Turning Points Chapter 4

This chapter of Turning Points 2000 focused primarily on a very important part of teaching, instruction. There are many different ways to give instruction to your students, this instruction is the structure of your lesson, and will change from class to class, based on your students and the nature of the lesson. The most popular and extensive type of instruction, is differentiated instruction. Differentiated instruction is instruction that brings student’s cultures and backgrounds into respect when designing lessons, and makes lessons as relatable as possible for every student. It takes into account students who have different learner profiles, or if you have any students with learning disabilities, or anything else that might change their experience in the classroom, like if they’re an ELL student, or if they are partially deaf. Differentiated instruction takes all these aspects and allows you, as a teacher, to create the most successful lesson plan to give all the necessary information to your students.

This chapter also touches on the importance of technology in classroom, while this book was published in 2000, this point is still extremely important. With the ever changing technology in the world, it’s important to use technology in our classrooms, so students have experience with it. But, it is also important to remember, that technology should only be used if it’s necessary, unnecessary technology could be a downfall, rather than a success in the classroom.

The most important thing that I took away from this chapter, is that, no matter which method is used to teach instruction, taking in student backgrounds and needs is the number one priority and should always be taken into account when planning instruction.