Topic 5 Summer Pre-Service Differentiated Instruction

This article pushed my thinking about differentiation. It does not matter in what classroom I have been in the range is pretty wide in terms of levels. There are always the ones who are above the level being taught and those that are far below. Then there are all the inbetween. When I read this article, it made me realize that all students are different in their readiness to learn, their interest and styles of learning, experiences, and personal circumstances pg 1. Students come into a classroom different from others. I understand that differentiation is not an instructional strategy but a philosophy instead. I also understand that with instruction becoming so standards based that sometimes teachers lose sight of the importance of differentiation. We are so pressured to perform and to show results that meeting the needs of individual students and where they are at become lost in the shuffle. I understand that curriculum tells us what to teach and differentiation tells us how to teach it. I definately want to learn more about differentiated instruction because I am faced with this very issue right now in my classroom. I have some who are beyond and some who are very behind, and I do not feel that I am adequately meeting their needs. This is a delicate issue because even though I want to bring the ones from behind up, I don't want that to be at the expense of keeping the ones who are ready to go beyond held up from pushing forward to reach their potential. I think like the article mentioned we tend to not worry or spend so much time on the ones we know can meet the standard, and so we neglect their needs because they will perform and demonstrate competence anyway. I have also seen teachers not want to spend time and energy on the ones who will not be able to reach the standard no matter what and decide to focus instead on the middle group who have potential to reach the standard and raise test scores. This idea makes me so uncomfortable because it is true. Sadly this is what goes on.