Educators understand and apply knowledge of student growth and development.
I believe that this standard is important because it askes teachers to consider all the different backgrounds and experiences of students in the classroom and where students may be at… how much these places students are may differ both physically, mentally, socially, academically, etc. the list goes on. All students are individuals and need to be treated as such. As teachers we cannot expect our students to come in with the same knowledge base, and we cannot expect our students to all have a concept we are teaching click with them as fast as others may get that. Differentiated learning is the concept that is important with in this standard whether is in math and providing different ways and strategies to figure out an equation, or in Language Arts providing different novel study books for students with different reading skills and interests. There are many simple and effective ways for teachers to differentiate there teaching to make sense for all students. I can reflect on myself doing this in math when I was teaching it in grade 7 this past practicum. About half my class were math geniuses, and the other chunk of students needed more time to build understanding. This was fine, I taught the topic we were learning, in this case it was one step linear equations. All the students got practice questions to work on, those who found this math simple and finished the practice fast got harder questions that stretched their learning more by including decimals and integers into the questions. This was a very simple way for me as the teacher to teach one concept, allow the students that needed basic practice the time to get that practice, and the students who were ready to extend themselves and move on, the opportunity to do this as well. I think while differentiated learning may seem like so much extra work for the teacher, I would argue against this. What it is doing is making your work easier by allowing every student the opportunity to work at the level they are at without needing more lessons in this topic because we went though to fast and they don’t get it or, students being a disturbance in class because the math was too easy for them, and they will go distract others now. Work smarter, consider what is best for each individual student, and find simple ways to execute, all parties involved will win if this is the mindset of the teacher.