P2- Practice Differentiated Instruction
P2- Practice Differentiated Instruction
Teacher-candidates apply principles of differentiated instruction, including theories of language acquisition, stages of language, and academic language development, in the integration of subject matter across the content areas of reading, mathematical, scientific, and aesthetic reasoning.
This means that as a teacher, I construct my lessons by student interest and readiness, carefully integrating new vocabulary and academic language. I have done this by creating an engaging activity in which student learn new concepts around quadratic formulas. In their reflections on the activity, students were able to use their newly acquired vocabulary with the language function of “describe”. This lesson, as well as the student reflections, gave students the opportunity to develop fluency of the academic language surrounding quadratic functions such as parabolas, projectile motion, and vertex. In order to integrate the theories of language acquisition, this activity used principals 3 and 4. The exit ticket limited the forced output during the initial stages of learning new words as well as limited the forced semantic elaboration during the initial stages of learning new words.
The student work sample demonstrates how students have used the new vocabulary and language function to show their understanding. The rocket portfolio packet demonstrates how students were given the opportunity to choose their role in the group activity. In this way, the lesson was differentiated by student interest. The lesson was also differentiated by individual readiness as I created the collaborative groups to be mixed ability leve
As I created this activity, I learned how to engage students in math content and inspire conversation around quadratic equations in a safe learning environment. Students were able to learn the real-life applicability of quadratic equations by shooting a rocket and using an equation to describe its height. In the future, I would like to build on student reflections, by giving them personalized feedback.