Weekly Writing #6

Differentiated instruction (DI) is all about the students. Getting to know your students will help you to assess their readiness, interests and preferences. This will allow you to gear instruction towards the learners and relate the content to something they are already interested in. This helps the students to make a deeper connection with the content and will help them in the long run. One of the principles of DI is providing a safe, non-threatening environment for learners. I think that by getting to know your students, they also get to know you. This allows them a respect that some teachers don't get, this will help students to feel safe in you classroom. One thing to keep in mind while building a relationship with students is that you are the authority and students need to respect that and not take advantage of it. The final thing that really stuck out to me in the reading is offering choice to students and letting them have some say in the instruction. The thing to remember is that the choices have to be manageable. You  cant let your students make every single choice, but maybe offer them two choices and let students vote. One example might be that you have two lessons coming up one is on Cattle, the other is on Swine, you as the instructor will be covering both lessons, but maybe let the students pick which one you cover first.