Meeting the needs of academic diverse learners is the responsibility of their instructor. These diverse learners may include students who are one or more grade levels below classmates and the gifted student who is that much above. How can educators meet the needs of these students when their learning abilities are found at opposite ends of the instructional spectrum? The answer is planning successful lessons involving engaging activities, a variety of texts, technology implementation, and flexible grouping. The following is a lesson I implemented covering these key components.
The title of such an engaging lesson is “Life Changes-Details of a Life Cycle” which deals with the concept of changes living things go through as part of their existence. This lesson covers the Language Arts Florida Standards by using key details to retell a story, answer questions, and demonstrate an understanding of the central message Florida Department of Education (2014).My group of literacy learners have their own uniqueness of acquiring knowledge thus, this science lesson on life cycles must adhere to his or her individuality of learning ability. Powell and Powell (2012) suggested instruction should go from topics to concepts and have enduring value through personalized learning.
This personalized learning begins with S-A who is the highest achiever in the group. This lesson provided S-A with the opportunity to use technology to analyze and manipulate two different life cycle stages. This was an introduction to comparing and contrasting for a future lesson. S-A’s technology experience continued as she created a class presentation of a life cycle. Her life cycle included pictures and text utilizing Clip Art and Word. As an independent learner and re...
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...ust take place. First, informal assessments must occur to understand the learning level of students and skill areas needing to improve. Using interest surveys help in planning for activities to keep students engaged in the learning process. Next, assignments must match the student’s learning and instructional level. In addition, incorporating flexible grouping by learning styles, interests, and intelligences affords the learner a better chance of success. Finally, differentiated instruction is slowly leaning towards personal learning where students choose their own paths through the curriculum reported Richardson (2012b). In my opinion, this will be the future of education, as classrooms of this nature will cultivate self-paced, self-interested, and self-motivated students who fully take on the responsibility of their education, while doing so alongside the teacher.
Education experts have spent many years planning and revising learning material and assessment tools to meet the demands of diverse learners coming into the 21st century. Educators have responded to this demand by becoming more aware of the need for a multicultural education program that helps meet the needs of each diverse learner, examining their own attitudes and bias opinions toward minority students, and acknowledging the important role every stakeholder plays in providing an equal education to every learner. However, in spite of these efforts, there is still a growing concern for the achievement gap that remains evident among students. Despite some evidence of success and strong progress by black, Hispanic, and socioeconomic disadvantaged students from 1970 to 1988, the education reform efforts of the last decade have not enabled significant numbers of students to become educationally competitive or to close the gaps in achievement (Lee, 2001).
The importance of having a curriculum that accommodates diverse learners, it allows the child to learn at their own level or ability. A child with emotional and intellectual challenges may not have the verbal or comprehension skills or the ability to control their body as their peers. With this in mind, classes with diverse learners can excel with an adjusted curriculum. An activity for example, using large Legos to teach the entire class their colors or numbers can help the intellectual challenge by asking to build a building by using on certain colors or amounts. By doing this activity the students can have fun and learn at the same time with using very little words. Also in a group activity the emoti...
As an educator one must understand that the children you will be teaching will all come from different backgrounds, different ethnicities, different homes with different values. No one student will be the same, and no one student will learn the same. The role of a modern educator is to harness this idea of diversity and channel it into a positive learning atmosphere for children of all backgrounds. “I define culturally responsive teaching as using the cultural knowledge, prior experiences, frames of reference, and performance styles of ethnically diverse students to make learning encounters more relevant to and effective for them” (Gay, 2013, p.50.). The hope for all teachers is to capture the minds of their children, as educators we must learn how our students learn, adapt to their skill set and channel our curriculum to their strength.
Christine Gregoire argues that “One of the most powerful tools for empowering individuals and communities is making certain that any individual who wants to receive a quality education can do so.” This quote is important because it is related to the main purpose of this paper, which is the obstacles and equality in the education system in the United States . It shows that everyone need to have the chance of getting a dignified education. Also, giving people the opportunity to education, can be a very good start on turning communities into better places with more educated people.
The Autonomous Learner Model (ALM) was created to meet the needs for diversified groups of gifted students (Betts & Kercher, 2009, p. 49, 52). “It became apparent through focus groups, informal discussions, reviews of literature, and presentations to the faculty that a diversified group of gifted
Shore, Marietta Saravia. (2011). “Diverse Teaching Strategies for Diverse Learners” Chapter 2. Educating Everybody's Children: Diverse Teaching Strategies for Diverse Learners. http://www.ascd.org/publications/books/107003/chapters/Diverse-Teaching-Strategies-for-Diverse-Learners.aspx
In today’s educational environment, all students expect to receive the same level of instruction from schools and all students must meet the same set of standards. Expectations for students with learning disabilities are the same as students without any learning difficulties. It is now unacceptable for schools or teachers to expect less from one segment of students because they have physical disabilities, learning disabilities, discipline problems, or come from poor backgrounds. Standardize testing has resulted in making every student count as much as their peers and the most positive impact has been seen with the lowest ability students. Schools have developed new approaches to reach these previously underserved students while maintaining passing scores for the whole student body. To ensure academic success, teachers employ a multi-strategy approach to develop students of differing abilities and backgrounds. Every student is different in what skills and experiences they bring to the classroom; their personality, background, and interests are as varied as the ways in which teachers can choose to instruct them. Differentiated instruction has been an effective method in which teachers can engage students of various backgrounds and achieve whole-class success. When using differentiated instruction, teachers develop lesson strategies for each student or groups of students that provide different avenues of learning but all avenues arrive at the same learning goal.
