Differentiation In The Classroom

For me I feel that having different types of methods to teach a class is one of top priorities in a classroom. Students nowadays get bored really easy, I should know, and their attention spans are comparable to a squirrel that drank loads of in energy drinks while trapped in a nut factory. Just teaching a class the old school way as in giving a lecture for the entire period and making the students work through loads of work in the workbook in the 21^st century just doesn’t seem like the best idea in the world. For example, I do morning work with my students every morning and I see that majority of them are kind of sleepy. So I would make up little exercise games before we start off the top of my head to get them awake. The top 3 favorites of the class Mr. Ahmad Says, which is my version of Simon Says where the kids have to do different actions simultaneously; The Clapping Game, a game where they have to remember the rhythm of the claps I did; and Adventure, I let a student pick a place they always wanted to go anywhere in the world and we would go through different terrains like jumping on volcanic rock across a volcano lake, climb over a mountain, and swim in the ocean. Along with waking them up a little, they also learn multi-tasking, coordination, balance, memory skills, and learning to navigate through different environments.

Another way that I introduce differentiation is by letting the kids play games while also learning their lesson that is currently taught to them. I use to bring in a Jeopardy game that simulates the real game. I would put in categories that related to what they were learning like if they were talking about consumers, I would have categories like carnivores, herbivores, etc. The kids would always jump around and get excited as soon as they saw it and they had fun while doing it while at the same time reviewing. I have also created my own game that is like Who Wants To Be A Millionaire but mine has candy instead of money and is called Who Wants To Be A Candyaire, so that tells you how original I am with names. The game is played the exact same way but again with candy and the life lines are Holla At A Friend, Ask The Class, and Ask The Teacher. Every question gives the player one piece of candy and the very last question is called the Ultimate Candy Question where the player would get 5 pieces of candy if they get it correct but the question has absoultely nothing to do with the lesson at all. The kids love that game but I think it's because of the candy.