Margarita Altidis SPED 405 Final Assessment How do you differentiate your instruction to meet the needs of all

students? Give an example from one of your lessons. As an educator, it is essential to understand that not all students think and learn in the same manner. It is important, therefore, for the teacher to take into consideration the wide range of abilities and skills present in his or her classroom. To differentiate instruction to meet the needs of all students, I focus my instruction around essential questions that lend themselves to easily accessible takeaways and focus my presentation around showing students information with multiple representations. By basing instruction around essential questions and presenting information in multiple, multimodal fashions, students with varying needs will have greater access to material. Developing essential questions for each unit of study will help guide students to understand both the main takeaways of the unit and establish a purpose for study. Having takeaways for all students also greatly helps students with and without learning disabilities in integrated classrooms. Since the benefits for integrated classrooms are immense for learning and social skills for students with special needs, having essential questions helps all students, despite ability, focus their attention around two or three objectives at a time. This system will also add purpose to the teachers lessons since the purpose is driven by answering an essential question. Another way I plan to differentiate instruction for students is by using multiple, multimodal representations to present information. I firmly believe that students should have access to material in multiple representations, including material that requires listening and visual interpretation. For example, when teaching the scene where Ophelia dies in Shakespeares Hamlet, I demonstrated interpretation through close reading of the text, interpreting still images, and watching the scene in a film version. Since the description of Ophelias death is minimal, but impactful in the play, students had the opportunity to jump from seeing her death represented through text to artists renditions to Kenneth Branaughs version of the play in film. This differentiation was not only used to teach this particular scene, but also for other key scenes in the play. This kind of differentiation allowed for students who might struggle with reading the text or creating a mental image while reading to have access to the content by seeing it represented through acting or picture. Teaching with multiple representations not only made the content accessible to students, but also lent itself to a more interesting, engaging lesson. In my own teaching philosophy, differentiated instruction is all about giving students, despite ability or skill level, access to learning new material. By scaffolding instruction through essential questions and presenting material with multiple representations, I will be able to engage students multiple abilities while simultaneously creating interest for the material.