3. Meeting Diverse Needs
Diversity in a classroom can look like different races, cultures, religions, backgrounds, lifestyles, and ability, which can encompass differences in language, socioeconomic status, gender, and ethnicity of students. Additionally, neurodiversity is important to understand as it includes differences in learning needs and preferences, personality, ability, and all the ways in which students interact and interpret the world around them. For a teacher to be able to able to meet the diverse needs of a classroom, they need to be able to recognize the diversity represented in their students, and tailor lessons to celebrate and support them. Developing a classroom environment that supports multiculturalism is a necessary element of meeting the diverse needs of a classroom. Having students understand that there is inherent value in appreciating the ways in which people are different from each other, and creating an inclusive classroom environment that sets the stage for an educator to support the individual needs of each student.
DESE Proficiency Standard
"Uses appropriate inclusive practices, such as tiered supports and scaffolded instruction, to accommodate differences in students’ learning needs, abilities, interests, and levels of readiness, including those of academically advanced students, students with disabilities, and English learners."
Diverse Learning Styles and Abilities
Within a classroom, every student has a different way in which they learn best. No two students are alike, which made it important for me to vary my teaching methods consistently so all student's in my classroom could be reached. I tried to provide opportunities for differentiation by implementing small groups frequently. When in small groups I would strategically group students who would support each other best. Additionally, I would circulate the room, providing different groups with different styles or delivery of questions based on what I knew they responded to best. I also understood that not all students enjoy working in groups frequently, so I provided opportunities in which I allowed students to either work with someone close to their desk or by themselves. Throughout my lessons, I made it a general goal to not remain on the same task for too long without some type of change in mode of delivery. This included things such as changes in lecture, videos, group work, student led discussions, projects, and real world examples. If the class had to have a longer day of lecture because there was a need to get through a specific amount of content, I would change the delivery method often. I included call and response, body movement, images, videos, student's reading the content, and using questions to guide the class through the material.
There were a few students who were noted as English Language Learners in my classes. My mentor teacher had assessed, discussed, and worked with them through the year and found that the overall level of support they needed was low in this class. Regardless, I made sure to always bold vocabulary words and definitions, as well as take time to practice how to read longer test problems and find important information. Another important element of these accommodations was to always make sure that work was graded for content and information, and was never based on grammar or spelling for every student.
Adapting to Needs of Classroom
Through out my lessons, I would pay close attention to how students were partipating, engaging, and responding to the information. Often students would let me know if they did not understand a topic either by rasing their hand or when I asked for "thumbs up, middle, down". I would change the way I was teaching when I saw that students were not grasping the material. I would often switch the type of way I was giving the information using verbal, visual, and movement skills to teach the topic.
Diverse Backgrounds
The students in my classroom all came from diverse backgrounds, bringing their own unique perspectives into the room everyday. Throughout the practicum I made an active effort to make every student feel comfortable and confident in a science classroom. I started to use Culturally Responsive Teaching (CRT) practices as I got further in the practicum such as meaningful choice, cooperative learning, and providing relevant contexts. CRT creates connections between the classroom and students' cultures and backgrounds. Using CRT can provide students with empowerment and support social-emotional learning for everyone in the classroom.
I took care in selecting the videos and articles I used, drawing from different sources that showed people of different ethnicities/races, abilities, and gender being involved in biology. I additionally tried to find real world examples that were interesting and relevant to my students. As I got to know each class I was able to learn their interests and find what types of information and topics they wanted to know more about. While in the ecology unit, I adjusted the animals that I would use for examples as I figured out what they class seemed most excited about, and allowed them to ask questions about them that were not necessarily planned and let them take a few moments to research facts about them because it brought them into the lesson and made them invested in the outcome. I tried to provide choice whenever possible to give students more options and control over their own education.
Throughout my time in getting to know my students I learned about all of their diverse background and cultures. During class, we would have moments in which we discussed all of the different languages they spoke, the music they enjoyed, their favorite foods, and their hobbies. These conversation were the parts of my day where I connected with my students the most as they shared things that were important to them and I shared personal information about myself. When making my lessons, I would use all of these conversations in picking the examples I used or the music I would play during independent or group work time.
Representation in Science
A important part of creating a space that meets the needs of diverse learners is being able to find and share representation that is relevant to your population of students. During the ecology unit, I created a bulletin board that included a diverse group of people who work in ecology, as well as a list of a wide array of job options in the field. I created an assignment that had students explore the bulletin board and choose what career they think was most interesting to them. Having students be able to see themselves in a variety of jobs is especially important in STEM, which is predominantly white and male area.
Different Ways to Think About an Answer
Many of the questions that I included in presentations or homework assignments were open ended, requiring the student to critically think about a topic. In addition to the question prompting students to generate analytical answers, it gave them the ability to consider multiple answer options. I would let students know in class that there is not always one way to think about a question, and that we could generate multiple correct answers. This gave all students the ability to consider their own view points as well as process the question in the best way for their own learning.
504s and IEPs
Individualized Education Plans (IEPs) are personal special education instruction for students with disabilities that include the supports and services a student needs to succeed and progress in school. IEPs are under special education law called the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA). Students that qualify for an IEP must have a condition that falls under specific categories and parameters. Examples of conditions that meet the IEP standards are: Learning disabilities such as dyslexia, dysgraphia, dyscalculia, ADHD, ASD, mental health conditions, speech or language impairment, visual impairment, deafness, hearing impairment, orthopedic impairment, or traumatic brain injury (1). An IEP provides students and families legal protection, additionally allowing families to be involved in their child education (1).
A 504 provides guidelines for how a school will support a student with a disability to provide them with equitable access to the educational experience (2). 504s do not function as a part of special education programs and are available for a child with any disability (2). The plan outlines accommodations the school will provide for the student in school to adapt their learning environment so they can learn alongside their peers (2).
There were multiple students in my classrooms that had 504s and IEPs. Between these the written accommodations were very similar across the board for these students. In general these students received accommodations for extended time, ability to turn in late work with no penalty, increased structure or reminders to stay on task, preparation for transitions and written directions. I would check in with these students each class discretely to make sure everything was going okay, and included many of their accommodations into the class such as transition assistance and written directions.
Multiple Ways to Show Mastery
Throughout my lessons I offer students multiple different ways to show that they understand a concept. In the lessons I will include as many real world examples as possible, using both pictures and graphs when applicable. I will have students format responses in the way that they prefer when answering questions in class.
Waiting Waterfall "5-4-3-2-1"
A strategy that I implemented to give all students the opportunity to participate in call and response questions was creating a wait period. I would tell the class I was going to ask them a question which I wanted them to answer all together, and would tell them they would answer after I counted down. After posing the question I would wait a moment then, start counting down from 5 verbally and visually with my hand. This period of wait time gave students who had a slower precessing speed more time to think about the answer. I implemented this strategy because I had noticed that when doing this style of question not everyone was answering. By providing this extra time I gave students more breathing room to think and the participation increase dramatically. All of the students in the class were capable to figuring out the answer, some just needed more time to process than others.
Brain Breaks
A strategy that I used to support the students in my class who had attention difficulties was brain breaks. When I sensed that a class had been working on the same thing for too long, or their participation was starting to fade, I would give them a short break to switch up what their brains were doing and reset their focus. In many cases this break included standing up, followed by jumping in place, stretching, wiggling their fingers above their head, or moving in another way that helped them refocus themselves.