(The title is adopted from an article published by
IBO named "Learning diversity in the International
Baccalaureate programmes:Special educational needs within the International Baccalaureate programmes")
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| Is this right? [source: http://www.edstructure.org/p/knowing.html] |
You will be agree with me on the fact that there is diversity in the student body. So when Ms. Moon[a teacher] starts giving instruction on "life cycle of a tree" in her class, every student try to make sense of it in their own way.
Ms. Moon's audience includes visual learner, auditory learner, read-write learners, kinesthetic learners and many more. Parents have sent their children to her class with the same expectation to gain knowledge. Mr. Gotiya would not prefer to send his child Shymal to a special school with special educational arrangements, instead he would like Shymal to attend classes with everyone else in his neighbour. Ms. Moon plans her lesson to address the needs of the classroom as a whole rather than focusing only on gifted and talented.
I would certainly bargain on behalf of student body and urge schools to frame their curriculum to support all types of learners. Schools should discover ways to uplift all children and help them gaining self confidence in their persuasion of knowledge.
Generic teaching methods will not contribute to all learner at all times[Taken from
IBO guide on special education]. I stand by Ms. Moon's approach to show variety of ways to represent life cycle of a tree, as it benefits not only those who have diverse needs but all students including the gifted and talented.
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| For visual learners of Ms. Moon's class. [Source: http://www.nwf.org/trees-for-wildlife/benefits-for-wildlife.aspx] |
Now when a teacher plan-reflect-plan lessons as per the needs of his/her pupils, it leads to a whole bunch of new resources for the teacher. Later, these new resources can be incorporated in future classes for enriched learning of each and every student. To be successful in doing so as teachers we should
increase understanding of who we teach and what we teach[Tomlinson and Edison(2003)].
On the other side, it requires schools to allocate dedicated time for a teacher to plan, implement, review and adjust as per the needs of the diverse classroom scenario. Schools have started to encourage inclusive education so that teachers do not see
individual differences as problem to be fixed but discover opportunities for enriched learning[Taken from
IBO guide on special education]. But again that obviously increases cost of providing curriculum hence sometimes ineffective. Therefore it is vital that schools allocate necessary budget towards inclusive education for it to be successful in all respect.
In order to differentiate a teacher should use Web 2.0 as one of the tools. Asynchronous classroom tool Voice thread for personalized engagement, assessment and feedback. Diigo as customised resource tool for each and every student's diversified need. A class blog with sequential information organization by adding web links, presentations, videos will help an individual student to learn, to reflect and to clarify as it comes in their way. But a teacher must be prompt, updated in order to use these as resources successfully for differentiation.
These tools will help learners to achieve goals in their own time and pace. Also learners will gradually develop critical thinking as they will be heard and will be visible not only to the teacher but also a larger audience.[Above two paragraphs were added after Kevin Crouch's comment on role of Web 2.0 in differentiation]
At the end I would like to ask, as teacher
do you want to treat your student as copy of the other?[Adopted from http://www.edstructure.org/] Or will you be flexible enough to accommodate them individually?
