Using differentiated instruction to engage a bored high-performing student

Challenging Experience With Students

Describe a challenging experience that you have had with students.

In life, there are times when the educator and student are challenged. This is because both individuals will face unique issues where they must work together to effectively deal with them. In my situation, I was working with a student who had the potential to excel academically. The problem is that he was bored with the material and often interrupted the class. However, his grades were always among the highest in the class. My problem was I had to prevent these outbursts in order to allow everyone to learn more effectively. (Heacox, 2002)

What strategies did you use to address the issue? Why did you select these strategies?

As a result, I decided to use differentiated education. This is when there is focus on individual learning skills. The basic idea is to present the material to the student in a format that is conducive of their learning style. The reason why this kind of strategy was selected is because; it has been shown to be effective in many different troubled schools. At the same time, there is flexibility that is applied to wide variety of settings. In my case, this created a win -- win situation for addressing these challenges. (Heacox, 2002)

What was the outcome?

The outcome is that the student became more engaged in the discussion. This is due to the fact that differentiated education helped to create changes in how the material is presented. When this happened, the individual was intellectually challenged. This is the point that their outbursts became less and they were more focused. At the same time, their underlying levels of performance increased. This is from: the challenging content and higher standards of establishing new goals for them to reach. (Heacox, 2002)

In what ways did you impact the outcome?

The way that I had an impact on the outcome was through directly working with the student. This allowed me to change any kind of negative perceptions and question why they are behaving a certain way. After this occurred, the student realized that their past behavior was no longer going to be tolerated. This is when there was transformation in how they were interacting with myself and others in the class. (Heacox, 2002)

Would you do anything differently? Why or why not?

I would not do anything differently. The reason why is because these results had a positive impact on how I am able to interact with the student. Therefore, I have begun to use this strategy with other students who are facing various challenges. This is because there is enough flexibility (inside the strategy) for certain applications to be used on a variety of individuals'. Once this takes place, is the point that these issues are being effectively dealt with by: understanding and responding to the student's needs (according to their distinct learning style). (Heacox, 2002)