Reflection 4.

This is day 4 and the classes continue to be informative, interesting and stimulating. I learnt about the differentiation technique of teaching. The misconceptions I had about the differentiation technique has been addressed through discussions with group members. In initially thought that the differentiation technique is when you cater for students learning styles by exposing them to various activities during a lessons. According to Hall et al.,(2009) differentiation technique of teaching is an approach to teaching and learning that gives students multiple options for taking in information and making sense of it.

According to Earl (2003), differentiated classroom lessons should be geared towards students’ readiness, interest and mode of learning. These characteristics of differentiation strategies are suitable to meet the instructional need of students. If lessons are not prepared to reflect students’ readiness they may become flustered and demotivated. Therefore, even in a class of mixed abilities, it’s the teachers’ responsibility to plan, tailor and create learning experience to cater for each student level of readiness. The differentiation technique is the perfect tool to cater to readiness of students in heterogeneous grouping.

The Idea of Tiered assignment was one of the differentiation techniques that were introduced to us. This technique requires teachers to implement varied level of activities to ensure that students explore ideas at a level that respect their readiness. In this way students will build on prior knowledge and continue to grow. This technique is applicable in mathematics, where the faster students could be given task that takes in logical reasoning an independent thinking and the slow once given simpler task to further develop logical reasoning and independent thinking. Other differentiation techniques that would be effective in teaching mathematics are RAFT and MENU  .The key component of differentiation techniques is that all level of activities should reflect the same set of learning objectives.

Of course as humans, it is very hard to engage in a task that does not interest you. Therefore if lessons are planned with students’ interest and mode of learning in mind students will be willing to learn and find learning fun and interesting and later develop a passion for it. Therefore, when thinking about using the differentiation technique students interest and mode of learning must be considered. Having met all these criteria students will gradually develop higher order thinking skills, social skills and experience personal growth.