It is amazing how many things you already do in your classrooms that you don't realize are differentiating the instruction for the students! And also how many more you could be doing that would be very easy to incorporate.
- Group Discussion: I currently do group discussions whenever we are doing units like cyberbullying and online safety. We usually will watch a couple of videos and then have discussion about the students experiences and thoughts on it.
- Choices of assignments: I always try to give the students at least two options on what they can do for their independent work/project after we've done our group work together. This seems to work well for the students and I almost always get a large variety and not just everyone picking the same choice so its great!
- Self-assessment: I like to have the students do a self-assessment at the beginning of a new unit so they can rate themselves on their ability and list any experience they have with the program and/or skill. Depending on the length of the unit have them go back and redo it after a certain amount of time. Having them also explain what they need extra help with and what their strengths and weaknesses are is a great way to gauge where they are at and how they are feeling about things.
- Group work: Whenever we are learning a new concept we starte with whole group instruction as we're going over examples and they are getting down the steps. Sometimes group work is a great tool for projects/assignments and sometimes it can be a hindrance depending on the activity and the group of students! If I think it will be beneficial to work with a partner or small group I always give the option but sometimes I have them work independently.
- Videos and/or tutorials: If I can find a video or a tutorial on something that we've covered I always post it to my website so that students can use it as a reference to what we're working on. Many of them will watch it at the beginning of class to get a refresher of what we're working on!