V.O. Highly regarded for its diversity initiatives, “San Jose State University has a long tradition of supporting and celebrating diversity and inclusiveness throughout our campus community.” Despite the university’s efforts, many of their students have been vocal about how they still feel the unknown expectation of typical gender binary roles.
Compiling a Case Study In higher education, diversity has many meanings and even more implications. The Encarta World English Dictionary defines diversity as, “social inclusiveness - ethnic variety, as well as socioeconomic and gender variety, in a group, society, or institution” (Soukhanov, 1999). As important as diversity is tolerance. Encarta World English Dictionary defines tolerance as, “acceptance of different views - the acceptance of the differing views of other people, e.g. in religious or political matters, and fairness toward the people who hold these different views” (Soukhanov, 1999).
As teachers we plan our lessons and think to ourselves, "my students are going to love this lesson and will be able to understand what I am teaching", but sometimes that isn 't the case. You may plan a lesson in hopes that your students understand but it doesn 't go as planned. Every student learns differently and thinks differently and because of this we, as teachers must learn to differentiate our lessons. This may require us to change the way we deliver our lesson, change the activities for our lessons or even change the wording of our material so students understand. In this paper, I will be differentiating a lesson plan based on student readiness, student interest and student learning profile for content, process, and product.
There are many factors that play a role in the learning process for every human being. Race, religion, language, socioeconomics, gender, family structure, and disabilities can all affect the ways in which we learn. Educators must take special measures in the delivery of classroom instruction to celebrate the learning and cultural differences of each of their students. As communities and schools continue to grow in diversity, teachers are searching for effective educational programs to accommodate the various learning styles of each student while promoting acceptance of cultural differences throughout the classroom. It no longer suffices to plan educational experiences only for middle-or upper class white learners and then expect students of other social classes and cultures to change perspectives on motivation and competition, learning styles, and attitudes and values that their homes and families have instilled in them (Manning & Baruth, 2009).
Author unkown (2003, March 9). In gifted classrooms is diversity lacking?. Salisbury Daily Times. Retrieved March 10, 2003, from http://www.dailytimesonline.com/new/stories/20030309/localnews/1142640.html
The world is currently undergoing a cultural change, and we live in an increasingly diverse society. This change is not only affect the people in the community but also affect the way education is viewed. Teaching diversity in the classroom and focusing multicultural activities in the programs can help improve positive social behavior in children. There is no question that the education must be prepared to embrace the diversity and to teach an increasingly diverse population of young children.
There are several strategies on how to teach gifted students floating around in today’s educational theory. Grouping, using gifted classrooms, and enrichment are all options that are presented. While traditional high schools have the ability to design classrooms specifically for the gifted population, Carolina Academy does not have the means to create a class only for the gifted students. Due to placing students into inclusion, gifted students are not pulled into Honors classes. Instead of an Honors class, gifted students are provided opportunities of vertical enrichment, or access to the honors rubric. The honors rubric is designed for students to research independently on the same content that the other students are working off of. Towards the end of the project, the students are required to present the same content, however, with a deeper knowledge basis. The following strategies should be used at Carolina High School: Independent projects, vertical enrichment, mentors, and bloom’s taxonomy.
According to David O. McKay (2013), multicultural education is constructed to prepare pupils for citizenship in a democratic society by facilitating them to take into account the needs of all individuals; it shed light on how issues of language, ethnicity, culture, religion race, abilities/disabilities, and gender are entwined with educational content and processes. A multicultural curriculum is needed to accommodate for diverse learning and teaching styles of facilitators and pupils and to expose biases, stereotypes, and policies that can restrict achievement. What is more, a multicultural curriculum is also needed to help pupils, faculty, and staff become advocates for multicultural awareness, to ensure that content is fair, accurate, and inclusive, and to prepare pupils for diverse workplaces and multicultural environments. In writing this paper, the author will describe key issues of culturally diverse students, recommend a curriculum approach to address the issues, and discuss the challenges and benefits expected. In addition, she will describe three key issues of male and female students recommend a curriculum approach to address the issues, and discuss the challenges and benefits expected. In closing, she will describe three key issues of students with disabilities, who are mainstreamed, recommend a curriculum approach to address the issues, and discuss the challenges and benefits expected.