If you’re gonna drive, make sure you know the direction you are headed!

Just like not all cars require the same care to keep them in optimal running condition, neither do all students require the same teaching methods when learning. Everyone learns a little differently, and that’s what makes teaching both exciting and challenging at the same time. It’s this diversity that drives differentiated instruction, with teaching techniques and strategies.

Just like you drive a car with the vehicles proper mechanics in mind, a teacher must prepare lessons using the students’ abilities and interests as a tool for preparation. Understanding the learner style, comfort level, strengths and weaknesses, and best learning environment for material absorbsion, are all essential in creating a tie with students that allows them to progress upward.  When both cognitive and affective strengths are applied by a teacher, the students experiences an explosion of personal growth with self-confidence, and a realization of personal academic power.

Rules to drive your instruction by include:

·       Learning and teaching what is of genuine value to the students

·         Develop a curiosity for exploration

·         Capture students interests

·         Develop a desire to for daily learning to be satisfying

·         Become more than you thought you could become through dedicated work

·         Mentor, coach, and partner yourself along the journey

I feel that as a future teacher, in order to help sculpt my students’ sense of self-worth, I must remember to keep in mind how my students’ learn. The importance of such a skill cannot be stressed enough and must never be an afterthought of lesson planning. I want my students to always feel that they matter to me and that I am invested in their learning and progress. I feel that having someone on your side, through the thick and thin of learning, especially a teacher, allows students to dig deeper inside and gives them imitative to try harder than they otherwise might. I’m sure there is no better feeling in the world than making a difference in how a student feels about themselves and learning. I want to make it my goal to bridge the gap that causes a disconnect between what a student feels they are capable of and what they can actually do with a little self-belief!