RATIONALE/ REFLECTION COMPENTENCY A ARTIFACT 1 1

Rationale/ Reflection Competency A-

Student-Centered and/ or Differentiated Instruction providing for special needs
Students and Individual Learner Needs
Artifact 1

Stephanie Carmen
Regent University














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Rationale for Student-Centered and/ or Differentiated Instruction Providing for Special
Needs Students and Individual Learner Needs
The artifact I selected to demonstrate student-centered and/ or differentiated instruction
was a pre-assessment of the Geography Unit and the Performance Task that was selected for this
particular student. In this specific situation, a pre-assessment of the Geography unit was given to
the class, one particular student tested out (which means he received a perfect score). It was
imperative to find a different and more challenging task for this student since he understood and
comprehended all the information that I was prepared to teach to the entire class in the next two
weeks. I had to differentiate his learning to meet his needs. I selected a performance task for this
student to complete while I was giving who group instruction to the rest of the students. The
students task was to create a continent complete with a compass rose, countries, water ways,
cities, etc
Differentiated Instruction is teaching with the child in mind rather than accepting a
standard approach to teaching and learning that seems to assume that all students of a give age
are at the exact same place academically. Differentiated Instruction is a perfect example of
responsive teaching. The performance task that was administered allowed to be engaged,
interact, and participate in a richer way. What it takes to teach gifted learners wellbegins with
the premise that each student should come to school to stretch and grow daily. It includes the
expectation that the measure of progress and growth is competition with oneself rather than
competition against others. It resides in the notion that educators understand key concepts,
principles, and skills of subject domains, and present those in ways that cause highly able
students to wonder and grasp, and extend their reach. And it envisions schooling as an escalator
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on which students continually progress, rather than a series of stairs with landings on which
advanced learners constantly wait (National Association of Gifted Children).
Every student deserves the opportunity to learn and grow. There will be times when
teachers come across a student who is beyond their years. It is vital to that student to adjust his /
or her learning in a way that expands his / or her mind. Gifted students deserve a rigorous
learning environment in which they are expected to engage at high levels in diverse processes,
supported so they can learn beyond grade-level concepts and skills, and required to produce high
end thinking that evidence relative and sophisticated learning.
Reflection for Student-Centered and/ or Differentiated Instruction Providing for Special
Needs Students and Individual Learner Needs
This particular artifact mirrored my teaching philosophy because I believe it is our job as
educators to produce successful and lifelong learners. Throughout my years at Regent
University, I have learned that gifted students are motivated to learn and they set their own
learning goals. It is my responsibility to monitor their learning and assuring that they are growing
as students. It is important for me to be knowledgeable about and skillful with the content that is
to be taught. In addition, it is important for me to understand, respect, and respond to the
differences in, and needs of, the learners that I am teaching. I am responsible for using multiple
sources of data to inform decisions about instruction. In this particular case, I used a pre-
assessment to record my data. From there, I purposely selected instructional material that
ensured the students success. I realize that differentiation is not a set of strategies but is instead a
way of thinking about the teaching and learning process.

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References
Kelly, Deirdre. (2011). Differentiating Instruction for Gifted Learners: A Resource for
Classroom Teachers. Retrieved from http://teacherpress.ocps.net.