Creating a Culturally Responsive Classroom

This lesson plan was created for course EDU 551: Differentiated Instruction. The template is the design and property of Grand Canyon University.  Section 1: Lesson Preparation Teacher Candidate Name: Elisabeth Page Grade Level:   1 st Grade   Date:   April 5, 2024 Unit/Subject:   Integrated Space Systems and Informational/Narrative Writing Unit: Informational writing, Narrative writing, informational texts, and traditional oral Salish stories focused on the Earth Science Standards for 1 st grade. Instructional Plan Title: “We are Astronomers, We study Patterns in the Sky !”   Lesson Summary and Focus: This lesson focuses on students identifying their world is made of patterns, focusing on the sun, that we can observe and analyze for understanding. Students will analyze the patterns made by the s...

Instructional Strategies for Differentiation The instructional strategies I chose for this lesson were done with my students’ learning styles, cultural backgrounds, previous learning, and developmental readiness in mind. I know my students have cultural and real-world background knowledge on the topic of the sun, moon, and stars. They live in a rural area where they have experienced nature and its impacts on their homes and lives. They have heard stories in their Native language about these celestial bodies. Students have recently finished a unit on living things vs. non-living things. This understanding is foundational to have before studying celestial non-living bodies in space. My students were ready for this lesson based on this background knowledge, their previously learned content, and their rich cultural experience (Kim, 2019). The activities I chose reflect the diverse learning styles in my classroom. I have incorporated visual resources (charts, ebooks, photos), auditory e...