Digital Badge #G

While reading chapter 10 in the text, I found the section titled “Differentiated Instruction and Universal Design for Learning” to be interesting. At my previous job, I was a substitute teacher in a kindergarten classroom for about six weeks. During my time there I noticed that even in such a low grade level, the lessons provided to me and the process in which I was supposed to teach them were not accommodating all of my students. I find it very important for a teacher to be aware of this issue and to be well equipped with lessons to provide to accommodate every student and their individual learning styles. It is a teacher’s job to present the lesson and make sure each student has a basic understanding before beginning. Then he/she must allow the students to explore the subject more on their own or in small groups by providing them different routes to take to do so. The text states that “Differentiating activities is also a way to increase minds-on learning, because it engages students’ curiosity and creative thinking and transitions them from sitting and taking notes to more fully participating in class activities” (Maloy, 250).

Another section of the reading I found to be important was the “Tech Tool 10.1” article titled “Interactive Whiteboards” (Maloy, 251). In the job that I mentioned above, I got my first experience with using an interactive whiteboard. Although there was no way I could’ve learned all I needed to know about it in the short time I was there, I used my interactive whiteboard every day and it helped in so many lessons. Especially in kindergarten, students love to be engaged through interaction in the lesson at hand. The interactive whiteboard allowed me to display lessons at the front of the class and include each student in participation. For example, as a class we would play interactive games, listen to interactive stories, and I could call students up one by one to practice tracing letters or numbers on their own. The students loved the fact that they were able to use something that was the teacher’s. I know in higher grade levels, the interactive whiteboards are also very useful. I am hoping to eventually learn more about them so that I can implement them into my lessons in the future.

One more thing I would like to explore more from the text is the section on “Assistive Technology to Reach Diverse Learners” (Maloy, 259). It is very clear from the beginning of school that all of your students are different. Each one comes from a different home and family where they are taught and treated differently. You may also have students with disabilities that are unable to grasp lessons in the same way students without disabilities would. “Assistive technologies apply the concept of technological convergence to the ways that information technologies enable teachers to differentiate instruction and pursue universal design” (Maloy, 259). With technology constantly changing, more and more helpful things are being produced to assist students so that no child “falls through the cracks”. With all the available resources, no student, even with disabilities, should be left behind.

  (The examples and information used in this mind map are not my own. Retrieved from http://sussex.de.schoolwebpages.com/education/projects/projects.php?sectionid=396)


Sources:

Maloy, R., O’Loughlin, R., Edwards, S., & Woolf, B. (2013). Transforming Learning  with New Technologies. 2nd Edition. Boston, MA: Pearson Education, Inc.