Avatars

In Stage 3, as you design your lessons, you will need to consider how to differentiate your lesson for the needs of your individual students. You'll be asked to consider the MI's, the W.H.E.R.E.T.O.s, modifications, accommodations, extensions for individual students with identified needs. In Practicum, you got started with the idea that you needed to do that, now you're ready to actually start thinking about how you're going to do it for a whole class of students.

You and your teammates are going to design a class of "avatars"--an icon or figure representing a particular person in video games, Internet forums, etc. Your 15 avatars will represent the 15 particular students in your "class" to whom you will be directing your unit.

How to
Make a copy of the [|avatars template] and rename it with your team's name and the year. Feel free to look at avatars from previous years for ideas/expectations. As a team, create a classroom of 15 diverse students. Include Ethnicity, Gender, Age, Socioeconomic Status, Exceptionality (Gifted, Special Education, ELL, 504), Learning Style (Visual, Auditory, Kinesthetic), Interest and Home Situation. When adding differentiation to your unit's lessons, you will address the diversity in your team's class that you create. (You will do the differentiation individually in your own unit, but being professional colleagues on a teaching team, sharing strategies will be beneficial to all.) Think back to your own high school classes...who made up those classes. It's okay to have more than one student with similar backgrounds or to have students that represent the middle of a bell curve.

Resources
[|Profiles of Disabilities]Under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), there are 13 categories under which a student is eligible to receive the protections and services promised by this law. In our disability profiles, we define each disability as specified by IDEA and explain it in plain English; these profiles also outline the common traits and educational challenges associated with each disability, and provide tips for parents and teachers.

[|504 Students with Disabilities]Section 504 covers qualified students with disabilities who attend schools receiving federal money. To be protected under Section 504, a student must be determined to: 1) have a physical or mental impairment that substantially limits one or more major life activities; 2) have a record of such impairment, or 3) be regarded as having such impairment. Section 504 requires that school districts provide a free and appropriate public education (FAPE) to qualified students.