Traye Pelzer

Edu 213
Mr. Duea
April 19, 2015
Exceptionalities in the Classroom
In this essay I will describe how my mentor teacher has
differentiated instruction in the past to accommodate the needs of a
certain student. In the second half of the essay I will describe a future
lesson that the class will be taking and how I would differentiate the
lesson to accommodate the learning of the student.
In the class that I observe the curriculum is not altered at all
when first looking at the lesson from an observatory point of view.
However, when asked about how instruction is differentiated for the
clear exceptionality in the room I was surprised to learn that a lot was
being done to accommodate the student in question. Along with the
personal aid who breaks down information for him student A is
accommodated through the coursework and on tests. The coursework
adjustment is incredibly subtle in that he is given broken statements
instead of entire blank spaces following a question. The answers tend
to be key words and main ideas that are outlined in the instruction and
then pointed out once again to student A. In tests student A receives a
very similar looking form of questioning, making him remember key
vocabulary and concepts while also repeating it in the same form that
he received it in. In this way it is much easier for student A to make
long term connections and hold onto information.

Traye Pelzer
Edu 213
Mr. Duea
April 19, 2015
A future lesson that will be taught in the class is over the
holocaust and it outlines the treatment of the Jewish people in Nazi
Germany. Together with my mentor teacher we tried to determine an
easy way to explain the concept of a scapegoat and racism not only to
the student, but also to the entire class. We determined the best way
to teach the lesson would be through a series of examples followed by
an immediate reflection on the actual material. This would look a lot
like describing how a sibling had blamed them for something they had
nothing to do with and them getting in trouble for the action they had
nothing to do with. Thus explaining what a scapegoat is. This would be
followed by a video or the text describing how the Jews were blamed
for the Germans losing WWI. Afterwards the concept of racism would
have to be explained. That was a little trickier as it is a subject that has
to be described very carefully. I thought that the best way to describe it
was girls vs. boys at a younger age. How on the playground it used to
be that boys would play with boys, and girls with girls. Two separate
groups who at that point generally wanted nothing to do with another
and anyone who crossed the line was immediately weird. We both
determined that was the easiest way to describe discrimination on a
base level. This would then be followed by text on how the Jews were
stripped of rights and sent away to ghettos, altogether being

Traye Pelzer
Edu 213
Mr. Duea
April 19, 2015
segregated from the German people for something they had nothing to
do with.