Ben Kwedar 3/25/2013 SPED 405 Final Exam There are several ways I make sure to differentiate my instruction

to meet the needs of all students. Some of these will be highlighted in this essay. However, I think it is important to remember that differentiation needs to take place before a teacher gets in the classroom. First, I try to make sure to emphasize universal design when I prep every lesson. This means that instead of revising lessons to meet the needs of all students, lesson plans are already created with this differentiation in the first place. This ensures that I will be planning for every student in my class, rather than simply developing my lesson for the majority of the classroom. Therefore, I am not trying to force accommodations, interventions, or modifications into circumstances where they will not be as effective. Rather I build my lessons around every student including students who will need accommodations, interventions, or modifications. I also differentiate my instruction to meet the wide range of skills in my class in regards to the differing amount of activities I use in my class. One of these activities is called a Think, Pair, Share. After first posing a question to be worked on individually, students will then get together with a partner to discuss their answers. When this is accomplished, each group presents their collective answer to the class. This activity is fantastic for differentiating instruction, especially in full inclusion settings, as students with different abilities and strengths could work together and through each other to facilitate learning. Throughout my average lesson, I try to incorporate activities that appeal to a variety of different learning strengths such as auditory, visual, and tactile. If a student struggles with the

learning style being accentuated, I will provide accommodations for said student. For example, if a student struggles with auditory skills, I can give her/him transcripts of movies, songs, or speeches that are viewed during class. During lecture, I would give this student a complete, fullsentence outline, rather than just a partial key word outline, which would be given to those who did not struggle with auditory skills. If a student is reading at a lower grade level, I would provide him/her with an digitalized audio recording of the text. My instruction is also differentiated in regards to how I am willing to set up data driven interventions, behavioral or academic, for any students who require such assistance. Although this is not necessarily required from an IEP, interventions are vital to some students growth. One example of an intervention, that I have implemented in the past with a Special Education teacher is called, the PDA Intervention Plan. This plan helped a student, who sustained a brain injury, work on his organizational skills by using his phone as a way to remind himself what tasks he had to accomplish for my class throughout the day. I would allow this student to take out his phone at certain moments during my class time, to add alarms, reminders, and calendar events to aid his memory. We measured the effectiveness of this intervention by creating a progress-monitoring table, which contained a specific threshold that our student had to meet, in order to be rewarded. I, the Special Education teacher, and the student would meet twice a week in order to evaluate his progress.