Five ways to differentiate a lesson plan

“Since students don’t learn the same way, we need to teach them the way they learn”, it means that teaching involves teachers to use and apply different strategies to make each of the students learn, even when all of them are different, and obviously they learn in different ways. Differentiated instruction provides teachers with the appropriate tools to structure lessons to satisfice their students learning needs.

We can differentiate our lesson plans in this way:

Learning by Pace

This involves the time on task that best accommodates learners. While some learners need a good deal of time to complete an assignment, others may require less time, or a small extension of time, in order to address the material presented. Teachers must be creative and apply different techniques with all of the students for them to do a good job and to enjoy the class.

Learning by Ability Level

This is about the general or promethium expectation of students’ performance, competency and skills according to their age or grade. Achievement level may vary from one discipline to another, so that grade or age level is acceptable, but content adeptness within a subject area may differ. Determining differences in ability levels is often facilitated through scores on standardized tests. These serve as the determining factor for what is considered “on level” and what is above or below it.

Learners’ Interests

Students are interested and concerned about many things, and finding out what those things are is a good tool for teachers who want to use different and interesting strategies for teaching. Students’ interest refers to the areas where they are focused due to intentness, concern, curiosity, importance, consequence, and variations of thinking or feeling regarding learning fields. Interest are emotionally or cognitive based, they may involve previous experiences and knowledge about certain areas.

Learners’ Needs

The needs of a learner represent the gap between what the learner wants to get out of the learning experience and his or her current state of knowledge, skill, and enthusiasm. Student needs vary as much as individuals themselves at any given time. Emotional components, assessment tools, achievement in one area and not in another, students’ sense of security, and stress factors are all considered when determining learners’ needs.

Learning Styles

This is attention to the way individuals process and retain information. It means the way in which students learn.  Learning styles group common ways that people learn. Everyone has a mix of learning styles. Some people may find that they have a dominant style of learning, with far less use of the other styles. Others may find that they use different styles in different circumstances.

Tier Lessons

These are lessons in which the assignment begins at a basic level and builds in complexity. The instruction is designed to add layers for greater cognitive skill application and comprehension. Tier lessons and/or scaffolding are implemented like the rungs of a ladder, moving from lower to higher levels of understanding.

Style of delivery

Teachers teaching methods and style of delivering the class are based on a specific philosophy of education that teachers acquire and perfect through time and experience because developing an effective teaching style for our subject-area requires time, effort, a willingness to experiment with different teaching strategies, and an examination of what is effective in our teaching.

Lesson-planning represents the thoughtful preparation and delivery of predetermined material or content that is deemed to be important. Furthermore, good lesson planning is essential to the process of teaching and learning because a good lesson plan is the base for a good class and it gives the teacher the confidence and the structure required to deliver the lesson. A teacher who is prepared is well on his/her way to a successful instructional experience and also has fewer difficulties at the moment of delivering the lesson.

The development of interesting lessons takes a great deal of time and effort, but this activity becomes easier as we gain some experience and years of work. Also, it is important to know that a good lesson plan is not enough because we need to have interesting deliver procedures along with good classroom management techniques in order to make our classes interesting and facilitate our students learning. Those are skills that we must develop and put into practice

Convergent and divergent questions

Not all the questions that we ask in the classroom are equally. The kinds of questions, that we ask, depend on what we are testing, and they can make a big difference in the assessment. There are both similarities and differences one may find when comparing convergent and divergent questions. Both types of questions are necessary in order for a person to become a critical thinker.

The two types of questions are: convergent and divergent questions.

Convergent questions:

This type of questioning involves recall and limits answers to questions to a single or small number of responses. It is referred to as closed questioning. There is no specified requirement for the learner to be involved in thought processes involving analysis, making a generalization, synthesis, prediction, or reflection. These questions have only one correct answer, and they test rote knowledge of concrete facts. Examples of these questions include multiple choice, definitions, true/false, fill in the blank and calculations where there is only one correct answer.

Divergent questions:

This type of question encourages a general or open response of the learner. This relates to indirect teaching strategies. There is no single best answer. Nonetheless, there is the potential for incorrect answers to divergent questions. Subsequently, it is often appropriate and necessary to follow up divergent questions with more detail, new information, or encouragement regarding deeper thinking/reflection.

These types of questions are always open-ended, allowing the students to express themselves as they demonstrate their ability to reason in the subject. They have no single correct answer, and are more analytical, testing the students’ ability to synthesize information, offer educated opinions or create hypotheses based on their knowledge. 

Classroom design

School’s classrooms must be places whose atmosphere establishes a sense of security, ownership, and comfort in order for learning to be optimized. Children can and do learn in places where they say to themselves, “I feel comfortable here; I am comfortable here.” This is accomplished by having a classroom design that accommodates learners’ preferences for where they sit and areas in the room for their use.

In the school or academic setting, classroom management relies partially on the physical configuration of the room and also on the environment being conducive to social interaction. Thoughtful arrangement of the indoor and outdoor environments will support your learning goals for students.

That classroom design is not just about furniture in different places, but a room configured to provide areas for students to work in ways that meet their needs. Ultimately, the room design impacts on whether students have a sense of belonging in the classroom setting.

Many years ago, classroom had certain physical limitations. Those physical limitations impacted instruction in that they were stringent, due partially to the lack of flexibility of the room’s furniture. For example, desks and bench-type seats were secured to the floor, which did not provide for movement of them into different configurations for, let’s say, small-group work. A section of the room was built to accommodate coats and outerwear with closets. Most often books were stored in either desk drawers or the desk top, which lifted upward.

