The Japanese Garden
The procedures used to accommodate the range of abilities in
the classroom including students with disabilities, limited English
proficiency, or bilingual students:
If the students do not have access to outside-land, the Japanese
Garden may be reconstructed in the classroom. A small area in
the room can be set aside for the layout of the garden. Students
simply scale down the model. For example, if the outside garden
layout is 8x8, the students can scale it down where it would measure
The use of cooperative learning groups and technology can foster
an active learning environment which we have found accommodated
a range of student abilities.
In this unit, we have our students working in a computer laboratory
but a regular classroom could be adjusted to include a "cluster"
of 2 to 3 computer stations where students could access cd roms
or the internet. In schools without access to multiple computers,
the concept of rotating learning stations can still be used substituting
books, and other documents grouped around a topic for all stations.