Differentiated Instruction

  

       Within Drake, Reid and Kiloton (2014)'s book, they talk about differentiated instruction within classrooms and it's affects on the students/learners. They define differentiated instruction as a type of instruction where all students are striving to succeed or reach the same goal, but in different, alternative ways (Drake et al., 2014).

Image found here

     Drake et al., 2014 provide a chart within their chapter which states how teachers provide differentiated instruction within their classrooms and how it differs from regular instructions given to the students. They state how teachers provide the general instructions to everyone, but then based on the student and their learning style, the teachers adjust the ways students can do their work/assignments which best suits them and helps them fulfill the tasks needed to be completed (Drake et al., 2014). I think this picture (right) perfectly expressed what differentiated instruction is, a whole bunch of different ways of doing something but all leading to the same final result.

    I truly believe this is one of the best ways for children to learn. This allows students to express themselves through their own ways of learning, allowing them to become more creative and it helps them to succeed, using their strengths in something to be applied to whatever task/assignment is assigned.

Image found here

   I chose this picture (above) as I think it really gets the point across about differentiated instruction. Albert Einstein is saying that we are all smart individuals, but you can't judge everyone on how they do things, as everyone is different and will not do things the same way. 

   When I become a teacher I would want to implement this within my classroom as early as possible. The reason behind this is that when I was in elementary school and high school (for the most part) I was not given differentiated instruction for work or assignments. Most of my teachers made everyone do the work the exact same way, which I did not like as some assignments I had to do were not based around my strengths and we had no choice to show our own way to the assignment sadly. Another reason for this is that i've noticed that since coming to university, they do give you a lot of differentiated instruction and now all the students who have never been exposed to that are stuck with what to do. I constantly hear students say, so we have a free choice for this assignment...what can we do? Are we allowed to do this? How does the professor want us to do this? Students are now unprepared with how to deal with differentiated instruction, so I definitely think this needs to be implemented within schools earlier to help the students with their learning and to prepare them for university.

Video found here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EOPe_cJ67No

   Above is a video which is about differentiated instruction and different ways to implement it within classrooms

   Overall, I strongly believe that differentiated instruction is crucial within classrooms and for students' learning. It allows them to be independent, creative and lets them be flexible with how they display their work. I think more teachers need to implement this within their classrooms to help students show their knowledge and learning through different, alternative ways which can be more beneficial for students, as not every student learns the same.

What do you all think?

Thanks for reading :)

References

Drake, S. M., Reid, J. L., & Kolohon, W. (2014). Interweaving Curriculum and Classroom

     Assessment: Engaging the 21^st Century Learner. Don Mills, ON: Oxford University Press.