Running head: STUDENT-CENTERED AND DIFFERENTIATED 1

Student-Centered and Differentiated Instruction

Kelly Smalley
Regent University

In partial fulfilment of UED 496 Field Experience ePortfolio

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Introduction
Elementary schools are no longer places where students sit at tidy rows of desks all day

and listen to long, boring lectures. Students can often be found up and moving or sitting in

flexible seating arrangements, working in groups, or working on independent, student-specific

projects. Not only do these types of classrooms teach students important life skills, like working

with others and decision-making, they also provide students with opportunities that allow them

to learn in the ways that they learn best.

Artifacts and Rationale

My first artifact is a set of pictures of students working in pairs or groups on homophone

activities. The first activity was a flip-book that the students practiced with in pairs, and the

second activity was a memory game with groups of five students. Although I chose the groups

and pairs that would work together by placing students who had been doing well with the

concept of homophones with those who were still having difficulty with it, the students were in

charge of the decision-making in their own groups while they were working.

This artifact demonstrates student-centered learning in small groups. Once the students

got into their pairs or groups, they decided how the activity they were working on would be run.

As the facilitator, I provided the basic guidelines for what was to be accomplished. I also

provided support when the students could not agree on how something should be done by

offering suggestions of what they could do to work better together. For example, one of the

memory game groups was having a difficult time agreeing on whether the cards should be

randomly spread out or placed in neat rows, and this was preventing them from getting started,

so I suggested that they take a vote to see if they could come to a decision. They voted, and the

cards were placed into rows. Although one student was upset about how the vote turned out, it

provided an opportunity to discuss compromise and working together to achieve a goal. Overall,
STUDENT-CENTERED AND DIFFERENTIATED 3

I was pleased with the ideas that the students came up with for working together, and I only had

to intervene and offer suggestions a few times.

My second artifact is a choice board that I created for language arts. I found that students

were bored with having to read a book every time they finished their work early, which meant

that they often ended up acting in a way that disrupted others who were still working. My

solution was a choice board that gave the students an opportunity to work on meaningful

activities and, most importantly, activities of their choice. The choice board that I created was

aligned with various Standards of Learning objectives for language arts, integrated different

content areas, and provided for different learning styles based on Gardners multiple

intelligences.

This artifact demonstrates both student-centered learning and differentiation based on

learning style. The students were free to choose from multiple activities, and I left an option open

for them to create their own activity if they could not find one on the board that they liked. I also

made sure to create activities that appealed to several different learning styles, including

verbal/linguistic, logical/mathematical, visual/spatial, and musical (Gardner, 2006).

Theory in Practice

Both my life experiences and my faith play a vital role in creating a student-centered

classroom environment and providing differentiated instruction. As an elementary school student

during a time when education took a one-size-fits-all approach in classrooms where students sat

in tidy rows of desks that faced a chalk board and listened to a teacher drone on about whatever

the topic was, I was never challenged to use my strengths to help me learn. I managed to

succeed, but others did not do as well. As a teacher, it is my desire to allow students to use how

they were created as a tool in their learning experience.

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God knew each of my students before they were ever born, and then He carefully knit

them together in their mothers wombs (Jer. 1:5; Psa. 139:13), creating unique individuals with

differing gifts, talents, and abilities. As a teacher, I believe that it is my purpose to use the gifts

that God gave me to help my students discover and grow their own gifts, talents, and abilities.

Providing student-centered and differentiated instruction are two of the most important ways that

I can accomplish that task.

Based on Vygotskys sociocultural theory, cooperative learning is a student-centered

model that works because social interaction with a more competent person in a shared activity

drives cognitive growth (Bergin & Bergin, 2015, p. 123). Students not only learn valuable

social skills, but they also learn from each other when the teacher uses flexible grouping to pair

students who are proficient with those who are still developing proficiency. The proficient

students hone their skills by providing support to their peers, and the students who are

developing proficiency receive the scaffolding needed to gain increased competence (Bergin &

Bergin, 2015, p. 123). Most importantly, teachers can learn much about their students unique,

God-given qualities when they observe them working together. They may discover that some of

their students are natural-born leaders, peace-makers, negotiators, or even teachers, and they can

encourage the growth of those qualities.

