According to Murawski & Scott (2019) we need to engage students in the how, what, and why of learning objectives to provide students with the greatest likelihood of learning retention and mastery. I evaluated these aspects of differentiation to engage diverse learners and settled on instructional strategies that integrate a variation of all learning types: visual, auditory, kinesthetic, reading, and writing. I planned for student readiness and interest by providing learners with activities that would encourage participation and collaboration between peers. Activities such as think-pair-share and group work contribute to student interest and help me to monitor student readiness of learning objectives. These activities gave students the opportunity to use their voices to share ideas, communicate, and work together (Dabrowski & Marshall, 2019). I planned to meet all learning styles through differentiation of each lesson component and by incorporating visuals, text, multimedia, and a combination of written and verbal instruction and communication. 

To differentiate and engage diverse groups of students, it is important that we provide them opportunities of choice and voice (Murawski & Scott, 2019). Since the high school geometry classroom is filled with diverse students, there are many groups differentiation is necessary for, including but not limited to ELL, special needs, gifted, and early finishers. I differentiated assessment for ELL and special needs students by creating a discussion outlet for them to collaborate and rely on each other during formative assessment checks like think-pair-share discussions. During the end-of-lesson assessment, I made sure that ELL and special need students had a choice in how they demonstrated mastery, giving them the confidence and support they need to succeed. For gifted and early finishing students, I needed to address the other end of the differentiation spectrum, where I provide more challenges than supports. In this lesson, this looked like providing them with challenge task cards that they could work together on to approach real-world situations using the same concepts and ideas. For gifted students, I address individual differences by encouraging higher-order thinking and connecting real-world scenarios to course concepts. For early finishers, these learners require a fine balance of challenge and support, as they are not necessarily gifted but usually have additional time to connect with materials and concepts outside of the regular lesson activities.  

Within this specific lesson, technology is utilized as an instructional and extension tool, with integration of technology as part of the routine inner workings of a high school mathematics classroom. For example, lesson instruction is compiled within a digital presentation that mirrors the information presented within the guided notes. This digital presentation is reviewed, discussed, and annotated to provide students with variability in the methods that they receive and learn information (Perez & Grant, 2022). Another technology resource that was used in this lesson was an online platform called ALEKS in which students can complete practice problems relating to course objectives until they reach mastery. This is an appropriate use of technology for this lesson because it allows students to work at their own pace, monitor their own progress, and reach their goals.