Differentiating content
1. Many,many years ago, we always started the year by giving a learning style survey. For some reason, it went out of fashion; but I still find myself making mental notes about who has to have quiet, who prefers to work alone, who is always asking to have the lights turned off . Also, the child who absolutely has to have quiet to read may be the student who has to talk out math. So kid watching is important.
2. My learning style is bright light, but not as bright as our new lights, piano music, boring surroundings, and food. I usually only decorate one wall of the room because less decor is better for ADHD students. I have words everywhere this year and it's driving me nuts! I need to remember to include a variety of learning styles. For example, the auctioneer who visited my classroom had several students rap for him to show how that was like the auctioneers chant. While I often ask students to draw, I need to remember to include performance options.
3. The before and after charts of lesson design were overwhelming at first . Wow, different reading levels, different questioning levels, different tests! But then I realized that the new Focus on Science provides different reading levels, and while we find some of the materials boring our reading series does provide various levels. So I need to practice using exam view to create a variety of tests. which is a good idea because when they take the OAA they'll have a different form of the test then the child beside them; and it can provide scaffolding to develop their question answering skills.