I chose “Lesson planning for diversity” by Brahm Norwich, Hazel Lawson, and Alison Black. It presents a study of secondary school teachers’ lesson planning activities and how they take learners’ diversity into account. According to the authors, the lesson planning process is key to student diversity since it reflects the continuing dilemmas and challenges that have been hindering teaching for decades (Black et al., 2019). Balancing the students’ needs and expectations with the subject content is crucial. The research is built on the information collected from the interview of three experienced teachers; Peter-Technology and Design, Rebecca-English, and Jen-Mathematics. The focus is on the lesson reviewing and planning to take account of learners’ diversity and differences, specifically for the students with special education needs (SEN) such as autism diagnosis, dyspraxia, dyslexic difficulties, and hearing impairment, among others.
Although the three teachers use different approaches to ensure student diversity, they yield similar insight points. It would be best to understand that learners’ diversity begins with being aware of individual student’s capabilities and needs. Responsive process changes and classroom adjustments follow the approach. One action or strategy that might be taken for classroom adjustment is changing students seating arrangements. It would help them access what the teacher is doing and particularly decide how their needs affect their learning in different subjects. Students need additional teaching assistance and support to prepare them to adapt to the different learning strategies. The most fundamental resource in the situation is the teachers’ lesson planning for diversity, determination, expertise, decision-making, and patience.
Furthermore, peer tutoring would ensure learning diversity among the special education needs (SEN). At this point, the teacher needs to hold special talks and learning sessions with individual students to understand them better. However, the fact that individual students and classes are very different would bring much confusion to teachers. It would be challenging to plan and move around a class doing verbal activities for students with different reading and writing problems. The best strategy to combat the confusion would be differentiation. The approach calls for the teachers to have great flexibility and adaptability to explore new ideas and extend the existing activities. Through differentiation, the teachers would lead the students in the same direction, although the paths, tasks, and activities would be quite different. In addition, grouping students, especially the quieter and the outgoing, would complement differentiation, thus helping teachers realize, identify, and foster different talents among the students. Furthermore, the teachers would be required to highlight and spend more time with the most struggling students to give more attention to extra teaching and improve their learning diversity.
Following the article, the educational perspective has greatly changed worldwide. First, the specially and differently-abled, that is, the disabled, can access education in modern society equal to those without any disability. Secondly, they have access to the best and most highly supervised teachers to ensure that they would provide the best education for the students. Thirdly, the disabled can access the best technology to enhance their learning, skills, and knowledge to be applied in various fields. On the other hand, Christianity has not been left an exclusion in the move to ensure learning diversity among the disabled. First, the Christian worldview has enhanced the acceptance of disabled individuals, believing that all humans are equal, specially created, and differently talented. Hence, it has promoted the maximum provision of SEN to students to ensure explicit learning diversity and capabilities. In addition, it has pushed the teachers to stay focused, determined, and inspired in their daily tasks and operations to fulfill the laws written in various Bible scriptures.
Reference
Black, A., Lawson, H., & Norwich, B. (2019). Lesson planning for diversity. Journal of Research in Special Educational Needs, 19(2), 115-125.