Chapter 1 DIUBD

Chapter 1 of DIUBD covered the ideas of differentiated instruction and understanding by design. According to the book understanding by design is focused on the collection of data. Using this method, teachers can gather a wide variety of information to help them teach their students and organize it into their lesson plans based on standards of learning such as the Maine learning results. Unlike understanding by design the idea of differentiated instruction is less about the standards and more about the students. The book describes differentiated instruction as a way to address the “whom”, “where”, and “how” we teach. What it allows the teacher to do is alter their usual standard based lesson plans to adapt to the needs of individual students. What the book suggests is that teachers should use both methods in their class rooms. Thus they can create excellent lesson plans that adhere to the standards that schools must live up to, while allowing the leeway necessary to bend high standard demands so that all students can gain as much as possible from the teacher’s instruction.
While reading the chapter our group had several gut reactions. The first was that using each of these learning techniques together made far more since than using them apart. The second was that differentiated instruction was a great way to make students learn information not only for a test but to make sure that they retained the information pertaining to the standard that they were supposed to have meet. Finally we decided that there was a danger of letting students slip through the cracks if schools get stuck in the same rut of only meeting standards and not uncovering knowledge they need.