The Importance Of Instruction For Students With Or Without Disabilities

Differentiating instruction is a valuable instructional management and delivery tool, which can be used to assist teachers in meeting the needs of the diverse populations of students which they now find in their classrooms. In using these strategies, a teacher may use pre-assessments to determine the learning styles, interests and readiness of the students, prior to the introduction of a lesson or unit. After developing a learner profile, the teacher may then differentiate according to the readiness of the student, by process of delivery, and by the product which the student may produce to

All students deserve a rewarding learning experience regardless of race, gender, economic status, or physical disability, for this reason Walnut Ridge Elementary school implements researched based practices such as differentiated instruction to help meet the individual needs of our students. Teachers are being made aware of the fact that diversity can have a detrimental impact on learning. Through the implementation of differentiation, we are able to expand the learning experiences for all diverse populations, thereby expanding educational opportunities for our students.

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.

In the educational world, there are countless programs, curricula, strategies, manipulates, and resources for teachers to pull from in order to aide in the teaching of concepts and learning of students. Whatever method(s) a school or district has deemed best practice, or adopted as their curriculum, tend to be the instructional practices or resources utilized the most by those teachers. Additionally, teachers will also have preference to teaching styles, resources, and materials they use for their students. While autonomy in any classroom is important to students’ academic growth, one must also be careful to select and implement instructional with great intention and purpose. Consideration to students needs is equally important as the mandate of teaching standards and demonstrating proficiency amongst students. Even when teaching non-disabled students, it can be time consuming and overwhelming to plan lessons so just how much more is involved when planning for students with significant disabilities (SD)? Better yet, what are appropriate instructional strategies to use for students with SD? Regardless of the instructional setting, these are considerations that must be given when teaching students with SD in order to maximize their learning opportunities to learn

The research in this paper is to discuss strategies used to teach students with severe disabilities in mathematics. “According to the American Association on Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities, (AAIDD) Intellectual disability is characterized by significant limitations both in intellectual functioning and in adaptive behavior as expressed in conceptual, social, and practical adaptive skills. The diagnoses of the disability should come before the age of 18 (Westling, Fox, & Carter, 2015).” Mathematics is a core subject area that can pose a challenge for a large amount of students in America, and especially those with severe disabilities. “According to a study, only a quarter of students with disabilities that

Differentiation is the tool used by educators who recognize that all students come to them with different readiness levels and learning styles. It allows us to meet the needs of each individual student while meeting the standards developed by state and national education associations. Additionally, there are many different types of differentiation that can be used in a classroom: teachers can create learning centers, use differentiated assessments, and develop anchor activities, etc. Currently, I utilize differentiated assessments, but my goal for the upcoming school year is to utilize more learning centers and to incorporate anchor activities into my daily classroom routine.

All in all, differentiated instruction is a method used by teachers to accommodate all the different learning modalities, levels of learning, cultural and language barriers and special needs often integrated in one classroom with one lesson plan.

Today, Ms. Laura Garner did a professional development on Differentiation. It was amazing! I’ve read professional articles and books on this topic, but never actually saw it up close as a participant. I was not just a participant but I was an active participant. I was engaged in the learning process. In fact, every teacher in the room was actively engaged in the learning process. Everyone was not doing the same activity, but the topic at hand was the same for all participants. Thus, instruction, in a classroom, should not be one size fits all. It should be catered so the needs of each student that enters into a classroom to learn are met and more importantly, students’ weaknesses are not highlighted for everyone in the classroom to

“UDL is a proactive strategy that helps teachers build differentiation into their lesson plans from the beginning, eliminating the need for most of the accommodations teachers typically make after the fact, and providing the flexibility and accessibility needed to reduce the barriers for students with disabilities” (Spencer, 2011, p.11). By planning lessons in this proactive manner and making them more accessible to students with special needs, teachers end up helping everyone in their class and providing improved access to the curriculum for all students. The goal of UDL is to challenge us as teachers to expand our thinking about instruction and lesson design so that we move beyond traditional lecture and worksheet teaching and begin integrating technology and flexible practices to create curriculum and instruction that is more appealing to all students. It is a win-win for all

Educating students with disabilities has evolved immensely throughout history. Initially, students with disabilities were isolated and institutionalized. Society 's perception was that it was not necessary or beneficial to invest time or resources into this group of people (Spaulding & Pratt, 2015; Dybwad, 1990; Winzer, 1998). Direct advocacy and litigations caused changes in federal legislation (Griffith, 2015; Lloyd & Lloyd, 2015). Due to the civil rights movement, stu-dents with disabilities became part of the public educational system. Our current system has evolved to the level that educators work as teams to create individual learning plans for students

Wehmeyer (n.d.) explains that there has been what he describes as three waves of educational practices for individuals with disabilities. In short, these waves, or generations, have moved the ideas and opinions of educating children with disabilities from the use of a functional model to one that now focuses on instruction in the general education classroom. The third generation, educations current focus, first “presumes a student’s presence in the general education classroom” (Wehmeyer, n.d., para. 21). This is not to say that functional skills are no longer necessary or that providing a more restrictive setting is no longer needed. As mentioned earlier, IDEA (2004) requires that individual with disabilities be provided a free and appropriate public education (FAPE) and also requires that they are provided access to the general curriculum. What this change in practice does is move the idea of educating children with disabilities with their non-disabled peers from simply providing access to, first, including them in the general education setting (Wehmeyer, n.d., p. 23). What most people do not realize are the positive effects that this has on the rate of learning for children with

Differentiated instruction is personalized for students of different levels of achievement, which allows students to choose what kind of teaching they want to use to learn. It lets students grow at their own pace through new material. For a differentiated classroom, teachers use assessments to determine student readiness. Assessments such as pre-tests are effective in determining what a student needs to learn or what level the student is. It lets teachers teach students based off of the common core standards but they do it also based on each child’s learning style and what level of knowledge they are at, at the same

When working with students with disabilities you are faced with multiple challenges that make the task extremely difficult. Dealing with the day-to-day needs of this population, their parents, their paperwork, attending the meetings that go along with the job, can mean that there often isn’t a lot of time to interact with other students and teachers. It can be isolating and that can be hard. Limited operating budgets present additional challenges for special needs classes. You may have to do with fewer materials, and resources due to budget constraints. These challenges are all equally difficult and when combined, as they often are on a daily basis, almost impossible to juggle. There is the variablility of student’s needs; you will see students

I can incorporate elements of powerful teaching and learning into my practice by involving students in the learning and at the same time ensuring that the material helps them think for themselves. As a future teacher, I will always find methods to make learning important, accurate, and valuable to students. I will find what students are enthusiastic about and then use those interests as inspirations to increase engagement. Whether a student is passionate on one thing or has probably few areas of interest, there are many easy strategies that I can use into my curriculum. I truly believe that every student learns different ways. So it is very important for me to use in the classroom differentiated instruction, especially for those students with special needs. Differentiation is the best way to engage all learners successfully. I will also include engagement in the classroom. This is a good way to involve students in the classroom and to stay engaged in their learning and develop greater skills. When students are taught to control their behavior and work independently, the environment in the classroom is peacefully and easy to teach. I am looking forward to incorporate all these teaching strategies in my

The importance of education for all children, especially for those with disability and with limited social and economic opportunities, is indisputable. Indeed, the special education system allowed children with disability increased access to public education. Apart from that, the special education system has provided for them an effective framework for their education, and for the institutions involved to identify children with disability sooner. In turn, this promotes greater inclusion of children with disability alongside their nondisabled peers. In spite of these advances however, many obstacles remain, including delays in providing services for children with disability, as well as regulatory and