Mollie Deuel's Teaching Portfolio
Differentiated Science Instruction
I believe that differentiation should be incorporated into every classroom to give all students the opportunity to learn through material that is tailored to their readiness level, interests, or learning profile. I understand that differentiation will not be happening every minute or even every day, but the more a teacher can differentiate their instruction to cater more to their student’s needs, the more effective they will be at getting the students to hit the learning goals. Differentiation is a process that must be explicitly explained to students before implementing it so that they know the rationale behind the differentiated instructional methods and materials and don’t misinterpret the intention of it. Other teachers, parents and administrators are other great/necessary resources for gathering information about students to help inform your differentiation and to collaborate with in creating the best possible action plan for each child.
I chose to differentiate the cell model activity because it allowed me to keep my same learning objectives for everyone and just add or subtract specific scaffolding based on the student’s readiness level. I differentiated based on readiness which includes prior knowledge and previous experience with the work and style of work. I’ve previously worked in classrooms where ESL students are integrated without knowing much English and giving them some extra help in figuring out the names of the organelles will allow them more time to focus on their functions like the Tier 1 worksheet. The Tier 2 worksheet is for students who work on grade level or just below and can work fairly independently, but maybe not be able to decipher information at as high a cognitive level as the students given the Tier 3 assignment. They have the same worksheet as the tier 1 and tier 2 students, but they don’t have the exact interactive cell model to get their information from so they have to connect what the video is telling them to their cell model worksheets. These Tiers allow students who are way below grade level in reading and comprehending English as well as students who are more advanced learners to be challenged at an appropriate level while everyone still hits the same learning objectives.
Challenges that could arise when implementing the differentiated materials could be that students all finish at different times or that students may not agree with the tier that they are assigned. It is possible that everyone may finish at different times because their pathway to the learning objectives is slightly different. Students may not agree with their assigned tiers for the valid reason of the teacher may have overlooked or misinterpreted that students’ progress up until that point. Students will sometimes have a better idea of their readiness level than the teacher because the teacher has to account for 100+ students. Both cases can easily be remedied in that if the tier 1 or 2 students finish early then they can continue on to watch the tier 3 video description of organelles to reinforce what they’ve just learned and if the tier 3 students finish earlier I will have them go back to their engage phase assignment where they drew a cell and add all of the organelles that they missed and redraw the organelles that may not be accurately represented. If students are unhappy with their tier I will hear out their explanation and see if we can agree on whether or not they will be given a different assignment.
Through this task I learned that some students may need to be more challenged from their work while others may need more supports to reach the same learning objectives. It is important to take into account that there is a diverse culture in the classroom and that different students will have their needs met in different ways. Differentiating some assignments will help students gain the equity of learning that they may not otherwise have had in a classroom without extra scaffolds.
​
​
​
Click Here for differentiated lesson on cell structure.
​
Differentiated Worksheets: