week+8

January 11-17 I found the readings and video for the week to be for interesting and informative. Differentiated instruction is a term so often used in professional development workshops and meetings that it seems to be, for the lack of a better term, placed on a pedestal of sorts. I think it sounds scary, difficult, or just too darn time consuming for those teachers that are set in their ways. At the same time, I believe that those teachers who are always willing to, and looking for ways to, change or improve their teaching practices are already using differentiated instruction at various times throughout a school year. Does implementing this practice involve doing so for each and every lesson throughout the coarse of the class?

In special education classes, I think the need for differentiated instruction is more obvious and at times, even mandated by the implementation of the IEP. Correct me if I am wrong, but I believe everytime a teacher assigns a reading assignment followed by comprehension questions at various complexity levels required of different students, he or she is praticipating in differentiated instruction. And that is an everyday occurence in my classes! (woohoo!) At the same time, I think that differentiating instruction for classes with a high number of students may be a whole different beast. It would be interesting to see how some of these practices work on a broader level in the inclusion classes that I teach.

In the reading from [|Curriculum Update], Donna Strigari was quoted as saying, "Schools are designed for organized, left-brain learners who are book lovers" followed by the fact that only one quarter of the population make up this type of learner. I couldn't agree MORE! I would say that in my classes, I am genuninely shocked if I come across a student who is a left-brain lover of books. All others make me work really hard to get them to buy into the whole school thing!

I found Clare Kilbane's [|Differentiated Instruction Podcast] to be cute and a good 101 introducation to the world of D.I. It gave me additional ideas for the project based learning video that I just can't perfect and therefore continue to change.