Planning for Differentiated Instruction

The competent teacher plans and designs instruction based on content area knowledge, diverse student characteristics, student performance data, curriculum goals, and the community context. The teacher plans for ongoing student growth and achievement.

For this lesson, students were taught how to apply their knowledge of volleyball passes and incorporate it into a hitting combination activity. This was pretty new to students and so I wanted to start the lesson by having them brainstorm the different volleyball passes in volleyball. This really got the ball rolling which made it easier to dive right into the lesson for the day. Once students were able to get an understanding of the volleyball passes, we then started an activity together to go over and practice the volleyball passes in their performances. I love spending this time working with the students because they are given the opportunity to try to practice with my support as well as rely on each other to help them succeed and learn. If students are trying to excel on a pass and they seem to be stuck with trying to perform it, I ask the student if a peer can help them learn and teach them the form. Students are very open to this and think it's great for one of their friends to help them out in times of need.

This lesson connects well with standard 3M which states, "the competent teacher develops plans based on student responses and provides for different pathways based on student needs". I think these connect very well because I created an activity that paired students with peers that are in a similar level of understanding which I believe would benefit all students. As we worked through the activity together as a class, I made sure to pay attention to how students were understanding the lesson and then created pairs that I thought would work well together in regard to how much they understood. Depending on the lesson and activity, I think it is a great idea to pair students up regarding where they stand with the lesson because it may help them feel more comfortable working with someone who understands just as much as they do and it will help them understand the lesson better when being able to work together.

After completing the lesson, I learned that pairing students up with a peer that shares the same level of understanding can be very beneficial for both students. They are able to rely on each other to help successfully perform the tasks given and I believe that can help them understand the overall meaning of a lesson. At times when I pair a "higher up" student with a student that may struggle a bit more, the student that understands how to solve the problem well will most likely do all of the work. I don't think this helps both students at all because the student that may struggle more isn't understanding the problem any better. I think this was a great idea to learn and I believe it will be helpful for future lessons and activities.

This powerpoint connects well with standard 3M which states, "the competent teacher develops plans based on student responses and provides for different pathways based on student needs". I think these connect very well because I created different activities that my preschool students can learn and that are in a similar level of understanding which I believe would benefit all students. As we worked through the activities together as a class, I made sure to pay attention to how students were understanding the activities. Depending on the activities taught in class, I think it is a great idea to teach students different introductory activities so I and the students can see where they stand with the activities because it may help them feel more comfortable working with others who understands in their class just as much as they do and it will help them understand the activities better when being able to work together.