Week Two

Question #1: What is differentiation? To me, differentiation means a teacher needs to get to know and understand each individual student in the classroom. Students come into a classroom with varying abilities, interests, personalities, and weaknesses. It is important for a teacher to understand where each student is and where they have come from in order to know how to design lesson plans that will meet their needs. With this information a teacher needs to make the necessary accommodations in what they teach and how they teach it in order to maximize the learning that takes place for each and every one of the students. Teachers need to be comfortable with the core curriculum they are required to teach so that they can be flexible in the manner in which they present this information to the students. In a nutshell, differentiation means becoming aware of the needs of individual students and presenting lessons and information in a variety of ways in order to help each student reach their fullest potential.

Question 2a: I will relate my current understanding of differentiation to my flower garden. My garden began as an idea sketched on a piece of graph paper. Hours and hours were spent tilling, raking, and removing the rocks that infested the soil. A sprinkling system was meticulously added to provide my garden with the necessary water. Foundational items such as walkways, curbing, and rocks were added and finally, I searched out and found wondrous varies of species to go in my garden. My budget could only afford the smallest size of these plants, so it was necessary to allow adequate space between each plant for room to grow. Although the plants, trees, and flowers are all very different from one another, they come together to make a beautiful garden.

Gardens require a lot of work – weeding, pruning, fertilizing, and tilling. Some of my plants require stabilization from the wild Spanish Fork winds. Some plants have had to be carefully transplanted as I reconfigured my plans. Some plants need a lot of water, while others require very little. Daylilies love sun, while bleeding-hearts wilt under its scorching heat. Care needs to be taken as I place each plant; I do not what the tall plants blocking the shorter one. Each plant needs to be placed strategically to show off its best features. They need to get along well with their neighbors. If gardening is so much work, why do I do it? I do it because I like hard work and I like seeing the end result of a beauty garden.

As much as I love gardening, I am still only an amateur, continually working to improve my abilities to care for my garden and help it reach its beautiful potential. After each cold and dormant winter, hope always pushes its way out of the ground as my bulbs begin to emerge with the heat of the spring sun.

This metaphor makes sense to me because I love both children and flower gardens. The individual plants, trees, and flowers in my garden are like the individual students I will have in my future classroom.

My future classroom began sixteen years ago as a faraway and possibly unreachable dream, but a dream none the less. While my children were young, I would volunteer in their classrooms. I would watch and gather ideas from excellent teachers that I hope to one day incorporate into my own classroom. Just like a gardener, I would weed and prune out the ideas and examples which I found to be contrary to the ideal I had envisioned in my mind of what a great teacher would be. For the past several years, I have been building a foundation on which to build my classroom through gaining a bachelors degree in elementary education. Soon, I will be blessed with a room full of eager children who are waiting for me, the teacher, to give them what they need to flourish. Each student will be as different and varied as each plant I have placed in my garden. They will all have different needs which I will need to be aware of and keep in mind as I help each student reach their maximum potential.

As I prepare to become a teacher, I know that I am an amateur. I will need to continually seek learning and guidance as I strive to meet the needs of the students I will have the privilege to teach. Teaching will require a lot of hard work, but I am sure if I put forth the necessary effort required to meet the needs of each of my students to help them “blossom” it will all be worth it. As I stand back and take a look at how far each of my students has come during the school year, I know the hard work will definitely pay off.