Chapter 3, Clinical Teaching, stresses the importance of the assessment-teaching process. It explains that the clinical teaching process is a five-stage cycle. These five stages include assessment, planning of the teaching task, implementation of the teaching plan, evaluation of student performance, and modification of the assessment.
According to clinical teaching policy, teachers must also establish an empathetic relationship with students. This relationship is built according to six therapeutic principles including rapport, shared responsibility, structure, sincerity, success, and interest. Utilizing these principles effectively leads to strong and empathetic relationships in the classroom setting.
Differentiated education is also explained in this chapter. It stresses teachers need to change variables in the school setting according to student needs. Likewise, they need to restructure lesson plans, teaching methods, visual aids, and individualize their instruction according to student unique learning needs. Doing so allows all students to be successful and learn in the best way possible.
Classrooms are very diverse today, culturally, ethnically, and linguistically. Educators must understand and appreciate these differences. To be successful in the diverse classroom, teachers must use several instructional strategies to meet these individualized needs. These strategies include accommodations, peers tutoring, explicit teaching, promoting active learning, scaffold instruction, reciprocal teaching, and learning strategies instruction.
Task analysis is also very important in the diverse classroom. “The purpose of task analysis is to plan the sequential steps for learning a specified skill. Task analysis breaks down the complexity of an activity into easier steps; these steps are organized as a sequence, and the student is taught each step of the sequence” (p. 104). Utilizing task analysis allows students to meet their desired level of achievement according to their individualized learning needs.
In addition to reading chapter 3, I listened to the audio podcast, “Accommodations vs. Modifications: What’s the Difference?” This podcast explains the differences between accommodations versus modifications. Dr. Lindy Crawford stresses the importance of not only understanding the difference between these different supports, but more importantly the need to implement more accommodations versus modifications in the classroom setting. She states, “It’s critically important for parents and teachers to understand the difference between these two terms: how accommodations can be used to help students meet high expectations while the use of modifications can lead to lower expectations for academic achievements.”
According to Dr. Crawford, using accommodations is key for student success. She mentions five different categories of accommodations. These include timing, flexible scheduling, accommodated presentation of the material, setting, and response accommodation. All of these accommodations help students meet and understand a desired target skill or objective. A target skill is an area that is being taught or tested.
Modifications, on the other hand, do not allow students to fully meet the targeted skill, yet instead change the targeted skill. They hinder student learning expectations and lower performance expectations. Thus, I learned from this podcast that teachers need to be conscientious and aware of the difference between accommodations and modifications. Accommodations should be promoted in the classroom and modifications avoided if necessary.
So where does this leave you? What does this tell you about who you are right now in the classroom? What about your current practices in the classroom? How do these suggested interventions and frameworks differ from what you already do? What does that tell you about your preparation for differentiation?
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