Online Dilemmas: Summaries and Resources
Dilemma One: Proactive and Productive Communication with Parents and Families Completed 12/2006
Dilemma Two: Assessment: Meaningful (or
Messy?) Completed 2/2007
Dilemma Three: Differentiated Instruction Completed 5/2007
Dilemma Four: Classroom Management Completed 6/2007
Dilemma Three: Differentiating Instruction
Welcome. We're back with an introduction to a new topic. With your many tasks as a teacher in mind, we endeavor to make this efficient for you in terms of time, perhaps 15 or 20 minutes to read and respond.When STAR Mentors decided to put Differentiation on the discussion table, it was with the hope that we could inform as well as demystify this topic a little. We hope you'll discover/rediscover practices that are feasible for you, whether you're a little overwhelmed at the prospect of differentiation, or you're already on the way.
Teachers in differentiated classrooms begin with a clear and solid sense of what constitutes powerful curriculum and engaging instruction. Then they ask what it will take to modify that instruction so that each learner comes away with understandings and skills that offer guidance to the next phase of learning. Essentially, teachers in differentiated classrooms accept, embrace, and plan for the fact that learners bring many commonalities to school, but that learners also bring the essential differences that make them individuals. Teachers can allow for this reality in many ways to make classrooms a good fit for each individual.As a student of the fifties and sixties, I'm not sure there were many conscious efforts to diversify instruction at that time, to respond to students' particular learning needs. Although I now know that I'm a kinesthetic/visual learner, I'm pretty sure my teachers didn't know that.
(Tomlinson, Carol Ann. The Differentiated Classroom. ASCD, 1999.)
When I was in 4th grade I was chosen to represent my class on a dance 'team'. The team attended special in-school dance lessons and later demonstrated and taught those routines to our peers. Eventually we performed those dances together as a class. I was good at this because I learn kinesthetically (a largely unknown classroom concept at the time), and I had an interest in dance. Did my teacher somehow know that? Was he differentiating, being responsive to my talent and interest intentionally or accidentally? Either way, it was a meaningful and positive experience for me, a rare opportunity at that time to learn kinesthetically and then 'teach' my classmates. More frequently however, I struggled with auditory input alone that made it difficult for me to learn efficiently.
Before next week, please share a story of your own experience with differentiation as a student. How did teachers demonstrate, or fail to demonstrate attention/understanding to your learning needs?
Stay in touch. Thank you.
Differentiation Resources
http://pdonline.ascd.org/pd_demo/lesson.cfm?SID=90This is a link to differentiation strategies and information. Scroll down the page a bit until you get to 'Elements ofDifferentiated Instruction' where you'll find various categories with additional links.
The following information relates to the challenge of managing a differentiated classroom. The following are excerpts or ideas from Carol Ann Tomlinson's book, "The Differentiated Classroom" (ASCD, 1999).
A new teacher asked Tomlinson the following question: "Is it possible to differentiate instruction in a class where all the students sit in rows and where most of their work is done alone and in silence?"
Tomlinson's answer after a thoughtful pause: "Yes, I think you could apply many principles of differentiated instruction in that setting. You could still offer students appropriately challenging content. You could offer activities at levels that provide moderate challenge for different students. You could offer product assignments that wrap around individual interests and intelligence strengths." After another pause she added, "You'd have difficulty with students whose learning styles are itchy for collaboration, conversation, and movement."
And the following are some of her suggestions for strategies that support instruction and create an environment for differentiated learning (please ask for elaboration on any of these - I don't want to fill space with information that may not be needed):
Stations: ". . . allow different students to work with different tasks. They invite flexible grouping because not all students need to go to all stations all the time. Not all students need to spend the same amount of time in each station."
Agendas: "A personalized list of tasks that a particular student must complete in a specified time. Student agendas throughout a class will have similar and dissimilar elements on them. A teacher usually creates an agenda that iwll last a student two to three weeks."
Complex Instruction: "Its goal is to establish equity of learning opportunity for all students in the context of intellectually challenging materials and through the use of small instructional groups."
Complex Instruction requires students to work together in small groups; designed to draw upon the intellectual strengths of each student in the group; are open ended; are intrinsically interesting to students; are uncertain thus allowing for a variety of solutions and solution routes; involve real objects; provide materials and instructions in multiple languages; integrate reading and writing; draw upon multiple intelligences in a real-world way; use multimedia; require many different talents in order to be completed adequately.
Centers: "A learning center is a classroom area that contains a collection of activities or materials designed to teach, reinforce, or extend a particular skill or concent (Kaplan, Kaplan, Madsen & Gould).
Tiered Activities: ". . . important when a teacher wants to ensure that students with different learning needs work with the same essential ideas and use the same key skills. Teachers use tiered activities so all students focus on essential understandings and skills but at different levels of complexity, abstractness, and open-endedness."
Learning Contracts: Creates an opportunity for students to work somewhat independently on material that is largely teacher-directed, but may provide oportunities for student choice.
I'll post more information and resources around this topic of managing differentiation, but I think this is sufficient for the moment. Let me know how this 'fits' for you, and please offer your own insights and suggestions. Thank you.
Hello Everyone.
I've just reposted some of the links we've referenced during differentiation discussion, as well as adding several new ones. Please seek further discussion with your mentor, with members of this group, or with me (we can have private email conversations), if you'd like to sort of 'think aloud', wonder, ask questions about how this fits your own classroom situation.
I've also posted a link for an entire chapter from one of Tomlinson's books, which might be a resource you'll find worth purchasing (or ask your principal!). Doesn't hurt to ask for some of these professional resources.
Stay in touch. I'd like to know how you might rate your comfort with some of the facets of differentiation. For example, high, medium or low comfort in regards to a differentiated learning environment; content; instructional strategies; equity; pulling it all together. This self-assessment could be the basis for reflection about your next move in the arena of differentiation. Please share with the group if you like.
Thank you.
Integrating Differentiated Instruction & Understanding by Design: Connecting Content and Kids Chapter 1
Integrating Differentiated Instruction & Understanding by Design: Connecting Content and Kids Chapter 9
A collection of sites on Differentiated Instruction
Elements of Differentiation
Kimberly Oliver, National Teacher of the Year 2006 She talks about differentiation and parent communication, both topics of Tapped In discussions.