Career & Technical Education Blog

As a CTE teacher, discovering that you’ll have English Language Learners (ELLs) in your classroom can sometimes be overwhelming.

CTE teachers are faced with increasingly diverse students in the classroom, and finding ways to differentiate your lessons can be tough. Some students will come to your class with more knowledge and experience than others. Not to mention that students all learn at different paces and in different ways. It may seem like a never-ending task, but there is a solution! Using technology to differentiate instruction can help you save time while better meeting the needs of all of your students.

For some teachers,  the difficult part of teaching  isn’t  developing  content,  it’s  differentiation.  Fifty years ago, classrooms were organized in a teacher-centered manner focusing primarily on completing coursework. As  education has  evolved, teachers  now implement a variety of teaching strategies into each lesson, and those with special populations  students must  develop teaching strategies to ensure all student's educational needs are met.   

Social-emotional learning (SEL) is the development of skills necessary for self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, relationships, and responsible decision-making. These abilities help students become successful adults, establish healthy relationships and positively impact their community.

Teaching CTE health science courses means meeting the unique needs of your students every day. Because your students’ abilities, knowledge, and goals vary in every class, you’ll inevitably spend time on remediation throughout the year. But adding new enrichment and remediation strategies to your busy day is tough. Most CTE teachers spend hours of their free time every week meeting with students who need a little extra help.

There’s no denying it: implementing differentiated instruction is a huge leap to take for your CTE class. Successfully differentiating your course means putting in a lot of time, effort, and creativity that many teachers feel they’re unequipped to do.