PearDeck will be used to create vocabulary flash cards that students can use through the 3-day lesson in order understand the different vocabulary words (i.e. denominator, numerator, etc.) Pear Deck will be used on Day 1 of the three-day unit to give the students the opportunity to use the vocabulary throughout the lesson.

Pear Deck can be used to differentiate instruction and meet the needs of diverse learners, including English Language Learners (ELLs), through features like the Immersive Reader and language filters. 

Pear Deck’s interactive slides, timers, and diverse response formats encourage student engagement and participation, fostering a more inclusive and interactive learning environment. 

Students will be monitored by walking around the classroom engaging through learners to correct, redirection, and questioning to ensure students understand that student understand the vocabulary term.

Students use those technology as teaching tool to work on the literacy as well as other many other subjects like math while at school and at home (Moody & Morrow, 2017). Pear Deck while primarily used as a literacy or Reading tool can easily be used in other content areas such as math to help build students’ vocabulary.

Gimkit will be used to review the vocabulary flashcards in a fun, exciting game-like way. Students gain “money” by answering questions to demonstrate their understanding of math vocabulary.

Students are more likely to participate actively in Gimkit games than in traditional review methods, leading to greater engagement and knowledge retention. Not all students work at the same level, but teachers don’t always have a lot of time to prepare on these digital platforms, this is where educational technology tools really help (Restifo, 2024). to ensure appropriate use I will establish clear guidelines for student behavior and appropriate use of technology during Gimkit games. 

Teachers can tailor Gimkit quizzes and challenges to align with their curriculum, including topics related to different cultures, historical events, global issues, and world geography. 

Kahoot! will be used as a way to review the concept of adding and subtracting fractions with unlike denominators from the previous two days. Kahoot! uses quiz show type learning environment in order to engage students. You can either have students work in teams or as individuals. This allows flexibility in deciding if you want students to collaborate together or work as individuals.

To ensure that students are using Kahoot! appropriately I would ensure that Kahoot! is only used for reviewing of materials. Technology should be used in ways that encourage collaboration, creativity, and higher-order thinking. Kahoot! is the perfect game to encourage collaboration, creativity and higher-order thinking. You can create Kahoot!’s that are tailored to the needs to individual students and what is being taught at the time.

Kahoot! can be used to collaborate with others outside of the classroom as students don’t have to be right in the classroom. It can easily be used to connect to another classroom from other places around the globe. Also, Kahoot! has many ways to connect to any culture around the world. It is fun for students in rural area, as well as though students who may within the city. The Kahoot! community is literally all over the world. Teachers and students could collaborate on Kahoot!’s through fun interactive quiz-like games. According Bernadette Dwyer, teachers need to “employ instructional practices to teach students to use technology effectively to become more skillful in accessing, analyzing, critiquing, and synthesizing information and communicating with a diverse audience (Dwyer, 2016). In other words teacher’s need to make sure that the technology being used reaches a diverse student population while also allowing students think critically which is exactly what Kahoot! does to help ion their platform.

References

Dwyer, B. (2016). Teaching and Learning in the Global Village: Connect, Create, Collaborate, and Communicate. Reading Teacher, 70(1), 131–136. https://doi.org/10.1002/trtr.1500

Moody, L., & Morrow, J. (2017). DIFFERENTIATED AND MEANINGFUL INSTRUCTION: Turning around districtwide performance by immersing students in an engaging, literacy-rich environment. Literacy Today (2411-7862), 35(1), 18–19.

