Suggested Lesson Plan Design Modifications in Content, Instruction, Assessments, Learning Styles and Multiple Intelligences

When mentoring our pre-service and in-service teachers we need to describe and model both research-based and clinically tested best practices. Accordingly, our mentees should know how to differentiate instruction by modifying the lesson plan design in terms of these four variables: (1) content, (2) instruction, (3) assessments and (4) learning styles and multiple intelligences. The chart below offers sample modifications in lesson plan design for these four variables.

*Sample Modifications In Lesson Plan Design

Types of Modifications	Modification Examples
Content	Some students may need concrete examples, visual organizers, a list of vocabulary words, parallel assignments, enrichment activities (for accelerated learners), etc.
Instructional	Some students may need to work alone, work with a madrich/ madricha, or a teaching assistant, do pair work, or require more think time, etc.
Assessment	Some students may require non-traditional assessment methods[1] such as drawing, singing, dancing, miming, or role-playing to determine what they know, or have learned.
Learning Style and Multiple Intelligences	Some students may require different kinds of sensory or receptive stimulation (e.g. auditory, visual, kinesthetic, tactile, gustatory, and olfactory); others work best when they apply their musical, spatial, interpersonal, intrapersonal, kinesthetic, mathematical/logical, and verbal/linguistic intelligences.

On the next post we will discuss how to individualize instruction.

* This information is taken, with permission, from the website of the Union of Reform Judaism (URJ), special needs menu, http://urj.org/educate/specialneeds/. Retrieved January 30, 2009.

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[1] The traditional assessment methods include paper and pencil tests, quizzes, short answer, multiple choice, sentence completions, and essays.