Reflection Questions:

What personal challenges do you think you’ll face when teaching a diverse group of students? 

I think I may struggle to remember how to best teach students who tend to respond better to a

certain style of teaching.  With so many students coming and going, it can be hard to remember

how each student benefits from learning the most.  With such a vast group of students, I also

want to ensure that I don't let students slip by me and fall behind or feel like they aren't learning

anything in my class.

What did you learn about diversity in the classroom? 

I learned that diversity refers to a much broader category than I previously realized.  Diversity

can refer to a student's learning ability, their ability to speak certain languages, their religion,

how social they are, the color of their hair or their age, and many many more.  Diversity is

almost impossible not to achieve because students will naturally be different from one another

and their experiences will vary vastly.

Consider strategies used to engage diverse learners. Based on your prior field experiences and

your current placement, compare and contrast the strategies observed in these settings.

One strategy I have seen used is creating an individual study plan with each student in a class. 

This way you can directly ask them what strategy they think would work best for them, and then

you can work with them to tailor make their lesson plan.  This is a good idea in theory, but the

glaring issue is that it is a very time-consuming practice that would be impossible in large

classrooms with strictly regimented lesson plans found in many schools.  Another strategy used

is to encourage active learning through a variety of lesson plans that incorporate different
approches to learning.  This method can be much easier to approach in a large classroom

environment and can be an ongoing experiment all school year.  By trying different lessons you

can see which ones resonate more with the students or perhaps less as well.  Once you can see

what works best you can do that type of lesson again in the future to benefit more students.

What ideas will you take with you? 

Mostly I will remember that every student is an individual with different needs from others.  I

remember being a high school student who could excel in some classes and utterly fail in others. 

This was due in part to a lack of flexibility in some teachers' styles of teaching.  I will try very

hard to incorporate diverse options to do well in my class for my diverse group of students.

What would you do differently in your classroom?

One thing I would like to achieve with my teaching style is unpredictability.  I do not want a

regimented schedule for my students so they know exactly what awaits them week after week

until the year is over.  Something that always made learning stick out to me was

unpredictability.  If my students don't know what my lesson is going to be like I beleive they will

be more excited to learn.  Furthermore, I would like to employ unorthodox lessons that engage

the students in a new way and teach a lesson in a fun or at least intresting way to them.