A teacher is most effective when s/he works to accommodate all students’ individual needs into each lesson.

From the first day of school, my mentor teacher, Jen Tranell, has pointed out that our first grade class demonstrates a lower academic achievement level. In both math and language arts, the majority of the students demonstrate low to average achievement levels. Jen has tested each student to determine his or her individual needs, and uses differentiated instruction to accommodate the various ability levels that are present in the classroom. She conducts math lessons by introducing new concepts or mathematical strategies to the class as a whole, and then splits the students into groups for the remainder of class-time to go to stations. She also has groups for language arts and uses stations as a means to teach writing and reading lessons. Stations accommodate individual needs because they allow students to work in closer proximity to the teacher since the groups are smaller, and they help to give each group the appropriate lesson for their ability levels.

Helping Jen write plans for the week has given me insight as to how a teacher plans lessons to meet the needs of his/her students. Since science is never split up into groups based on ability-level, Jen alters each lesson to make sure that all of the students in the class will be able to complete the task at hand and will be able to understand the scientific concepts. One way that I have seen her alter lessons is to allow students to record their data in pictorial form rather than writing. She does this because writing might be difficult for some students, and it would hinder their science class experience if they are unable to complete the task simply because they have trouble with writing. Accommodating all students’ ability levels in all lessons is a seemingly impossible task, but it can be accomplished with the use of differentiated instruction and careful planning on the part of the teacher.