and some kinesthetic, my goal was to provide learning experiences that would address those preferences. I included visuals such as the vocabulary anchor chart mind map, differentiated pictures to go along with the story event cards that the students were to order, a graphic organizer, and various technology tools. For the kinesthetic aspect, I included the timeline on a string activity where students would get up and align themselves along the string in the appropriate order and physically moving the story cards for other portions of the lesson.

 

Differentiating Assessment

• Differentiated assessment may take into account the differences in individual students such as their current level of understanding, prior learning experiences, learning preferences, and motivation and engagement (NSW Education Standards Authority, n.d.). For my assessment, I differentiated by interest in the text selections of multiple genres and readiness by having tiered assessments. For students with special needs, the lower tiered assessment would be provided with lowered difficulty of text and fewer number of scrambled events to fix, along with additional supports if needed such as audio and pictures for the events. For students who are gifted, a higher tiered assessment with more difficult leveled text and more events to unscramble will be provided. Students who are ELL may require visual aids for the event cards and possibly audio to read the text aloud to them. Early finishers would extend their learning through an online activity on ordering events in a story on IXL.com. These specific strategies also address auditory and visual needs and preferences.

 

Technology Inclusion and Evaluation

• Technology can be included in lessons as a way to open up possibilities for learners to find and develop their own voices, take ownership of their learning, and become creators of knowledge, as well as consumers of information (Perez & Grant, 2022). Technology was incorporated during this lesson in the forms of taking in information through videos like BrainPop Jr., applying knowledge through practice on sites like IXL and Khan Academy, and creation through Book Creator. It was used throughout each phase of the lesson to serve different purposes whether it was focused on the curriculum or creativity. The activities selected on IXL and Khan Academy were examined for appropriateness by ensuring they were targeted for second grade and the objective at hand, as well as having built-in supports for these specific students.

 

References:

 

Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development. (2011). Key elements of differentiated instruction. https://pdo.ascd.org/LMSCourses/PD11OC115M/media/DI-Intro_M4_Reading_Key_Elements.pdf

 

NSW Education Standards Authority. (n.d.). Differentiated assessment. https://educationstandards.nsw.edu.au/wps/portal/nesa/k-10/understanding-the-curriculum/assessment/differentiated-assessment

 

Perez, L. & Grant, K. (2022). 30+ tools for diverse learners. International Society for Technology in Education. https://iste.org/blog/30-tools-for-diverse-learners