Ice Cream. Who doesn't love ice cream on a Summer afternoon, or for that matter, on any afternoon. There are some days in the classroom when things aren't just going the way I would like when the thought of stopping for an orange twist cone at the local stand in Fairview on the way home is the only thing that keeps me going! This is a picture of my husband, Todd, and I at my favorite ice cream stand in Marblehead, Ohio. Early in the Summer, they serve fresh strawberry sundaes - and then in August, the fresh peach sundaes appear. Sometimes I think that our lessons can be like ice cream sundaes. There are those favorite lessons that are like deluxe banana splits, full of lots of differentiated material and activities that we have invested a lot of time into preparing. We love these lessons, in fact, we love them so much that sometimes we keep teaching them even if they don't fit the standards we are supposed to be including in our curriculum. There are other lessons that are more like a small bowl of plain vanilla ice cream. We present these lessons to the class but we know that they aren't going to get a whole lot out of them. We don't get a whole lot out of them either. So here is my lesson from the ice cream stand. Offer your students a variety of lessons, a variety of assessments, a variety of learning style approaches and a variety of activities. If you are going to spend valuable classroom time on the lesson, take some time to put a little something extra into it, maybe a hands on activity, a technology based activity or an interesting small group discussion. Better yet, just like at the ice cream stand, give the students a choice about how they would like to learn the material or show you what they have learned. Make sure that the lesson is relevant to the content standards you are responsible for in your curriculum. And on those days when you know that you really pulled off a great lesson, take time to get yourself an ice cream on the way home!
Click on this link to see the full size presentation or click through the slides below
Would you like to learn more about differentiated instruction:
- Internet for Classrooms resources for Differentiated Instruction
- Eight Lessons Learned About Differentiated Instruction
- Find out your own learning style - or log on and let your students try
- Carol Ann Tomlinson article on differentiation - the be all end all expert on this topic
- ASCD article by Carol Ann Tomlinson about standards based teaching and differentiating
Would you like to learn more about alternative assessment:
