http://csmadison.weebly.

com/
Corey Madison
March 27, 2016
EDU225
Mr. M
Differentiated instruction with different technology
Teaching someone how to play baseball by only using a batting cage
will not create a team of well rounded players. This is true with the classroom
as well in that not all students are coming from the same place academically,
socially or mentally. Differentiated instruction can be defined as making sure
every student struggling or advanced both with different cultures and
backgrounds, all grow through the instruction as much as possible. Through
the use of technology to differentiate instruction, every student on every
level can be reached and pushed to their highest level of education.

Technology to Differentiate Instruction

Technology is a tool that can be used to empower students to
become active, involved learners, and provide them with the tools and
incentives to achieve academic success (Shepherd & Alpert, 2015). One very
useful technology tool would be a classroom website. A class website can be
formatted in many ways to create different types of products for the students

to use. Through the use of a blog on the website many curricular applications
can be seen, such as book suggestions, extra credit assignments and online
videos that might help students to understand course material (Dunn, 2011).
Other helpful options might include a discussion forum where students and
teachers can all collaborate and respond to posts to create a classroom
outside of the physical classroom. Classroom websites can give students
time to review the material on their own time and a chance for the teacher to
see flaws pointed out by their students in the forums.
Audio and visual aspects can be well improved through the use of
technology. Through the use of an audio enhancement system teachers can
be heard equally from the entire classroom as well as connect to computers
and interactive whiteboards and display the recorded audio on the internet
(Starkman, 2007). An interactive whiteboard allows a teacher to display
videos and animations and quickly move back to drawing mode to
emphasize on certain topics or answer students questions in the middle or
end of the lecture (Sweet, Sweet & Fedel, 2013). Both the microphone and
the interactive whiteboard can help to reach students that might be more
visually or auditory based learners providing a differentiated learning
environment.
Pros and Cons of Differentiated Instruction.
Differentiated instruction can be a wonderful tool to reach
students at many different levels at the same time. Although, teachers face

obstacles trying to plan lessons and adapting their methods when

attempting to allow for differentiation (Holloway, n.d). The problem seen here
seems to be flexibility of the teachers curriculum to fit the needs of the wide
range of students. Differentiated instruction calls for a big range of flexibility
of the curriculum. A problem occurs when neither sufficient challenge nor
flexibility is provided for the different speeds of learning needed to obtain the
curriculum (Holloway, n.d). Differentiated instruction holds many benefits,
but definitely has its issues as well.

Conclusion
Just as a baseball team requires many angles of the game be practiced
to get the team up to speed together and well rounded, a classroom needs
differentiated instruction and this instruction can more easily be reached
through the use of technology. With technology such as classroom websites,
microphones and interactive whiteboards the instruction becomes much
more rounded and able to reach more of the students. Different students
bring different challenges and therefore different angles and methods of
teaching should be used. Every student at every level can and should be
reached and the use of differentiated instruction with the help of technology
will help teachers to achieve success.

References
Dunn, L. S. (2011). Making the Most of Your Class Website. Educational
Leadership, 68(5), 60-62.
Garelick, B. (2010). Integrating Differentiated Instruction and Understanding
by Design.Educational Horizons, 88(4), 199-202.
Holloway, J. (n.d). Preparing teachers for differentiated
instruction. Educational Leadership, 58(1), 82-83.
Shepherd, C. M., & Alpert, M. (2015). Using Technology to Provide
Differentiated Instruction for Deaf Learners. Journal Of Instructional
Pedagogies, 16
Starkman, N. (2007). Sound Solutions. T.H.E. Journal, 34(6), 22
Sweet, J. J., Sweet, L., & Fedel, F. J. (2013). Millennial Teachers Blending
Technologies for the Millennium Student. Chronicle Of Kinesiology &
Physical Education In Higher Education, 24(2), 14-20.