When I lived in Ecuador I worked for a school that is called a School of Integration. There are regular schools and schools for special education and this new type of school that I worked at wanted to integrate the children with special needs into regular classrooms. The students who had more severe disabilities, like the children with Down's Syndrome, were pulled out of the classrooms to work in a resource room on a one to one instructional basis. The point that I want to address is that the teachers were constantly differentiating the instrucion for these students without even knowing that there is a whole theory behind Diferentiated Instruction.
One day, when I was sitting in Methods class learning about this topic, I began ot think about all of the widely varying activities that the teachers had to organize in order to maintain the students' interest while at the same time promoting individual success. I remember Patricia, a fifth grade teacher, who put together a bilateral learning contract with a student named Diego, one part for him as a student and one part for her as his teacher. Because in the past he did not receive any kind of feedback or prompts from his teacher when he completed assigments he lost his interest in class and instead decided to misbehave. With a mutually structured contract the teacher was negotiating with the student based on his assessed needs, strengths and interests. It was a way to tell the student about his role and empower him to make decisions about his own learning.
Camila, a second grade student who came after the school year started, had a history of domestic abuse and was a huge discipline issue that began to interfere with her school work. Before she got to our school she had already been in 3 other schools that asked her to leave (remember to keep in mind that I talking about a different school system than the United States where all this is possible!). Liz, our wonderful second grade teacher, knew that she needed to help Camila raise her self-esteem along with designing her specific curriculum based upon her learning profile. Some of the strategies the teacher used were peer teaching, where the teacher worked with Camila one-to-one and flexible grouping which allowed Camila to move between groups based on her needs at the time. When the teacher discovered Camila's interests and her best learning style (science classes and kinesthetic preferences), Camila's increased motivation to learn permitted her eventual adaptation to the class and she started to grow and overcome her difficult past experiences. This teacher was not aware of the term "Differentiated Instruction" but she did know that Camila needed a spark that would help her to start burning!
I am sure that in the process of implementing those strategies for Camila many difficulties needed to be addressed and problably not everything worked as easily and immediately as it sounds in this paper, but the effort, dedication, time, and love that the teacher put into Camila, and many other students at the same time are the things that make a difference in the lives of her students.
Methos of teaching has given me an understanding of each Model of Instruction including the definition, principles, characteristcs, and applications. As a teacher that will be imparting information to students, it is important to know the various instructional approaches in order to cover all the different topics in more than just the traditional way. With all the solid information that I received throughout the course I now feel that I have the power to use the different approaches effectively and modifying them to suit the needs of my students. Just like Patricia and Liz, I want to celebrate diversity by getting to know my students, their strengths, their interests, and their needs.
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