1. Mrs. Jasper is using whole-class instruction with her centers because every student goes to every center regardless of the student's need. Some students breezed through the center which means they did not need it.
Mrs. Cunningham uses centers, but she does not have every student go to every center. She assigns centers based on readiness. She is differentiating. Students do not all work on the same tasks.
Mr. Elliot uses whole-class instruction with some differentiation. He lets each student select their own biography, so he is trying to meet the varying interests of his students. This could also allow each student to choose a book at their reading level. However, each student was given the same assignment and graded with the same rubric.
Mrs. May is also using some whole-class instruction and is differentiating. She is using interest inventories to help her students choose a famous person to research. This is to be sure that each student will enjoy the assignment process because they have a connection to the topic. Students can select reading material that they can understand. Mrs. May is meeting with each individual students as they set goals for themselves. She is providing personal coaching to individual students based on their needs. However, all students are following the same assignment process and are given the same rubric.
Ms. Cornell uses a very structured whole-class approach as she basically follows the same routine for each chapter.
Mrs. Santos is differentiating a lot in her classroom! She is grouping students according to reading levels and uses different graphic organizers for different groups. She frequently has two versions of labs, one for students who need more help in understanding the concepts, and one for students who have already grasped the concepts. Mrs. Santos often gives students a choice for performance assessments. She uses a single rubric for all options.
Mrs. O'Reilly uses whole-class instruction with her novels. Everyone reads the same novel and does the same assignments.
Mr. Wilkerson is using novels, too, but he is differentiating by letting the students chose among 4 or 5 novels. While the novels might have the same theme, they cover a variety of interests.
Mrs. Horton follows the same routine for every students for her language lessons. She does allow for a bit of collaboration among the students when they are allowed to work with partners on assignments.
Mr. Adams uses a lot of differentiation. His students work on different exercises that are of varying degrees of difficulty. He meets with individual students to set goals. His use of mixed-readiness pairs is more like traditional classrooms.
Mr. Matheson uses whole-class instruction as he follows the same routine with each of his math lessons.
Mrs. Wang is differentiating when when she allows students to select their own homework assignments to help with areas of need.
Mrs. Bowen is not differentiating. Every student does the same exercises and drills in phy. ed., while Mrs. Horton does differentiate because she identifies a starting point for teaching skills for each student.
Ms. Robertson and Mrs. Washington both use a lot of whole-class instruction, but Mrs. Washington is trying to meet varying interests by supplementing a lot of the lessons and by using a variety of resources at varying degrees of difficulty and in different languages.
2. (1) The teacher is really clear, and specific about what she wants students to learn.
(2) The teacher knows that her students are all different and she changes and adapts accordingly.
(3) What the students are assessed on is what they were being taught!
(4) The teacher must make adjustments in every part of the teaching process to meet the differences of her students. They
have different needs, interests, and learning styles.
(5) There is a lot of collaboration among students and teachers and among students with other students.
(6) The teachers are very flexible.
Nice job Brenda thinking through each teachers action and explaining each one.
