Different Learners, Different Lessons

I am not going to lie differentiation scares me a little. I honestly thought that in order to be an effective teacher that you need to be differentiating every lesson, every day. After coming to class the first day, and with repeated statements by Dr. Peterson, I feel much more at ease, knowing that nobody expects teachers to be able to differentiate every lesson. In fact, it is impossible to do so. We talked in class that you differentiate when it really needs to happen, when the students need to get it no matter what. This still leaves me with some questions though. How do you know exactly what they need? How can you tell when you need to differentiate? Do you only focus on differentiating when it is something the students need to know for standardized testing? It really overwhelms me to think about trying to figure out how and when you need to provide your students with differentiated instruction. I am sure with practice, over time, you eventually figure out how to balance it, but as I approach possibly an internship and my first year of teaching I really have no idea what to do. Obviously that is what this class is going to teach me and I cannot wait to delve deeper into it, so that I can get my questions answered and become an effective teacher. I want to be able to provide my students with the best instruction possible and help them succeed, every single one of them. I don't even know them yet, and I already care so much about them being successful in every aspect of their education. I know that when you are differentiating in the classroom, that you are learning every day, along with the students. You are learning how to better your instruction to meet the needs of all of the students in your class. Being an effective teacher requires you to be on your game all of the time, you need to be constantly asking yourself, Are my students getting this? Is there a different strategy I can use to approach this topic? We need to be assessing ourselves just as often as we are assessing our students, to provide them with the best instruction possible. I also think that it is very important to remember that each of your students has different skills in different content areas. You may have a student that is good at writing but not so great at math and another who is great and math but lacks in writing. When planning your instruction you need to take these things into account. I really loved the quote in the article by Lewis Thomas, “Celebrate our ignorance rather than pretend we have many answers to life’s complexities.” This is something that I think everyone needs to remember, but especially as educators. We need to realize that we do not know everything and that we will never know everything. If we can try to transform our teaching as much as possible and practice with new techniques, we can become better teachers for our students.