3. Planning for Differentiated Instruction

This is a third grade lesson plan on nouns and pronouns. One of my students in my "class" has ADHD, and a different student has dyslexia. I had to adapt my lesson plan to accommodate the needs of both of these students. During the lesson, the class will be taking a quiz. Tommy has ADHD and gets distracted very easily. He will get to take his quiz in a private room to limit distractions. Andrea has dyslexia, so her quiz will be read aloud to her. In the first activity, students will be split into pairs. Tommy and his partner will be put in a corner to limit distractions, while Andrea's partner will read the paragraph aloud to her. The pronouns flashcards and chart will be color-coded to help Andrea follow along on it. This project shows that I can adapt lessons in a general education classroom to meet the learning differences of my students. I think that students should be kept in the general education classroom for as much of the day as possible. If I can change up my lessons to help these students remain with their peers, then that benefits the students (no stigma about going to a resource room), and it helps the special education teachers (they can focus more time and energy on students who need the extra help more).

I created a civics lesson plan for one of my social studies classes. The topic of this lesson was the mass shooting in Boulder, Colorado on March 22, 2021. I wanted to teach about gun laws - why we have the ones we do, should we change the laws, etc. Later on, I had a special education class where I had to take a lesson plan I had previously made for a different class and adapt it to fit the needs of a student who has dyslexia. I made some changes to limit the amount of reading and writing that my class would have to do, rather than just what my one student with dyslexia had to do so that I wouldn't single him out.

Knowledge Indicator 3D of the Illinois Professional Teaching Standards states that a competent teacher "understands when and how to adjust plans based on outcome data, as well as student needs, goals, and responses." This lesson shows that I clearly understand what my student is able to do, and I adjusted my lesson plan accordingly. Performance Indicator 3H says that a competent teacher "establishes high expectations for each student’s learning and behavior." I show that I have high expectations for my students when I provide several counterarguments to their gun policy suggestions. I do this because I want them to think through their ideas, support their ideas with logic, and think about the consequences of their ideas.

From this activity I learned that there is always a way to adapt a lesson plan to meet the needs of your students. Originally, this lesson plan incorporated more writing, especially in Activity 1. After the changes I made, I like the lesson plan better because it focuses more on discussion and debate, which is very important to understand today's methods of making policy.