Cooperative learning can also provide a certain amount of differentiation because

proficient students are encouraged to use higher level thinking skills to explain processes rather

than just give answers, while students who are developing proficiency receive scaffolding in

their learning. Another method for differentiation of instruction by which students gain

competency is student choice. Giving students choices that consider their many styles of learning

is beneficial in the student-centered classroom because when a topic connects to what students
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like to do, engagement deepens and they willingly spend time thinking, dialoging, and creating

ideas in meaningful ways (McCarthy, 2014). Providing student choice allows students to use

and the teacher to nurture their God-given gifts, abilities, and talents to showcase their

understanding. Ultimately, cooperative learning and student choice are merely two of the myriad

ways that teachers can use to support students in their student-centered and differentiated

classrooms.
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References

Bergin, C. C. & Bergin, D. A. (2015). Child and Adolescent Development in Your Classroom

(2nd ed.). Stamford, CT: Cenage Learning.

Gardner, H. (2006). Multiple Intelligences: New Horizons. New York: Basic Books.

McCarthy, J. (2014, August 25). Learner interest matters: Strategies for empowering student

choice. Edutopia. Retrieved from https://www.edutopia.org/blog/differentiated-

instruction-learner-interest-matters-john-mccarthy
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Artifact 1: Cooperative Learning in the Student-Centered Classroom

Two students, one proficient and one developing proficiency, chose to work on their homophone
flip cards by both searching for the same homophone and then comparing. Other students chose to
look up different homophones and then have their partners check their answers.

Two different groups, each with three proficient students and two students who were still
developing proficiency, played a homophone memory game. When they could not make a match,
they were to choose one word to create a sentence with, and when they made a match, they were
to create two sentences, one for each word, to show their understanding. Most of the proficient
students self-differentiated by creating one sentence using both words, whether the words
matched or not, and eventually the students who were developing proficiency began to do the
same.
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Artifact 2: Differentiation Through a Student Choice Board
Choice Board for Early Finishers
Pretend that you are Betsy
Ross, Benjamin Franklin, or
George Washington Carver
and write a diary entry.
Use Pebble Go conduct your
research. Decide on a date
(do you want to write as a
child, a teen, an adult?)use
the month, day, year format.
Write at least 10 sentences.
Write your journal entry in
your writing journal or type
in a Word document.
Create a comic strip
showing what it means to be
a good citizen. Your comic
strip must have at least four
frames. See Mrs. Smalley
for paper.
Write a poem using at least
five homophone pairs
(example: deer & dear = one
pair). Write your poem on a
piece of notebook paper or
type in a Word document.
You may transfer it to a
piece of construction paper
and add pictures if you would
like. You may read your poem
to the class when finished.
Create a timeline that includes
the birth and death of Betsy
Ross, Benjamin Franklin, and
George Washington Carver, as
well as the date the date the
Declaration of Independence
was signed and the date the
U.S. Constitution was ratified.
Be creative; add pictures and
color! Use Pebble Go or
InfoKids to conduct your
research. See Mrs. Smalley for
construction paper after you
have finished your research.
FREE
CHOICE
(see Mrs. Smalley to
clear your idea)
Create a crossword puzzle
that uses five pairs of
homophones (example: deer &
dear = one pair). Use the
dictionary to find definitions if
you get stuck. See Mrs.
Smalley to get instructions on
how to create your puzzle on
Discovery Education Puzzle
Maker.
8
Create a poster to advertise
at least five useful products
that George Washington
Carver created with Peanuts.
Make sure that you use words,
pictures, and color on your
poster. Use Pebble Go to
conduct your research. See
Mrs. Smalley for construction
paper after you have finished
your research.
Write a rap about place value.
Your rap must have at least
ten lines. Write your rap on a
piece of notebook paper or
type it in a Word document.
You may perform your rap for
the class when finished.
Write instructions on how to
round numerals to the nearest
ten, hundred, and thousand.
Dont forget to include how to
round to the nearest ten in a
three-digit numeral and the
nearest hundred in a four-
digit numeral! Write your
instructions on a piece of
paper or type them in a Word
document.