E-Notebook Submission

What do you know about differentiation and how it is utilized in teaching?

As a special education major, I know that differentiated lesson planning is what my future is all about. There is no such thing as a special education curriculum; rather it is up to the teacher and the IEP team to come up with accommodations for students with special needs to access the general education curriculum.
For me personally, special education is really just effective teaching. Students with special needs that have an IEP or a legal document that highlights the academic areas for which they need a little help accessing the materials need teachers who are willing to try different things, to be creative, and to really care that the student gets it. There is nothing special about special education. Every student is special in his or her own way(s). As a future educator, it is my job to make sure that every single student who walks through my door feels loved and accepted and special.
In order to accomplish this, I believe that it is important for me to understand how to bring differentiation into my classroom.
With the extreme proficiency levels stated in NCLB and the push of inclusion programs it is easy to see that future educators of students with special needs are going to be working side-by-side general education teachers. Students who come to me for special education services will likely spend some portion of their time in the general education classroom and I need to know how to work with that general education teacher and make accommodations to his/her lesson plans for the students who need multimodal lessons.
The extent at which differentiation is used in typical classrooms today is a figure that I am unaware of, however, via the experience I’ve been gaining through my field placements, I do not believe that it is highly utilized.
I believe that one of the problems with the public education system in the United States is a general problem of ownership. Too many general education teachers see students with special needs as the “special education teachers kids” and not their own. Special educations teachers are just as guilty. Until teachers begin to work together for the bettering of the student, at the individual level, this problem will not go away.