Differentiation in the classroom...Summing it all up

My first five week course is about to come to an end. Who would believe that I have used Twitter and Google Hangouts this summer? It was really a lot easier then I had expected.  Everyone should give it a try.  They are great for collaboration and giving out bits of information.   I have learned many new web tools to implement into my classroom. I did not just learn about a wide variety of web tools, but I also learned how they can differentiate in the classroom.

The school corporation that I work for has a wide variety of options for the students.  Our students have a wide variety of chooses to choose from for their high school diploma. They can choose to attend classes in the career center.  They can take AP and Dual credit classes.  They can join the STEM program, Honor program, IB program, or the 1:1 program.  This coming school year every high school student will have a school issued laptop.  I only hope that we have enough bandwidth to hold 2,000+ students and staff with access to the internet.  

I have many ideas and ways in which I have differentiated in the classroom in the past. Very few of my ideas have been with the use of technology.  I have gotten many compliments over my approach to my learning needs students that I work with.  Primarily because I take the time to get to know my students.  I then use what I know about them to apply Earth Science to the world. Through this summer course I have learned more than I had ever expected. I have changed my mind on a few of my teaching views through this course.  I can see how using technology in the classroom can be very beneficial to all students.  I plan on using many of the web tools that I learned and to seek out more that would be appropriate for my class.

I believe that if we vary the types of activities used in a week we have the best opportunity to meet the needs of all our students.  I can see that this really would not be a difficult task to achieve.  Yes, it is going to take some experimenting and additional prep time to begin.   However, as a teacher, I want my students to succeed and if I need to spend a little extra time with planning it would be well worth it.

I created this little PowToon to represent ways to differentiate.

Differtiation in the classroom 

(You can click this link or it is at the bottom of this blog page.)

<iframe width="480" height="311" src="http://www.powtoon.com/embed/fpzEnrloFud/" frameborder="0"></iframe>


The best advice I received through this class is to provide a variety of web tools for projects to choose from.  Students will choose the type of web tool that best meets their educational needs.  The second best advice I received was to let the students have do-overs.  I have been more against this issue than for it. I have felt that at the high school level the students need to be prepared and do the best that they can on each assignment.  When they go off to college there are not any do-overs.  That has been my main reason behind this thought.  I think now that having them redo an assignment helps them to learn what they missed the first time.  In that respect it is helping them prepare for college. I also think this would help many of my learning needs students succeed better in school.  It would lift there spirits and make them feel proud for getting a better grade on an assignment.

I hope you enjoyed my video.

Mrs_Scherry