Writing Individualized Lesson Plans
How to Differentiated a Lesson Plan to Meet Student Needs
Dec 18, 2008
With all the talk about teaching to each individual child in the classroom, beginning teachers may wonder how to write individual lesson plans for 25 students. The logistical nightmare of this seems insurmountable, and this is indeed the case. Instead of writing individual lesson plans, you simply learn to differentiate your one lesson plan.
How to Differentiate Instruction in Math
Differentiating instruction in math class is not limited to inclusion classes with students who have a math disability. In any given classroom, there will be a great variety of math abilities, and your lesson will need to take this into account. You must teach at a pace that does not leave the slower students behind, so you will need to think of extension ideas that are easy to assign to the higher level students while you spend extra time with the rest of the class.
Coming up with simple strategies to help the students who will struggle more than the average student will help you not leave these students behind in your instruction. Make sure to provide color coding and cute phrases that will help students remember key ideas whenever possible. For example, when teaching measuring, you can color each inch red, each half inch blue and each quarter inch yellow.
How to Differentiate Instruction in Reading
To differentiate your reading lessons, consider dividing your class into reading groups. Many schools already require their teachers to do reading groups, as this makes differentiation easy for the teacher and provides better instruction to individual students at each level. Grouping students by ability for reading will allow you to push your advanced readers, expecting more from them, and at the same time, hang back and help the slower readers catch up to grade level. In order to manage the rest of the class while you are working with one group, provide plenty of appropriate seat work or center work for the students to work on quietly.
How to Differentiate Instruction in Writing
Using a Writers Workshop idea in your classroom is the easiest way to differentiate your writing instruction. This allows you to teach each student right at their specific level while improving every student's writing skills at the same time. It may take a little effort and time for you to organize the writers workshop in your classroom, but taking the time to do so will provide you and your students with great rewards.
How to Differentiate Instruction
Differentiating instruction in other subjects such as history and science is also important. While you can help your slower readers in a different group for reading class, all students must read out of the same social studies book. In order to meet the needs of each student, teachers should provide a rich learning environment that includes visual displays, activities for students to complete, and projects that teach about the lessons. Utilizing multi-ability groupings can also be helpful as the more advanced students will be able to help the slower students.
When writing your lesson plans, take the extra time to come up with a method of differentiation in order to meet the needs of all of your students. Usually providing advanced opportunities for some students while at the same time coming up with a simple help for the slower students during the same lesson will be sufficient at meeting each student's ability level. Ask your Special Education staff for more ideas.
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