Chapter 2 of Integrating Differentiated Instruction and Understanding by Design delves deeper into understanding you students and creating relationships with them conducive to teaching them the content effectively. It speaks of understanding both the variety and and the vast differences in the classroom, citing particular stories about personal problems deterring the successes of different students; problems at home, an undiagnosed learning disability, and a misunderstood learning style.
The one that particularly struck me was the first, Elise, who was a great student, but became progressively less successful following her parents divorce. Knowing things like this about your students is so important to teaching responsively, because the idea that her failure could bring her parents back together to fix her is all that kept her from doing well. She had parents that were perfectly willing to do everything they could to help her, but that wasn’t what she wanted.
A teacher knowing their students well is really important to me, as every really wonderful teacher I’ve known has done so. It creates an environment of comfort, where the student can trust coming to you for whatever they need. It also allows the teacher to find ways to meld lessons to match their different learning needs, and to make important connections to the content. Using differentiated instruction, such as using group work and discussion, giving the option to work independently or with peers, and allowing students to explore the content in question are just some of the really interesting ways to differentiate instruction mentioned in this chapter.
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