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Teacher B

Teachers various levels of a social studies class

Natalie,

I will try and answer all of your questions that you asked for your
research

Before I answer your questions, let me tell you what I think differentiated
instruction is to me as a teacher. I firmly believe that differentiated
learning for me as a teacher is to provide different learning strategies for
my students. Throughout my career as a teacher, new terminology and
teaching strategies have become popular. I have been under the
assumption that differentiated instruction was all about pairing the
highest achieving students with the lowest achieving students so that the
high achievers can help improve the low achieving students in class. I
will agree that the best way to learn a new concept is to teach it to
someone else, but in all truth, (when I used this) the low achieving
students didn't take it seriously, and the higher achieving students (even
if it was taken seriously) felt like babysitters after a short time. For me,
differentiated instruction is a fancy way of saying I provide different
learning strategies for students other than lecturing. In our AP class, I
used lecture for visual and auditory learners, I used the team white
boards for social, kinesthetic, verbal learners. The *this projects name
has been omitted for anonymity purposes* was a combination of all of
those, plus expression. As a teacher, I am most concerned with student
learning, involvement, and fun (if that's possible). I am more concerned
with how would I like to learn in this class. I believe that some lecturing
and teacher instruction is necessary, but at least half of the class (if not
more) needs to be student driven activities that engage interest. The
problems we did on our AP class were not differentiated based upon
learning abilities, but it was designed to give all of you different teaching
strategies to engage you.

How did I learn about differentiated instruction in college and how was it
presented?

I graduated from UT in 1991 so educational terminology was different


then it is now, but I was presented with grouping strategies and how to
reach all of the different learning styles that students possess. I found it

Teacher B
Teachers various levels of a social studies class

interesting that when I was being taught all of this in college, it was
100% lecture (which is what all of my college classes were). Ultimately, I
felt like, after learning all of this in college, it was up to me to experiment
and find out what best worked for me. Because all teachers make the
same salary, and there are really no incentives (extra pay) for teachers
to do anything special in class, most teachers don't really go above and
beyond to test out these different strategies. For me, I have to enjoy
what I am doing or I can't do it, so I have tried many things. I have
reached the conclusion that by giving students the chance of learning by
incorporating as many different learning styles as possible. Think about
it, the *same project as before* that you guys made will always be
remembered.

Do you use differentiated instruction in your class? Why or why not?

I do use differentiated instruction in my class as I have said by trying to


use different activities that will use as many different learning styles as
possible. It is not about pairing higher and lower learning abilities for me
as much as incorporating as many different activities that will appeal to
different learning styles. In our AP class, we did lecture and notes, team
white board problems, team problem solving, team reviews, team
posters, team *same project as before*, team competitions. I do the
same things whether I am teaching AP or CP, covering the content that I
am required to cover, which is different for AP and CP.

Differentiated instruction for me is really no different if I have 35, 30, 25,


20, or 15 students. It is an advantage for me if I have smaller numbers
because I can really slow things down if I need to because I have fewer
students to have to teach. Now, if I have a CP class with 30 or 35 and
half of them are special needs students with very difficult learning
challenges, then it is an extreme challenge. The question you asked
about state testing not being differentiated for higher achieving and
lower achieving students, I totally disagree with this. I can use every
strategy known in education that will not translate to high scores on
state tests that ask questions using grade level vocabulary and concepts.
The new buzzword in Tennessee and Knox County is student growth, but
I am not sure how growth is measured on my Economics CP EOC.

Teacher B
Teachers various levels of a social studies class

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