MTHE 539 - Differentiated Instructional Strategies for Secondary School Mathematics

Credit(s): 3
3 semester hours
This course focuses differentiated instructional techniques in the secondary mathematics classroom. Differentiated instruction is teaching with student’s diverse learning styles in mind. It means starting where the students are rather than adopting a standardized approach to teaching that seems to presume that all learners of a given age or grade are essentially alike. Thus, differentiated instruction is “responsive” teaching rather than “one-size-fits-all” teaching. Teacher candidates will explore various instructional modalities and approaches to what students need to learn, how they will learn it, and/or how they can express what they have learned in order to increase the likelihood that each student will learn as much as he or she can as efficiently as possible. The course is based on the work of Carol Ann Tomlinson, and emphasizes instruction projects around the Content, Process, and Product that meet the needs of all levels of students in the class. Diversified learning will be viewed as a positive experience for students. Moreover, teacher candidates will explore models of culturally responsive teaching, and how teaching students from a variety of educational, cultural, and socioeconomic backgrounds enhance the learning climate for all students. The effective use of hands-on materials, technology, cooperative grouping, problem solving, questioning techniques, and assessment strategies will be explored in this course.