Introduction

All About Me

Hello! My name is Angela Stringer and I have been teaching for 17 years! In the 17 years I have been teaching, I took 3 years leave of absence. So...I began teaching a loooonnnng time ago when class size reduction was first implemented (20:1). I have seen and experienced a huge change in how teachers are expected to teach and the types of children we see in our classes today. The good thing is, I still LOVE teaching and I am embracing all the new changes that we are experiencing. I am currently teaching a first grade class. I am married and have a daughter (12) and a son (9). We live in Murrieta where there is very little traffic, very little crime, and a strong sense of community. With teaching full time, running my kids to baseball and softball practices/games, helping my kids' homework and going back to school to get my Masters in Teaching has been challenging to say the least. I know it will all be worth it in the end!

Differentiated Teaching and Learning Activities

Differentiating instruction is the most effective thing we can do to reach more students and help them become successful in school.

Homogeneous/Flexible Groups:

First of all, I feel the simplest and most effective strategy to differentiate instruction is using homogeneous groups.  A big chunk of our daily schedule is spent on our center rotations (1 hour, 45 minutes). My students are strategically grouped by their reading ability with 5 in each group. These groups are flexible and change monthly throughout the year depending on each individual student's progress. 

Learning Centers:

Learning centers are stations where a variety of activities are set up. I design centers with different levels of complexity. Each center can be differentiated by challenging advanced students with more rigorous work and struggling students with reteaching activities. With that said, I spend a lot of time on lesson planning as each center has 2 or 3 different levels of activities.  The good thing is, 2 out of my 5 centers are computer stations which do not need differentiating from me, as the programs we use automatically do that!

Using Various Modalities:

I try and implement a variety of modalities throughout the day as all children learn differently using different modalities: auditory, kinesthetic, tactile, and visual. For my visual learners, I use a lot of graphic organizers (circle map, bubble map, double bubble, tree map, flow map, and the hamburger) to help my students visually organize their ideas. My auditory learners enjoy the strategy, Think-Pair-Share, as this allows them to listen to other's ideas. These learners also learn well with direct instruction. For my kinesthetic learners, I incorporate a lot of different games and movement. For example, my students spell the week's words with their body. Of course, I almost always use math manipulatives when teaching math concepts. Lastly, for my tactile learners I allow my students to draw or paint to help them express their ideas. I also have salt boxes, where my students trace the letters of the words for the week.