Reflective Journal #6

     Unlike the previous chapter, Differentiated Instruction is a method of teaching  I have become very comfortable with.  Actually, I would like to give myself a pat on the back.  As much as I think I've mastered DI, it did not happen all at once or right away.  It took several miserable failures that initially led me to hate small group instruction.  Much like my apprehension of student-centered learning.  As I was reading Chapter 9: Grouping, Differentiation, and Technology from Slavin's Educational Psychology: Theory and Practice, 12th Edition, I was taken back to those unsuccessful days of my beginning years teaching.  According to Slavin, (2018), solving the problem of providing appropriated levels of instruction can create new problems.  One of those problems comes with grouping students by ability. (p. 216)  Slavin (2018) also states while working with one group the other groups are left working independently and unsupervised. (p.216)  He also mentions "student in the low group may feel stigmatized and may lack positive behavioral models. (p. 216)  I found this problem often and over time developed a more effective way to group my students.  Instead of grouping by abbility, I grouped the students by compativility.  I put leaders, helpers, high, medium and low students in groups together.  Each stating would have different colored folders with tiered assignments for high, medium and low performing students.  For example, I would have a station where the groups would be working on character traits.  We would have read a story and discussed what character traits were and given some for the characters in the story.  My high folder (the students had no idea that the folders were high medium or low) would have the student's names who were to get that folder on it.  Thier task would be to describe how the story would change if the main character's trait were the opposite of her actual traits (if the character was kind and compasionate her opposite traits would be mean and selfish).   My middle and low folder would have the same format with less rigor.  I would often use Bloom's Taxonomy to come up with tasks for each skill. Before each skill was taught I would assess the students prior knowedge of the skill.  From week to week or skill to skill their ability may be different resulting in them possibly working from a different folder each week.  They never knew that the folders were teired.  This elimated the possiblity for stigmatized feelings.  Because the assignments were tiered they were not to hard and not too easy, allowing students to work unsupervised.  The compatible grouping also met the needs of the students and allowed the groups to run smoothly without my direct supervision.  I would pull students from each group for guided instruction based on their learning needs for that specific skill.  This method prooved to be very effective.  I learned from my mistakes and my apprehension disappeared.  I am hoping that I will have similar results with Student-Centered Learning. 

Reference

Slavin, R. E. (2018).  Educational Psychology:  Theory and Practice (12th ed.).  Boston MA: Pearson Education