How do you go about differentiating lessons?
Differentiation is crucial because not all students learn new information the same way. Students have differing preferred learning styles, ability levels, amounts of prior knowledge, and experience. Teachers must be willing to adjust their content to meet the needs of all students, while still maintaining high expectations and rigor in their lessons. Maybe you utilize visual aids or graphic organizers, break a concept down into steps, show examples and non-examples, provide sentence starters, etc. Share how you adjust content to meet unique needs.
"I always do my best to really get to know students quickly. Being familiar with their interests, learning styles, reading level, preferred subjects, etc. only helps me to be a better teacher for them. I cater my instruction to their interests to keep content relevant and their learning style so they can best absorb new material. My goal is always to challenge students without allowing them to become frustrated."
Community answers are written by other candidates practicing this set. Reading how others frame the same question is one of the fastest ways to sharpen your own.
Anonymous Answer
Each student has a preferred learning style, and successful differentiation includes delivering the material to each style. I utilize a variety of instructional strategies, design lessons based on my students' different learning styles, group my students by their ability to complete their assignments and shared interests, use formative assessments, and reteach lessons in a different way when necessary.
Marcie's Feedback
Great! How do you determine each student's learning style? Consider talking a bit about this. Otherwise, it sounds like you have a good process in place for differentiating lessons according to each student. Excellent.