Restifo, D. (2024, November 21). Top Sites for Differentiated Instruction. Retrieved from Tech & Learning: https://www.techlearning.com/news/top-sites-for-differentiated-instruction

            In choosing instructional strategies to differentiate and engage diverse students.  I first thought about the goal of the lesson.  My goal for this lesson happened to be about the Columbian Exchange.  While students may be familiar with all the items that were exchanged in the Columbian Exchange, I am sure that many students didn’t know the origins of the items exchange in the Columbian Exchange.  Most students have one time, or another probably have used, eaten, or might even be interested in one or more of the items traded in  the Columbian Exchange, so I planned to use students’ prior knowledge to engage the students.  Many students probably could understand what an orange or a potato were but may not know their origin.  Using the students’ prior knowledge would help me gage student interest.  As educators it is our responsibility to accommodate a diverse range of skills, needs and interests (O’Donnell, 2017).   The Columbian Exchange is a great way to engage students in things that they all have experienced before whether they be animals, food, or clothing.  We have all been impacted by the Columbian Exchange thus students all have vested interest in the Columbian Exchange. By providing students with visuals, videos and maps I given student multiple ways for all learning styles to be engaged in the lesson.

Differentiating Assessment

            For students to be engaged in learning it must be relevant and meaningful on personal level (Perez & Grant, 2022).  In other words, students need to know why they are learning something and the importance of what they are learning.  Students ask the question why is this important to me?  Why do I need to learn this?  How can I use this in my world?  Understanding these questions helped me to develop assessments that fit the skill of each student.  For my English Language Learners (ELL) and special needs students the way that I would engage them is by providing students picture or even some of the items themselves, so they have that concrete example of things exchange in the Columbian Exchange.  These students are able to make connections through real-world examples to make connections to their personal worlds.  Gifted students were given the opportunity to further develop their understanding of the Columbian Exchange by doing research project to understand the impact of the Columbian Exchange.  Early finishers were able to extend their understanding of the Columbian Exchange by explaining their understanding of the impact of the Columbian Exchange upon the Americans, Europe and Africa.

Technology Utilization

            Technology was very important to my lesson.  In fact, by using assessment that was project-based students were using technology to engage in the first part of my activity. Project-Based Learning allows us to engage in the creation of inquiry-based learning projects that showcase students knowledge, understanding, experience, and design choices (Murawski & Scott, 2019).  For the assessment, students were able to refer back to the video to help them better understand items traded in the Columbian Exchange.  Also, both auditory and visual learners were able to engage in first par of the lesson by watching the video about the Columbian Exchange.  Then student take an online quiz showcasing their knowledge of  the Columbian Exchange.  I watched the YouTube video in order to assess whether the video was appropriate for individuals and the group.  Then I took the online quiz to ensure user-friendliness to of the online Columbian Exchange quiz. 

References

Murawski, W., & Scott, K. L. (2019). What Really Works with Universal Design for Learning. Thousand Oaks, California: Corwin.

O’Donnell, A. (2017, October 26). Teaching Tools and Strategies for Diverse Learners. Retrieved from International Literacy Association: https://www.literacyworldwide.org/blog/literacy-now/2017/10/26/teaching-tools-and-strategies-for-diverse-learners

Perez, L., & Grant, K. (2022, February 9). 30+ Tools for Diverse Learners. Retrieved from ISTE: https://iste.org/blog/30-tools-for-diverse-learners

Understanding the learning-styles of each student in your classroom can be extremely challenging and often seem like daunting task. One way in which to help facilitate differentiation of instruction to meet the need of all students is to gather data on the students’ learning preferences. Research shows that students have different preferences when learning new materials (Cherry, 2023).

The following table shows four 5th-grade students after the completion of the learning style inventory. It shows the that two of the students, Parker and Harvey’s primary learning style is auditory with one of those two students, Harvey having a competitive learning style mixed in. Then Stacey is primary learning style is visual. She does well with using manipulatives. Often times Stacey talks through problems in order to better understand math assignment or assignments in other content areas. As you can see from the table below the learning style for Anthony is very much logical learning. If he can reason problems out he can very much understand assignments very well.

Student	Learning Styles
Anthony	Logical
Harvey	Auditory mixed with Competitive
Stacey	Visual
Parker	Auditory

Interconnection

While very little research indicates teaching to certain learning styles increases students learning, research has shown that student preferences increases engagement an interest level throughout the lesson (Cherry, 2023). Due to increases in student engagement, there have been a correlation between learning styles and the cognitive, linguistic, and social/emotional, and physical development of students. A child’s development in occurs at the same time across the four development domains; cognitive, linguistic, social/emotional and physical (Darling-Hammond, Orcutt, Cheung, & James, n.d). In order for the four students to be successful they will need to very engaged in the learning process.

