Lesson Plan to meet special needs

In Math, an important lesson students need to understand is about order of operations. In this lesson, students learn and practice order of operations, and they are encourage to use the acronym PEMDAS that stands for “Please excuse my dear aunt Sally”. My lesson basically focus on understanding the order of operations and how it can affect the answer in a mathematical sentence with several operations included, and in practice. Though most of the students understand it pretty fast, some others find hard to remember the order and apply the rules.

Based on my experience, I decided to change my lesson plan to try to reach all students and help them understand and apply these rules correctly. To achieve my goal, I will ask students to bring their devices to class, and use different technological tools.

Differentiation is a very important part of educations. Is the way a teacher responds to the different needs of their students. To differentiate means to adapt your teaching to the different skills and  backgrounds of your students, Today differentiation is much easier thanks to technology.  By using technology and the many web2 tools available today in internet, a teacher can deliver and share information in many ways, giving students the opportunity to use those tools that fit their needs better based on their particular learning style. By differentiating, teachers are giving students the opportunity to understand better how they learn, so that they could become independent and confident learners. Videos, blogs, websites, games and networks are just some of the many tools that educators can use to differentiate in their classrooms.

In this lesson plan, students will not only have access to the information in many different ways, but also, they will be able to share with others their understanding by choosing the tool that best adapt to their skills and learning style.

Students are asked to choose 3 sources of the following list, to watch, read or listen, and create either a google doc, a common craft video, a glogster, a prezzi, a digital book, or a podcast explaining the order of operations and sharing 10 different examples solved by them. Additional to their project, they will need to create 10 problems for their classmates with an answer sheet.

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