Curriculum : Differentiated Curriculum Exploration Essay

Differentiation of instruction is the process of teaching in a way to meet the needs of students with differing abilities in the same class, including those with special learning needs. One way to do this is by providing several different avenues by which all students can learn the same material. In differentiating instruction, teachers plan out and implement a variety of approaches to content, process, product, and environment. Differentiated instruction is used to meet the needs of student differences in readiness, interests, and learning needs. Many people in the education field believe differentiation has the potential to transform teaching and learning in a way that raises expectations for all students.

This chapter is all about redefining curriculum themes. The themes teachers do is just topical themes that actually may not benefit the students at all when it comes to development. We need to observe the children and find out what is their interests and use that to expand their learning. If we are going to have a curriculum it should be focus on were the kids are at and not from just a textbook. We need to go from traditional theme planning to developmental theme planning which is focused on the students and helping to develop them. This developmental theme planning will help when students are asking questions, their curiosity, their strengths and interests and their play. Children love to play whether it is pretend, exploration (they want to see how things work, feel, taste and etc.), construction or playing games with rules. Also, using things like birthday parties, fears of children like floods, earthquakes, cleanup, and setup to help provide developmental themes for the systems. It is important we have props beside toys that children can use when it comes to playing so they can explore different things. We should make themes off of observations that we see from our students.

Prior taking this RETELL class I thought differentiating meant “dummying down” work. I struggled with the concept of differentiating strategies because I thought it help students to be all they can be. Taking the class have given a clear understanding the meaning and the usage of differentiating teaching, matter of fact, some the strategies I use in class are similar to some of the strategies taught in the RETELL class. I realized that Differentiated instruction is about using teaching strategies that connect with individual student's learning strategies. The ultimate goal is to provide a learning environment that will maximize the potential for student success. The important thing to remember is to hold on to the effective teaching strategies that lead students to positive learning outcomes and to make adjustments when necessary. It's about being flexible and open to change. It's also about taking risks and trying teaching and learning strategies that you would have otherwise ignored. It's about managing instructional time in a way that meets the standards and also provides motivating, challenging, and meaningful experiences for school age

Organizations must respond to their internal and external environment. Therefore, organizational success heavily relies on leaderships ability to manage change. Unfortunately, many leaders struggle to effectively lead change initiatives. In fact, Ashkenas (2013, para. 1) reported 60 – 70% of organizational change initiatives fail to meet their objectives.

Leadership is critical when executing a strategic change initiative. By differentiating leadership and management, leadership styles and the key factors of change we can better understand what should be done to successfully lead change. Success is not obtained through leadership alone but by developing a group of individuals from all levels of the organization who work together as a team. . (Leban and Stone, 2007)

curriculum. The teacher will achieve this by providing learning tasks, and outcomes tailored to meet the needs of students. The teachers are the ones who would provide quality instructions to meet the varying needs of the students. Ongoing assessment is crucial as it points out the weaknesses and strengths of the students and it informs them as to where they are at and where they need to be. This assessment also guides the teacher’s planning and choice of effective strategies to ensure that at the end of the lesson all and if not all the majority of the students have learned the lesson’s content and

The book The Heart of Change shows the practical side of the theories that are taught in the course textbook. It presents stories of successes and failures based in the application of concepts discussed in Organizational Behavior and Management and in class. Although we talked about several different concepts the ones that are evident in the examples in The Heart Of Change are the more progressive and individual centered approaches. The leadership characteristics that are important to successful change in an organization are those that are espoused in the transformational theory of management. It makes sense that ideals in line with the transformational management theory

Leading and managing change require a solid theoretical foundation. This assignment will research the theoretical elements of change and change management. Addressed will be the following: Organic Evolution of Change, Formulating Strategic Development Approaches, Leadership and Management Skills and Gathering and Analyze Data. As societies continue to evolve and changing demand creates the need for new products and services, businesses often are forced to make changes to stay competitive. The businesses that continue to survive and even thrive are usually the ones that most readily adapt to change. A variety of factors can cause a business to reevaluate its methods of operation. According to literature from the past two

