Differentiated Instruction
by Dee Pennels
1. Objective for Grade 8 Geometry
1.1. Students must be able describe the effect that reflecting a figure over a line, has on it's coordinates.
2. Learning Profiles
2.1. It is important to figure out how students learn best. Visual, Kinesthetic and Auditory are three common styles.
3. Student Interests
3.1. If students are interested in the content, they will be engaged. It is important to get to know your students.
4. Sammy: Kinesthetic Learner:
4.1. Teaching Strategy: Go out to a concrete or tarred area where chalk could be drawn on the floor. Have Each child draw a vertical line and each draw a horizontal line to create a giant coordinate grid. Make Sammy put his hands and feet on four different points on the grid. Tell him to reflect himself over the axis and show where he would move to while saying the new coordinates of his hands and feet, noting his right and left hands and feet.
4.2. Teaching Strategy: Use the same giant coordinate grid and have a few students make a shape by lying on the ground and connecting their heads/hands/feet. They need to reflect the entire shape, making sure they maintain integrity when they reflect over an axis.
5. CJ: Visual learner
5.1. Teaching Strategy: Make sure to always include a visual example for the reflection of a figure. Write down the coordinate, and then write the transformed coordinates right next to the corresponding ones so that he can see the effect then the reflection has on the coordinates depending on which line it is reflected over.
5.2. Teaching Strategy: Use this short video to show how reflections on a coordinate grid take place.
6. Zach: Motorbikes and Computers
6.1. Teacher strategy: Assign Zach a project where he has to plot all the points of a motorbike on a coordinate grid on a computer program such as geogebra (check link) and then reflect it over a line of his choosing and describe the effect of change in coordinates.
6.2. Teaching Strategy: Assign Zach a project where he has to create a video about how reflections work and how the coordinate points change when a figure is reflected over certain lines.
7. Student Readiness
7.1. What skill level do students currently have? By knowing your students skills, you can correctly challenge them.
8. Angela: Advanced skills
8.1. Teaching strategy: Tell the student that when they have completed their work, they will track the movement of the teacher as though the classroom is a coordinate grid. Once the teacher passes by the same point she started at, a figure should be formed of sorts, and the student must reflect it over the line y=x and write the coordinates and describe the effect that the reflection has on the coordinates.
8.2. Teaching Strategy: Students are given a choice board that contains a list of possible activities they can complete to ensure that they have covered all angles of learning the objective of reflecting 2D figures. A few examples would be to do multistep reflections, such as, reflect this figure over the x axis, and then over the line x=5. Another could be, state the coordinates of the vertices of this figure when reflected over the y axis and then over the line y=3. Students must complete at least 2 options on the choice board each time they finish early.
9. Ashley: Team sports
9.1. Teacher Strategy: Assign Ashley a project where she has to plot the field of player positions in one quadrant of the coordinate plane and then reflect it over a line.
9.2. Teaching Strategy: Assign a project where she has to draw a rugby ball using coordinates and then reflect it and describing the effect of the change on the coordinates.
10. Mahre: Basic skills
10.1. Teaching Strategy: Provide partially completed activities where the student must fill in either the x or the y coordinate. Or where one of the reflected points is already drawn and the student must draw the remaining ones applying the same process as the example one given.
10.2. Teaching Strategy: Use a guided math block strategy where 3-5 students who are all on the lower level receive a little extra instruction as they start working on their worksheets.