Now, the classroom setting has changed dramatically. Today’s classrooms could have the opportunity to have television, computers, Internet access, phones, and whiteboards with use of markers, Smart boards, new desk arrangements, etc. Also, teachers and students could feel comfortable and cozy in the classroom and teachers can reconfigure the room’s furniture to meet students’ needs.

Classroom ownership, for students and their teachers, results from having a sense of belonging. This occurs when a classroom design fosters and promotes the idea of elasticity through knowing that the physical environment is reconfigurable, shared, and invitational to learning.

There are two types of classroom design: The Traditional Classroom Design, and the Nontraditional Classroom Design.

·         Components of Traditional Classroom Design: Physical Setting

This classroom has, at its core, a design that is structured and set in place throughout the school year. The students’ desks and hard chairs are organized, with one being behind the other. The students face the teacher’s desk, which is customarily in the front of the room and well within the line of vision of all his/her students.

·         Components of Traditional Classroom Design: Instruction

The students’ attention is focused on the teacher, because looking at the back of someone’s head is certainly less appealing. Regularly, the teacher stands in the front of the room and primarily uses a lecturing presentation style of delivery. This is referred to as direct instruction, where students most often are the passive recipients of information. The classroom instruction is teacher-centered and subsequently teacher-controlled.

·         The Nontraditional Classroom Design: Physical Setting

The students’ desks are arranged in a U shape or semicircle, circles, or clusters, students are primarily looking at one another. Possibly, there’s a section of the room where a carpeted “comfy corner” has been provided. Flip-style seats, or beanbags, a rocking chair or two, and/or cushioned television-style seating are present.

·         The Nontraditional Classroom Design: Instruction

The teacher delivers lessons using varied and/or multiple styles of delivery in different parts of the room. These may include anecdotes, storytelling, small-group collaborative exercises, hands-on activities involving the entire class, partnerships, some individualization, and/or learning centers where the teacher serves as lesson facilitator.

What are the three types of comprehension

Comprehension involves memory, cognition, and metacognition. Memory is the storing and then recalling and retrieving of thoughts and feelings. Cognition and metacognition are recognized as being lower- and higher-level thinking.

Comprehension occurs when someone uses his or her memory and produces a certain level of thinking that allows them to understand or to have certain knowledge about something. It means the state of being comprehended or the capacity of the mind to perceive and understand. Any teacher can tell you that comprehension is one of the key components of education, because comprehension is its main goal.

Comprehension is demonstrated through things said, and/or actions and behaviors in three applications, which are the following:

1. Literal: Fact-based evidence of comprehension. It means what is actually stated.

For example, tests in which the students will be able to think and to put in practice their skills.

2. Applied: Comparison and contrast comprehension, resulting from making connections to one’s own experience, or read or heard material. Taking what was said and then what was meant by what was said and then applying the concepts or ideas beyond the situation.

Example,

3. Implied: Inferential comprehension, based on context or illustrative material being presented in oral, visual, tactile, or kinesthetic formats. It means what is implied or meant, rather than what is actually stated.

This active orientation results in learning, which involves conceptual change modifying one’s previous understanding of concepts so that they become increasingly complex and valid.

Giving effective feedback

Feedback to any pupil should be about the particular qualities of his or her work, with advice on what he or she can do to improve, and should avoid comparisons with other pupils.

Feedback is one of the essential parts of learning because it helps students to understand the subject being studied and to be aware of their strengths and weaknesses; Students learn faster and more deeply if they know what the strengths and weaknesses of their performance are. 

Feedback consists on a retribution, response or information based on previously established objectives that teachers provide to students about their work, it means that providing feedback means giving students an explanation of what they are doing correctly and incorrectly. This information must include a guideline on what aspects students need to improve and how to do it.

The feedback that teachers need to provide to the students can be verbal or written, and it must be delivered just at the time that the students finish their work, so that students have the opportunity to respond to the commentaries that the teacher provides.

Feedback is very important in our lives, not only in our work lives but also in various aspects of our lives. It will help us improve more on the areas of our life that need improving on. At the same time, it allows us to be better, to become someone who can give more. It will also help you discover things about yourself. 

Teacher's classroom questions

Most of the time that teachers spend in school is spent asking questions to students for different purposes either to assess knowledge, to check if they have understood the activities, or to create a good classroom environment, so that questioning serves for the purpose of helping teachers achieve specific purposes and help students to develop the activities in the best way.

Questioning is an essential tool for both teaching and learning. It’s one of the most popular modes of teaching because it’s possible to transfer knowledge and understanding trough asking questions, it helps teachers to keep students involve in learning, students have the opportunity to share their ideas and thoughts, it develops dialogue between students, it helps teachers to evaluate their students learning, etc.

Questions can be materialized in an oral and written form, but the most used is the oral form as it develops reflective learning. There are 3 categories of teachers in regards to asking classroom questions: the first one is the group of teachers who practice questions in an intuitive manner, the second one is the group who use questions and do not plan for it, and the last group is the one that recognizes that asking questions is important and requires advance planning.

Asking questions is a skill that not all the teachers have, but they can acquire it by the time. When teachers ask good questions, students are able to feel more comfortable, to participate actively in class, and to be more independent. Also, it can foster interaction between the teacher and his/her students.