Differentiating Lesson Plans to Meet Student Needs: SWBAT evaluate the credibility of sources so ...

1. Student #1

1.1. Student Profile: Student is a Level 2 ELL. He has command of limited oral language but can write short sentences to convey his understanding somewhat clearly. His Spanish language skills are rather high.

1.2. Interests: He is interested in learning more English but frequently becomes upset when it doesn't come easy. He loves structured activities outside of school, such as a reading tutoring program and Sierra Club trips over the weekends. When he reads, he normally goes for graphic novels translated into Spanish.

1.3. Readiness: His conceptual understanding is generally terrific, however, the student needs materials either translated into Spanish or heavily scaffolded to access. Different products and content are frequently needed.

1.4. Strategy #1: The learning activity revolves around students researching online and evaluating the credibility of different resources. Because of this, I would provide the student with a Spanish-English glossary that he can use as he navigates these sites. Words like "author" "date" and popular newspaper terms like "Times" and "Post" would be extremely helpful.

1.5. Strategy #2: I would also provide the student with an electronic Spanish-English dictionary, access to a laptop and Google Translate, or the Google Translate app on a phone which can translate printed or typed text just by using the camera feature.

2. Student #2

2.1. Student Profile: This student has an IEP for a Specific Learning Disability. She is a very capable student who generally just needs more time to complete assignments but she unfortunately suffers from pretty low self-esteem.

2.2. Interests: She is quiet most of the time and yet extremely interested in being social and popular. When she breaks out of her shell, her priority is joking around with all of the people around her. She isn't the slightest bit judgmental and will try to befriend anyone that is around. She likes comic books and popular kids movies.

2.3. Readiness: It sort of depends on the day. There was one day when I literally couldn't get her to successfully count backwards from 10 to 1. But most days she is capable of accessing the content, even the conceptual stuff that's higher-level thinking, as long as she has the time and scaffolds to do so.

2.4. Strategy #1: When writing the evaluation of each online source, I would provide this student with sentence starters. For example, "This source is/n't credible because...". That, along with notes that all students would receive about what makes a source credible would be what she needs to succeed in this activity.

2.5. Strategy #2: Given that this student takes a lot of time to complete work, I would have her complete the last 2-3 prompts at home. This student has internet access at home on her phone so she'll still be able to access the materials while getting a little more practice at home.