Hello, my name is Rebecca Neal and I have taught 8th grade science for the past 2 years.
I was particularly challenged in the area of differentiated instruction during my first year of teaching. I was expecting a diverse classroom, of course, but I was panicked when I learned my students ranged from Gate/Advanced Math students, to students who speak no English. I have learned a lot in these first few years if teaching, but I am always looking for new opportunities to grow as a teacher.
One thing I have tried this year was differentiating content by designing tasks for groups of students that covers various levels of Bloom's Taxonomy (remembering, understanding, applying, analyzing, evaluating, and creating).
Students who may have challenges or students who may be unfamiliar with the content would be assigned remembering and understanding tasks, whereas, students who are near mastery of content would be assigned evaluating and creating tasks.