I have 10 students in my class. There are 5 boys and 5 girls. All of these students come to class pretty regularly compared to other students in the building. There are 4 white, 5 black, and 1 Hispanic student. I would classify 4-5 students as higher achieving students. There is only 1 lower achieving while the rest of the class is average performing. 7-8 students are on free/reduced lunch.
One of my struggles is differentiating instruction with high and low achieving students. There are 3 students who could be in honors geometry but just don't want to do the extra work. They like getting done with their work early and not having to put effort into studying. This messes with my classroom instruction because I feel like I need to challenge these students while not overwhelming the rest of the class. On test days, I make sure to have several activities (math puzzles) to give students who finish the test quickly. However, during instruction I'm not really sure how to differentiate instruction other than giving them a more difficult worksheet or classroom activity. In the past my mentor and I have given certain students a "challenge" worksheet that involved more problem solving skills. Other than this, I'm don't know better ways of differentiating instruction. Any suggestions?
