DIFFERENTIATED INSTRUCTION & LEARNING ACTIVITIES

I am a math teacher, who also as a student struggled with learning math in the classroom, and so in my remembered experience I realized what caused most of my challenges. Instruction was not being differentiated to meet the needs of all students but for those students for which learning through lectures and other linguistic manners made learning easy. I, on the other hand, needed to be taught math and any other subject through kinesthetics, use of graphic organizers, peer collaboration, and from something simple as using different colors to illustrate connections between concepts. So now as I engage with students I know how to differentiate for my students, but first getting to know them makes differentiating more effective. 

From what I gathered from my experience most students are pretty similar to me and want to learn by doing hands-on activities, becoming more organized and using graphic organizers, engaging in activities like drawing or using colors to help them make connections. I am always researching and looking for appropriate strategies to utilize in the classroom. Here is one that is a great scaffold for teachers to refer to on a regular basis http://www.fortheteachers.org/differentiation_framework/#Diff_Skills or even http://www.beesburg.com/edtools/glossary.html. The latter website I have been using for the last 7 years of my teaching career, it is one my bookmark websites. It provides an explanation and sometimes it will have a link with examples.  

Use of peer cooperative or collaborative groups is one strategy I use most often in my classroom. Students have a the capability to communicate the learning to other students who may find challenges sometimes more effectively than teachers. Such groups also can alleviate anxiety for students who are not used to talking to the whole group but are capable of doing the work. I also provide many variations of visuals with lots of varying colors to keep the attention of our students. Visuals could include Powerpoints which have the appropriate amount of animations and color so as to not hide the necessary content.