Importance Of Diversity In The Classroom

Creating and implementing this unit on division for this diverse fifth grade class was able to help me to reflect on myself as an educator. While there were many strengths from this unit, there was also some areas of growth that could have made the unit even more successful. One major strength from this unit was the differentiation of instruction and assessments. An area of growth for this unit would be to create a stronger behavior management system in order to make the time dedicated to math each day more valuable. A goal for improving teaching practice is finding a way to incorporate and utilize available technology more effectively.
This inclusion classroom has a wide range of learners with varying ability levels. In math, there are four …show more content…
Many of the lessons within this unit were often interrupted because of the amount of behavioral needs in this classroom. Often times, lessons were disrupted in order to deal with behaviors, and it may have had a negative effect on the other students in the group. Finding a way to reduce behaviors could have been a way to make the unit more successful, by having lessons go more smoothly. The schedule for this unit needed to be extended several times, and one of the causes of this was the behaviors that got in the way of student learning. Finding a way to motivate the students who are being disruptive to focus, would have benefited this lesson. Some of the negative behaviors included students refusing to sit down, starting verbal arguments with other students, shutting down easily after getting questions wrong, and refusing to do work. Various strategies were attempted to create a positive learning environment, but they were not always effective. We needed to rearrange the tiered groups a few times in order to accommodate some of the behavioral issues in the classroom, but the changes did not always work. We placed one student in the “Minion” group, even though he was not on the same level as those students. This managed to help his behavior, because students in the group would not tolerate it, but the student was struggling to …show more content…
Making sure to be mindful of all of RIPTS standards is extremely important, and some specific standards are more directly related to the strengths, areas of growth, and goals based on this unit. The strength for this unit is directly related to RIPTS number four, “teachers create instructional opportunities that reflect a respect for the diversity of learners and an understanding of how students differ in their approaches to learning.” This is related because of the amount of differentiation that was done throughout this unit to make the content attainable for all students by proving them with the tools and strategies necessary to succeed. The area of growth for this unit was directly related to RIPTS number six, “teachers create a supportive learning environment that encourages appropriate standards of behavior, positive social interaction, active engagement in learning, and self‐motivation.” Creating an environment that encourages appropriate behaviors proved to be difficult throughout this unit, but finding a way to do this, and promote active engagement and motivation within future units will greatly benefit these students. The goal for teaching strategies is directly related to RIPTS number ten, “teachers reflect on their practice and assume responsibility for