Designing a Differentiated Lesson Plan

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 ebooks and ample class discussions. Movement breaks and gallery walks are thoughtfully planned for kinesthetic learners, and the mind map assessment allows for differentiation to meet the writing needs of my learners. By incorporating Project GLAD resources, I create a vocabulary rich environment that supports my struggling readers and ELL students. By recognizing my students’ culture and incorporating it into my lesson in a meaningful way, I support my students’ beliefs and backgrounds and help them make connections between their learning and culture (Stembridge, 2020).

Differentiated Assessments for Student Needs

My assessment for this lesson is a student created mind map. Students will take the information they learn about the sun and record it, using their own words, on the mind map. This assessment will allow me to see if students are remembering facts and details about the sun, and making connections between the sun and how its’ patterns affect us. For my ELL and students receiving additional support, this assessment requires a lot of writing which can be a daunting task. To support these students, I will provide a small word bank (Cognitive Content Dictionary) of the academic and content words we are learning to keep by them. I will also provide sentence stems to support them in writing clear sentences. Moreover, for some of my most in need students, I will have text already printed on their mind map for them to trace. They can also use pictures to help explain their connections.

            My gifted students will have the option of adding more information by writing a paragraph or detailed drawing along with their mind map. I believe in partnering students as students often learn better from their peers. It helps my students needing support and provides my gifted learners the opportunity to cement their content knowledge as they teach it to their peer. My early finishers can use the online reading program to read more on the topic. These books have activities and quizzes they can complete for enrichment activities. They can add information they learn from the online ebooks to their mind maps. This assessment is appropriate because it allows for differentiation while staying true to the lesson objective (Murawski, 2019).

Technology Resources and Responsiveness

For this lesson, I utilize technology in multiple ways. All of my students can engage with the Mystery Science lessons online through the read-aloud text and discussion prompts. This curriculum was evaluated for its content depth and appropriateness for my students. I also looked at where they are in their understanding of this topic, the engagement factors it offered (discussion prompts, follow-up activities, etc), and alignment with the learning target.

Additionally, I use an online reading program Raz Kids, provided by the district, that gives my students access to ebooks across contents and ability levels. Every student has a login and can find books they are able to read or have read to them; meaning they are accessible to all my students. I can assign books to students or allow them to choose their own. This gives my gifted learners opportunity to advance their learning and my ELL students more scaffold support. In a rural area it is difficult to locate books on every topic I teach; especially good informational texts. This program helps me fill the gaps in my classroom library by ensuring my students have access to rich, on topic literature and non-fiction texts.

Lastly, I incorporated the Spokane Tribal Language Department’s free online story library. These stories are my students’ culture and heritage. Read aloud in their Native language, my students are able to connect the academic content to stories they grew up hearing. This equitable instructional strategy allows my students to make meaningful, personal connections in their learning (Stembridge, 2020). They see themselves in these stories and this supports them feeling seen in the classroom. By using technology in this manner I am working to create a culturally responsive environment for all my learners (Chuang, 2020).

References 

Chuang, H., Shih, C., & Cheng, M. (2020). Teachers’ perceptions of culturally responsive

            teaching in technology‐supported learning environments. British Journal of Educational

            Technology, 51(6), 2442–2460.           

            https://doi-org.lopes.idm.oclc.org/10.1111/bjet.12921

Kim, Ok-Kyeong. (2018). Teacher decisions on lesson sequence and their impact on

            opportunities for students to learn. Research Gate. doi:10.1007/978-3-319-73253-4_15.

Murawski, W. W., Scott, L. K., (2019). What really works with universal design for learning.

            Corwin.

Stembridge, A. (2020) Culturally responsive education in the classroom. Routedge.