Designing a Differentiated Lesson Plan

 

        Designing and implementing curriculum that is equitable for all creates an inclusive, welcoming, and meaningful learning environment for all students. Often, instruction can be misaligned or can biasedly target students who are from privileged backgrounds who have greater access to resources and opportunities who students from other backgrounds may not. Curriculum design and implementation that incorporates every student regardless of their funds of knowledge, access to resources, social-economic status, culture, language, abilities, etc., begins with understanding students’ diverse learning needs and styles and defining what ‘mastery’ means for each student. “Students’ learning styles help the academics to understand ‘learner diversity’ and therefore encourages them to make learning environments balanced and varied; catering to diverse learning styles may promote student-centered learning” (Balakrishnan, 2016, p. 334).  As effective educators, it’s essential our teaching practices are reflective of differentiated, standards-based, and measurable curriculum design and instruction delivery.

            The lesson plan that I designed ensured that I evaluated my students’ individual learning needs and differentiated instruction appropriately to engage diverse students. The strategies and activities I chose and implemented in the lesson support the learning outcome and capture students’ diverse learning needs. Instruction was differentiated for special populations of students in the classroom. For example, ELLs and students with special learning needs will be provided sentence frames, visual representations of vocabulary and concepts will be displayed in the classroom, modeled instruction and individualized support will be readily available and accessible to students. Students will be provided preferential seating as well as various forms of support and representation in the classroom (auditory, visual, kinesthetic, etc.). Gifted and early finisher students will be provided enrichment opportunities and encouraged to practice segmenting and blending longer words by independently composing and writing words they are familiar with to creatively engage and extend students' learning needs. Additionally, students will be strategically grouped with an elbow partner who is an ELL (English Language Learner) and non-ELL (native English speakers). This grouping strategy will support students’ language development and create a positive learning environment for students to practice their new language skills.

            Lesson assessment was differentiated to address the specific learning goals and individual differences. “Differentiation is about meeting needs for all learners through equitable critical thinking challenges [and] identifying the core skills and concepts that make up the learning outcomes, collecting information on your students’ preparedness, from prerequisites and minor gaps to existing mastery” (McCarthy, 2023, para. 6). Students' understanding of blending letter sounds together to form words will be assessed by teacher observation as students work collaboratively and independently during the lesson. I will take notes on how students say and pronounce the letter sounds aloud and if they are able to blend the sounds into the correct words. I will ask students to blend one of the words for me and I will provide support as needed if any common errors are identified. As a formative assessment, I will ask that the students “clap-out” and identify the number of syllables in the academic vocabulary words we learned in the lesson, for example, “beach, sun, sand,” etc. upon completion of their independent work assignment. The independent work assignment consisted of a hands-on, interactive activity in which students will be writing, cutting, and gluing the missing beginning, middle, and end syllables to form the academic vocabulary words. As an additional form of differentiated assessment after the students complete their independent work, they will be accessing the I-Station Language Arts digital application to complete one of the leveled phonemic and phonological lessons. Throughout the lesson, I will assess students’ comprehension of the lesson objective and provide remediation and enrichment support according to students’ individual needs.

            Technology in the classroom is a modern-day necessity to help facilitate instruction and enhance students’ learning and engagement. Digital tools allow students to “learn at their own rate as that session is dedicated to them and not multiple students at a time [and teaches students] new life skills which they may not get in other traditional lessons, [such as] digital collaboration, productivity, leadership and communication” (Loveless, 2023, para. 13). I implemented technology resources and curriculum materials within the lesson to enhance students’ engagement and understanding. Students will log onto the I-Station digital application on their Chromebooks to complete a lesson on phonemic and phonological awareness. I-Station aligns to the curriculum content and standards and creates differentiated activities which address the students’ individual strengths and learning needs, as well as track students’ progress, and areas of need and by creating individualized lessons for the students to engage in.

References

Balakrishnan, V. (2016). Book2u and students’ learning styles: The effect of learning styles on intention to use a social media-enabled tool. Universal Access in the Information Society, 16(2), 325–335. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10209-016-0460-5

Loveless, B. (2023, April 14). 20 huge benefits of using technology in the classroom. Education Corner. https://www.educationcorner.com/benefits-of-ict-in-teaching-and-learning/

McCarthy, J. (2023, April 20). Using differentiation to challenge all students. Edutopia. https://www.edutopia.org/article/differentiation-challenge-all-students