This module has helped me think about self-directed learners and the role of differentiation in the following ways…
After reading this module, I thought a good bit about how teachers from my own educational experience helped me to become self-directed. At the time, I never had any idea my teachers were helping me become more self-aware, but they were. I remember being taught about different learning styles like visual/auditory/kinesthetic and thinking that was really neat, and I did come to recognize in myself that I personally learn best through kinesthetic practices. I now try to get my own students to think about how they learn or "remember" things most effectively. I truly believe that the writers of the Intel Education eReader are spot on when they say, "students who understand the ways in which they learn are more adept at using appropriate strategies to complete tasks successfully." I am living proof of that statement. Once I recognized my learning style, I returned to the same strategies time and again to complete tasks with the greatest success.
I do not know that I had ever thought much about differentiation before reading this module. I knew that different expectations had to be put into place for special needs and ESL students, but having never taken any education classes prior to this, I had not been exposed to how teachers would incorporate that differentiation into their lessons and projects. I really had not thought about ways to better engage gifted learners at all. I love the idea of seamlessly including more challenging concepts and tasks into a project so as to stretch the learning for gifted students to keep them excited about learning. I think project-based learning really lends itself to that idea. When students are given options on how to present their learning, I think students at every level can be challenged at a rate acceptable to their abilities and be successful without anyone feeling singled out.
