This year, as a continuation of my guided goals from the past with the addition of a Differentiated Instruction focus, I included more literacy techniques and technology integration into my planning and differentiated instruction. As a part of the Differentiated Instruction trainer group, I felt that I needed to focus on implementing more intentional differentiation in to my lessons in order to better instruct/ help the members of my inservice cohort. While I feel confident that I do differentiate in class to meet the social and emotional needs of the students, I believe that I need to continue to research, plan, and attempt to meet the differentiated academic needs of my students on a more lesson specific scale. In order to do this, I have spent time trying to better understand the idea of tiered lessons and the logistics of teaching a tiered lesson in 40 minutes. I have implemented several tiered lessons/ projects to some success this year, as well as used technology and hands-on literacy based activities to help the students build connections, activate prior knowledge, and demonstrate understanding.
Please use the links on the right of this wiki to visit some of the lessons/ activities I have done this year. You will also find copies of parent communication from the year and reflections on literacy coaching in the middle school.
O'Gorman 2010-2011
This year, as a continuation of my guided goals from the past with the addition of a Differentiated Instruction focus, I included more literacy techniques and technology integration into my planning and differentiated instruction. As a part of the Differentiated Instruction trainer group, I felt that I needed to focus on implementing more intentional differentiation in to my lessons in order to better instruct/ help the members of my inservice cohort. While I feel confident that I do differentiate in class to meet the social and emotional needs of the students, I believe that I need to continue to research, plan, and attempt to meet the differentiated academic needs of my students on a more lesson specific scale. In order to do this, I have spent time trying to better understand the idea of tiered lessons and the logistics of teaching a tiered lesson in 40 minutes. I have implemented several tiered lessons/ projects to some success this year, as well as used technology and hands-on literacy based activities to help the students build connections, activate prior knowledge, and demonstrate understanding.