Each student is an individual and as such enters my classroom with different skills, abilities, and experience. Addressing differences in learning abilities will require a wide range of differentiated instruction. To reach students with these different learning styles, I will integrate lessons with verbal, visual, technological, collaborative work, rubrics, and kinesthetic elements. Collaborating with the classroom teacher to incorporate elements from weekly lessons could make lessons concrete in the mind of the student. For example, if the lesson corresponded with the districts Concept/Media Outline, second graders studying Meal Worms may create paper mache models of their specimen. Students would be emphasizing their science studies, spelling, handwriting, utilizing internet referencing, and of course sculpture and design. Art can and should be a multiple disciplinary course. Art improves creative thinking; creative thinking is writing, science, and math. For students requiring further assistance, a wide range of equipment, learning environments and methodology could be adapted, modified, and utilized. I have worked with the developmentally disabled for years and understand to be successful an IEP teamwork together using any appropriate model should be attempted to successfully accomplish student goals.
