Differentiated Instruction--Class 4

Differentiated Instruction    

In this week’s lesson, we looked at differentiated instruction in mathematics.  Given that students differ in many ways, teachers need to plan their lessons to cater to all learning styles.  I find that in mathematics education, teachers are less likely to vary the materials students work with because they are these different teaching tools.  When I hear differentiated instruction, I think of creating a unique instructional activity/ path for each student.  Understandably, this is an unrealistic alternative to a ‘one-size-fits-all’ method of teaching, so teachers need to develop manageable strategies into their teaching in order to cater to most of their students at once. 

During our lesson, we were given examples of questions that were open to interpretation.  I think these types of open questions would be useful for differentiation in mathematics because it allows students to talk the question using different approaches, as well as open the question up to students at various stages of learning.  I think this is important because it allows students to be a part of the learning community within the classroom, as well as it encourages struggling students to participate more frequently and therefore steer them away from passive learning.  Although open questions are very beneficial, I think teachers should ensure that their questions are not too vague that they don’t hinder thinking.  i.e. a question like: “what is infinity?” does not require as much effort from students as compared to a question like: “How do you know 0 and 1 has an infinite number of decimals between them?”.