Article-+February+16th

Rubenstein, Grace. "Differentiated Instruction: Getting Personal with Technology Edutopia."K-12 Education & Learning Innovations with Proven Strategies That Work Edutopia. 26 Apr. 2010. Web. 12 Feb. 2012. .

__ How did the teacher use technology in this lesson/approach? Details – time, activities, products, etc __ Two different examples were given in the article. First, the second grade teacher’s use of technology ranged a lot; the teacher set up many different stations from use of the interactive whiteboard, taking reading quizzes on a laptop, and typing entries at the “Tech Zone.”

The teacher’s aide used the interactive whiteboard with students studying prefixes. The second teacher, a fourth grade teacher, allowed choices about which sorts of technology a student would use for their project. Teacher use of technology or demonstrating was not mentioned.

__ How did the students use technology? Details – time, activities, products, etc __ The first teacher used technology (laptops) for handwriting opinions about books the students read, the teacher implemented a station approach to create a finished project of a typed entry on the classroom blog. The second teacher allowed students to choose any sort of final project on the unit of life cycles and adaptation. The use of PowerPoint slideshows and using links to show videos and other media was prevalent as a choice. Another student used Comic Life software to make a cartoon about a reptile.

__ How were students assessed? How were students’ content knowledge, skills, and/or technology skills evaluated? __ The second grade teacher assesses students all the time differently: writing assignments, computer-graded quizzes and one-on-one conversations. The fourth grade teacher allows students to play upon their strengths and choose which final project type they’d like to do best. Traditional compositions were not used. Students were able to choose what sorts of technology they wanted to use individually.

__ How were students provided feedback, remediation, scaffolding? __ Students received feedback in the form of scores based on quizzes, rubrics, and even pretests before each unit. The second grade teacher circulated during the use of stations to provide assistance and check up on the progress of the students. The fourth grade teacher uses software with customizable lessons that allow students to learn at their own paces. At each grade-level a team of teachers designs lessons for each ability level group of students: differentiating instruction so all can learn at their own pace. However, no specific details of this were given for episodes of scaffolding etc.

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