Differentiated Instruction Strategies In The Classroom

Accepting the child for who he is

In order to accept the child for whom he/she is, the HEP educator must have the capacity to suspend the flaring up of his or her own impulses, issues, and negative reactions. Students are highly skilled at reading teachers and identifying the things that make them impatient, rigid, angry, and upset. Young students often share insights with each other about what annoys teachers and school administrators. The ability to manage one's own issues as they arise is one of the counselor's most demanding skillsWhen a disruptive student routinely pushes a teacher's buttons, that teacher has an ideal opportunity to apply the practice of leaving the ego at the door. It is human nature for teachers, or anyone for that matter, to get upset when students poke fun at a personally sensitive topic or issue. His responses are always like "Why should I listen to you? Who are you to tell me what to do? ” You are just a teacher. Why didn’t you look for better jobs? In the beginning, I used to tell him "You have no right speaking to me like this. I know a lot more than you do. ” After I took the opportunity my vulnerabilities on a regular basis, I realized I should accept the child for who he is and instead changed my way of talking. “You sound like my mother. She didn't think I should become a teacher either. She wanted me to work in a law firm. But I tell her I get to be a part of the lives of more than 80 students including yours, Swayam. What more power do I need? " Then I turn the topic around to question the swayam by saying, "What does your family say to you about what you hope to do someday? "This strategy proved very effective as Swayam stopped defying my instructions or commands.

Showing the child what to expect

It has been noted that many disruptive behaviours occur at transition times, for example when children are moving from one activity to another. We believe that it is important to set a plan or routine. The child should be able to know what will happen in the next minute and therefore, he can mould his behavior, Transitions can be identified by the teacher for e. g, “In five minutes, we will finish this activity and eat our lunch. ” A child with a specific learning difficulty may, for example, find organising books and equipment a particular challenge. A verbal or visual clue about what will happen next can, therefore, help with management of classroom life. We should give clear instructions to children about what is required of them. Webster-Stratton describes children as being caught in a “command storm” which means that teacher gives too many instructions at a time and the child is confused. Sypnosis: I have noted that when HEP classes start, Jotham is normally very agitated. He always disrupts the class by interrupting me and asking what we will do today. He refuses to even sit down until I tell him what topic we will do. As a result, I get busy in trying to calm him and consequently, the other students gets restless too and start making noise. Strategy: After a few disastrous classes, I decided to always start the class by introducing the activity that will be done in today’s class. This immediately gains his attention. I make my introduction short, clear and specific. I also tell the students that if they follow my commands properly, I will allow them to choose the class they want to do for next session for e. g Arts, sports, music or drama. This has always calmed Jotham and as a result, he coorperates in class.

Differentiated instruction

A problem that is often observed in a class of multi-level learners are numerous and include many disruptions that range from behavior issues that may occur from the multiple ability students in the class having various activities going on and struggle to focus on the task at hand. The students who are not challenged enough may become bored and thus, behavior disruptions may arise such as disruptive talking, getting off-task and being unable to self-direct free time. I have noted that behavioral issues arise in the art room when there is not enough structured activity to keep a student’s attention be it a high or low level learner, the lesson seems to be above a lower student’s readiness level, or there is a lacking of enthusiasm throughout if it does not engage their mind. Also, there is an issue of students who rush through their work and are left with free time that leaves them available to disrupt the class. One way to implement differentiated instructions would be to set the classroom into an environment of learning.

The frontal positioned desks are the most beneficial method in which to arrange one’s room. To have the desks set up into various learning circles, groups for lesson purposes and/or another “non traditional” setting would be helpful to break away from the more conventional method of setting up desks. Also, having the room filled with visual stimuli, auditory experiences, the ability to move about as well as the possibility of handling materials will allow for the various learning styles to be introduced and considered (Moore, 2009). Example taken from DR O Beaugeard G. SClass: Grade 5 This class is known to be a very difficult one as there are several students with challenging behaviours. There are different kinds of learners in the same class. In order to cope with this class, I normally uses a differentiated lesson plan which included portions that focused on each learning style (auditory, kinesthetic and visual). Through breaking the students up into their specific learning style group, I put them into key spots in the classroom that would emphasize their various learning style. For instance, the auditory learners are right next to me, the visuals are directly in front of me while I gave the differentiated instruction and the tactile learners are seated close to the materials so as to be within close reach when the lesson is differentiated from the traditional lecture style.

The way that you teach

Ways of teaching plays a very significant role in managing challenging behaviours. Traditional teaching methods are not favoured nowadays, especially in HEP classes. We believe that in order to manage challenging behaviours will be to give him choices. Giving choices is one of the preventive behavioral strategies I recommend in almost every behavior support plan. Many of our students with challenging behavior are reinforced by reactions to their behavior. Most people do not like being told what to do. Why should we expect it to be different for our students? Being asked to do something is always preferable to being told. Migel is a broken little boy. He is always angry in class and has an explosive temper, throwing chairs, shoving desks, then isolating himself under a table and refusing to come out until his sister fetch him. Migel is very smart and capable of doing all schoolwork. His mother had run away from homeand his father was also absent regularly from home. He lived with his sisters most of the time. What he needed was a stable person he could trust and lots of guidance on how to interact with other kids.

I dealt with the crisis moments by giving him choices. This started with choices that were very easy for him to make, but reinforced that he could choose how to behave For example: “You have a choice: you can stay under the table to wait for your sister or sit in the office to wait. ”Gradually, this became: “Migel, you can choose to take a moment to calm down and stay in the room with us, or be angry in the hallway until I come talk to you. ”Migel was very self-aware and slowly he became able to discuss upcoming potential problems with me: Throughout this process I repeatedly told him that I cared and wanted to help him. Slowly he came to believe that and was willing to take my advice on how to avoid exploding when frustrated. When I could see him about to blow, I would walk by and whisper, “Do you need some time? ” as a cue for him to apply self-control. He understood that this meant taking time to walk, talk or just breathe.