Teacher burnout can occur from years of disinterested students, pressure from school faculty and the growing sense of hopelessness when teachers see too little progress in students over a school year. Differentiated learning engages teachers, challenging them to develop new teaching methods, assess the needs of each student and make constant changes to their lesson plans for these accommodations. Along with the reassuring feeling of increased student success, this process forces teachers to reevaluate their own teaching styles, allowing teachers to get engaged and building new interest in the science of teaching.
The first goal of the differentiated learning style involves assessing the learning needs of each student, and developing a learning style focused on each student’s needs. This focus engages students, based on their strongest learning needs. For instance, visual students are presented information in a visual style in order to to hold their interest and focus, which comes from understanding a subject. Additionally, the increase in classroom challenges is based on student success, meaning that as students learn, they are reengaged with new material to continue their academic growth and hold their interest.
As part of the early assessment of students, teachers look for academic gaps in each student’s understanding. These include bits of information the student missed from a previous grade, information that helps students assimilate other information, once they understand the missed lessons. For underdeveloped students, this process helps close previous educational gaps. The goal is to fill these gaps with the correct information, allowing underdeveloped students to compete with their classmates and grow at a similar pace.
The differentiated learning style is a student-based approach, building interest and understanding based on the needs of each student. While this approach ensures that each class year is a different and unique experience, it also ensures that teachers meet each student’s learning needs. This includes: visual learners, who learn from seeing a lesson demonstrated; auditory learners, who learn from hear a concept explained; and kinesthetic learners, who learn from practicing a lesson themselves. The differentiated learning environment engages each of these students with activities focused on each student’s learning needs.