It is important that teachers focus on providing lessons in all the different learning styles. Using all elements of the learning different learning styles will help students develop in all skills, not just one or two skills. One example, might be using a kinesthetic approach in order to develop the physical skills. The auditory approach to a lesson will help develop students’ linguistic skills (speech). A visual approach to teaching will help build students’ cognitive skills (thinking). Teaching that incorporates all learning styles will help students to become more well-rounded and aids in whole-brain learning.

The Influences of Learning Preferences on Planning

It is important to understand that teachers need to incorporate a well-balanced approach in providing instruction to students. By providing different types of instructions is helpful to some students. Healthcare profession is incorporating learning style analyses to their profession (Baker JD 3rd, 1985). Education is not only profession to understand the need to incorporate the different learning styles into the learning environment. In order to ensure that I am teaching a well-rounded student, I would look at the learning style inventory to see where I need to incorporate the different learning styles in my lesson.

For auditory leaners, I would ensure to have time for speaking and discussing of important concepts. Being able talk and discuss about the important concepts being taught. For example, if I were teaching unit on the Bill of Rights, I would probably start by discussing the importance of each of the ten amendments in the Bill of Rights. Perhaps giving students time to debate about which of the ten amendments to the Bill of Rights they find most important for help students learn the importance of the Bill of Rights in the U.S. Constitution.

For my students, who are visual leaners I would ensure that many types of visuals around the classroom. Again in teaching the Bill of Rights, I might put posters around the room with the ten amendments to the Bill of Rights so students have a visual connection. Also, providing students with PowerPoint emphasizing the key points to each of the ten amendments would be very helpful for visual leaners. Providing videos explaining the ten amendments could be very useful for both visual and auditory learners.

Kinesthetic leaners might need to engage in acting out the ten amendments in order to understand the importance of the Bill of Rights. Students could create skits in which they act out each of the ten amendments. This helps kinesthetic say engaged in learning. Last year for spelling, I took my students outside to the school baseball field and played spelling baseball with my students. This a fun way to engage my kinesthetic learners in learning.

Providing students with opportunity to work in groups and alone is also important. Some students prefer to work independently and students need to able to build that skill in the learning process.

Instructional Change

It is important for teachers to consider the different learning styles and make appropriate changes based on the students’ needs. Learning about each student is important and being able to adjust teaching according to a students’ individual needs to very important. While not all lessons will necessarily connect with every students, it should try to connect with most learning styles present in the classroom. Parker’s learning style lies in math and science. While Harvey’s learning style shows great strength in science and math. Anthony’s learning styles seems to show a strength in math while Stacey tends to enjoy reading and writing. Understanding the different learning styles allows me to make the necessary adjustments to lessons in order to teach to the most students.

Learning Styles in Assessment

There are many different types of ways to address learning styles in assessments. For auditory learns a summative assignment such giving an oral presentation. Kinesthetic learners need to move to show learning .While a visual learner needs visual prompts in order to assess learning. There many ways to address learning styles in assessment.

References

Baker JD 3rd, W. C. (1985, December). Analysis of Learning Style. South Med J, 78(12), 7. doi:10.1097/00007611-198512000-00021. PMID: 4071179.

Cherry, K. (2023, November 27). How a Learning Style Inventory (LSI) Can Help a Student Learn. Retrieved April 2, 2025, from VeryWellMind: https://www.verywellmind.com/what-is-a-learning-style-inventory-2795159

Darling-Hammond, L., Orcutt, S., Cheung, M., & James, C. M. (n.d.). Learning As We Grow. Development and Learning, 2. Standford School of Education. Retrieved from https://www.learner.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/The-Learning-Classroom_Development-and-Growth.pdf