Change is a double-edged sword (Fullan, 2001). Change is a word that might inspire or put fear into people. Leadership is challenging when it comes to dealing with change and how individuals react within the organization to the change. Marzano, McNulty, and Waters (2005) discuss two orders of change in their book School Leadership that Works; first and second. Fullan (2001) also adds to the discussion in his book Leading in a Culture of Change, with regard to understanding change. In Change Leadership, Keagan and Wagner (2006) discuss many factors of change and the systematic approach to change. Change affects people in different ways. Leaders need to be able to respond to the individuals throughout the change process.

In order to examine this issue further, this research will look at a number of different sources. Contemporary managerial sources are explored in order to understand how other voices in the field are describing similar methods for change. First, popular structures for change management are examined, especially within their correlation to Palmer & Dunford (2009). This is followed with an extensive

One strength good leaders bring is to switch their leadership styles depending on the situation (Darling & Heller, 2012). This is like situational leadership and it is important in organizational change as well. Situational Leadership is a model designed by Dr. Paul Hershey in the 1960s which focuses on how managers can develop competencies to diagnose, adapt, communicate, and advance the situation they are in (The Center for Leadership Studies, n.d.). Hershey stresses the importance of relationship of the approach of the leader and the readiness of the followers for a specific task (The Center for Leadership Studies, n.d.). This is the same as a change manager. Although dominant forces are often the initial go-to for change managers, good change managers must assess the situation and apply the needed ideal change manager to the situation. Because of this, regardless of the dominant change manager, it behooves an effective organizational leader to understand the different images of change and how they can influence a change’s successful

When teachers develop differentiated instruction strategies for students they provide several different avenues for the student to achieve the same learning goal regardless of which path they choose. Student choice in which avenue they ultimately select creates a sense of ownership with the students and actively engages them in the lesson. The different avenues all lead to the same learning goal just as many roads might lead to one destination. Differentiated thinking empowers teachers to be responsive rather than reactive to the unique and individual personalities,

Competitive imperatives of market forces and customer demands in today’s environment have led to the emergence of less hierarchical and more flexible organisations (Doyle, 2001). In working towards this paradigm shift, a distinction and clarification of the relationship between leadership and management in the change process needs to be addressed. According to Caldwell (2003), change leaders are executives or senior managers at the very top of the organisation who envision, initiate or sponsor strategic change of far-reaching or transformational nature by challenging the status quo, communicating a vision that employees believe in, and empowering them to act. In contrast, change managers are usually middle level managers and functional

Change happens in all aspects of life. Leaders view change as being good most of the time. An organization can’t move forward without change. This paper will discuss how leaders can use levels of change and the steps of Kotter’s change model to implement change. It will also give a Christian worldview as it pertains to the topics. Leader must learn the language to effectively communicate change. This will give managers an advantage and help demonstrate the vision for the future.

Curriculum is a term often highlighted during discourse about education and most commonly understood as a policy with overt leaning outcomes for teachers to apply and achieve. Ornstein and Hunkins (1998), as cited by Selvaraj (2010), defined curriculum based on two lenses; micro and macro, which identify the term as both policy towards certain goals and what students experience with consideration for relevant theories and principles central to its development and implementation. However, Wilson (n.d.) argued that curriculum is not restricted to certain individuals, subjects and environments, since teaching and learning can also occur beyond the scope of official curriculum (Ebert & Culyer, as cited in Marsh, Clarke & Pittaway, 2014). I believe this interpretation is the closest to the true nature of curriculum, or education, as there are more complex layers to curriculum than just a written guideline. For example, not one curriculum is similar to another because it is subjected to influences from continuum number of factors, such as politics and economy. Hence, it is wise to conclude that curriculum could not be defined based on a singular perspective due to its dependability on context.