Week 8: Assessing for Learning - Reflection

One of the most important things that I have learned through this class is that our students are very different and have different needs when it comes to educating them. This course has shown me why it is important to differentiate, when, and how. At first glance it was intimidating thinking that I needed to create a lesson plan for every single student. As a teacher it worried me that I might not have the time to do it and also would be denying potential students from learning. That worried me. But as the course went on I discovered many of the activities and or lessons that I have used in my class were already reaching many diverse learners in a capacity that I had not known about. The course has given me power in this field where I can harness ideas I already had to help differentiate my instruction.

With the addition of technology to differentiate instruction, it has given me many options in my classroom, and also to my students. One of the greatest things I have learned is allowing my students to choose how they want to learn. Technology based resources like web-quests or online inquiries have given my students that ability. Technology can also give students the option on how they want to create. Giving students this type of freedom allows them to choose what tool or resource bests fits them, rather than me assigning everyone the same process to develop the same product. All our students are not the same, so having them all do the SAME thing is just not logical, but many times in the past, that’s what I have done.

Technology has influenced me to allow my students the freedom to choose how they learn. It has offered great flexibility and much more engaging learning experiences. When I think of differentiating instruction now, I welcome it, and welcome my students to learn amongst their own means with the use of technology, rather than the limits and boundaries I have set in the past.