Differentiated Instruction: Options For Success

What is it that makes a lesson plan great?  There are so many qualities that define a successful lesson plan, including organization, incorporation of technology, actively engaging the learner, accomodations, and collaboration.  For my group work in EHS 401/600, we are searching for lesson plans to find those that exemplify the qualities that we find most instrumental in a lesson plan's effectiveness.  For more information on my group members research on these qualities of great lesson plans, you can look to Andrew's Teaching the Future Blog and Kristen's The Heart of An Educator Blog.  For my research, I find the incorporation of differentiated instruction to be an important characteristic of a well-constructed lesson plan.  Differentiated instruction allows the students to choose between different project, essay, and assessment options that best coordinate with their learning type and educational preparedness for the subject.  By allowing the students the freedom to choose the outlet that best meets their needs, you offer them the great chance for success and achievement.  I have searched the worldwide web for examples of lesson plans that I feel incorporate differentiated instruction in an effective and powerful way.

1) To Kill A Mockingbird:  Building Knowledge
This lesson plan is a concluding lesson to a study of To Kill A Mockingbird in which the students must demonstrate their knowledge of how the setting effects character and plot.  The students will use information about setting gleaned from the reading of the novel to create a model of a particular scene. The students will present their models to the class.  The differentiated portion of the lesson comes in the concluding essay assignment.  The students are given two different essay topics to choose from to complete an essay on setting for the conclusion of the lesson.  This offers the students the opportunity to choose the topic they feel that they can most confidently execute based on learning style (as one is more analytical and one is more reflective).

2) Character Metaphors - The Great Gatsby
This lesson incorporates a gingerbread template that the students use as the basis for their character metaphor.  The students will select a character from the novel and then use magazines, newspapers, clipart, etc. to create metaphors about the character that coordinate with body parts.  The reason this lesson plan appealed to me is because it offers a technology extension to the assignment with differentiated options of completion.  These technology options allow the students to expand the assignment to websites that are geared at creating these character analyses online.  The combination of technology and differentiated instruction makes this a great lesson that challenges the students to expand their knowledge and exposes them to other project options.

3) The Pearl Novel Study
This is a fantistc lesson plan that is thorough and well thought in its organization and overall preparation.  I selected this lesson plan because it offers differentiated project options for the students' final assessment of the novel study.  The goal of this lesson plan is for the students to have a deeper understanding and appreciation for the novel.  The differentiated project assignment offers the following options: 1) in a group,  rewrite the novel in modern times using illustrations as needed, 2) write a 16-20 line poem and find music to compliment, 3) write a 1-2 page paper about the symbols and their meaning in the novel.  These options offer something that will appeal to every learning type.

4)  Poetry Writing
This lesson does lack in some areas of organization and does not include all of the elements that I feel are important to presenting a complete lesson plan (objectives, standards, etc.)  However, I do enjoy the differentiated instruction offered in the overall basis of the assignment in that the students are able to select the poem types they will create that they feel they can most confidently execute in a timely fashion.  This assists the students in setting realistic goals for themselves and, by working with the teacher to set these goals, they are still pushing themselves to grasp and create different poem types.

What's with the Wiki Craze?

As I am researching effective forms of educational technology that I might integrate into my classroom, I have found the use of a wiki to be a point of interest.  Traditionally, educators could create a website or simply deal with their classroom communication via email, phone and letters/handouts sent home.  These methods now seem so archaic compared to the wealth of more progressive options, such as a wiki.  A wiki is an engaging teaching and learning tool that is easy to use and simple to maintain. As a educator, you can create a hub of learning and information for your students and parents.  There are some school that require every teacher to have a wiki for this purpose.  I found a great example of using your wiki to inform students and parents about you and your classroomin which this middle school English teacher used the wiki to post assignments, class calendars, goals and more (http://tbensinger.wiki.hoover.k12.al.us/Calendar). 
A wiki can be much more that a place to inform students and parents.  Wikis can be a place of collaborative education among students.  A wiki can be a resource for general information on a topic of interest.  For all the many ways that a wiki can work to benefit teachers, students and parents, it is important to be mindful of the main downfall to the wiki:  the freedom for anyone to edit a wiki.  You must be careful when using this outlet and monitor the content to ensure that what is "out there" is what you intended to represent you and your classroom. 
So, is the wiki craze all it is cracked up to be?  I think that wikis have their benefits, but also some significant limitations that must be considered by an educator before commiting to this form of communication.

To Blog Or Not To Blog? (if you are a teacher)

What some consider a place for opinionated individuals to rant about the world around them is actually becoming a place for education to thrive.  Blogs are not just a casual outlet for the opinionated.  Blogs are surfacing as a way for scholars to document and share their research with the world.  Blogs offer a vehicle for scientists can lead you step-by-step through their experiments.  Blogs are also becoming more widely used by educators as a means of communicating and sharing ideas with their colleagues and also their students.  One such example of teacher-to-teacher blog is http://larryferlazzo.edublogs.org/.  This blog is designed to offer ESL- and ELL-specific assistance to teachers as well as general educational resources.  As a teacher, it is so encouraging to know that there are fellow teachers out there that are figuring out keys to success and passing them on.  Blogs are also being used by teachers to reach out to the students and their parents.  A fantastic example of using a blog in the classroom is http://weblogs.hcrhs.k12.nj.us/bees/.  This blog offers an overview of class activities as well as postings of student work so that parents are informed and aware of what their child is doing each day.  Blogs can also be used interactively with the students as they move into the secondary grade levels.  Students can post journal entries about their readings, comment of teacher post topics, etc. 
To answer the question that defines this post, I would emphatically respond, "YES!"  Blogging is just another way as an educator to expand your ability to reach your students and engage them in your classroom and the course content.