A Brief Primer on DIfferentiation

First of all, I really like how this book is written. I think it is written in a way that makes it easy to understand and is interesting. It didnt put me to sleep at all, and that is always a good thing. :) Going into this class, I am feeling a little overwhelmed. I think that is probably natural. I just feel like I need to meet every one of my students indvidual needs all the time, and that is not possible. This first part of the book really helped calm my nerves a little bit. THere were many key points that I really liked. The first line says that differentiated instruction is really just common sense. I thought that was kinda funny.. but DUH! I guess it kinda is. It is more about using your common sense and following your heart a lot of times then sticking to the books and strictly to the curriculum. Parents use differentiation with their children, and I liked how they compared parents and teachers in that aspect. Every child is different in a family just like every student is. I like the part about responsive teaching and how we need to take in account: who we teach, what we teach, where we teach, and how we teach. I like how it broke it down and showed examples of each one cause now I feel like I really have a place to start when it comes to differentiated teaching. I can see how all those elements and factors are important. I also liked the part where is talks about being flexible and the importance of that. I think too many times teachers feel like they have to stick 100% to the curriculum and meet all these deadlines and have these tests their students need to pass. It mentions several times to just be flexible, look at each student as an indvidual and see what needs need to be met. Obviously I am not superwoman and cant do everything for every student. This first part of the book gave me a good realization and I feel like I really can do this and gave me some hope. It takes a lot of patience and a lot of love and REALLY IS JUST COMMON SENSE! :)