Differentiated Instruction Responding to the Needs of All Learners

For a fair selection everybody has to take the same exam and climb that tree.

What is Differentiated Instruction?

Ensuring that struggling and advanced learners, students with varied cultural heritages, and children with different background experiences all grow as much as they possibly can. Carol Ann Tomlinson

Differentiation engages students in instruction through different learning modalities by appealing to differing interests, using varying rates of instruction along with varied degrees of complexity.

A differentiated classroom offers a variety of learning options designed to tap into different readiness levels, interests and learning profiles.

Ways to Differentiate

Provide a variety of ways for students to explore curriculum content.

Provide a variety of activities and processes where students can understand and “own” information and ideas.

Provide a variety of options which students can demonstrate or exhibit what they have learned.

Differentiation and Academic Content Standards

Standards should be the vehicle that ensures students learn more coherently, more deeply and more broadly.

Many standards are facts, principles, attitudes or skills. Some are conceptual and integrate skills of a particular discipline.

How do we insure that our students’ learning experiences are solidly based on concepts and principles and that our students are learning to use skills in meaningful ways?

Key Principles of a Differentiated Classroom

The teacher is clear about what matters in subject matter.

The teacher understands, appreciates and builds upon student differences.

The teacher adjusts content, process and product in response to student readiness, interests and learning profile.

All students participate in respectful work.

Students and teachers are collaborators in learning.

Goals of a differentiated classroom are maximum growth and individual success.

Flexibility is the hallmark of a differentiated classroom.

Levels of LearningScienceLiteratureArt FactsWater boils at 212°Katherine Paterson wrote Bridge to Terebithia. Monet was an Impressionist. ConceptsInterdependenceVoicePerspective PrinciplesAll life forms are part of a food chain. Authors use voices of characters as a way of sharing their own voice. Negative space helps spotlight essential elements in a composition. AttitudesConservation benefits our ecosystem. Reading poetry is boring. I prefer Realism to Impressionism. SkillsCreating a plan for an energy efficient school. Using metaphorical language to establish personal voice. Responding to a painting with both affective and cognitive awareness.

Essential Understandings

Content standards help to guide the development of essential understandings.

What are Essential or Enduring Understandings ?

Represents a big idea having value beyond the classroom. Resides at the heart of the discipline. Requires uncovering of abstract and often misunderstood ideas. Offers potential for engaging students.

Statistical analysis and data display often reveal patterns that may not be obvious. Democratic governments must balance the rights of individuals with the common good. Novelists often provide insights about human experiences through fictional means. Dietary requirements vary for individuals based on age, activity level, weight and health.

Essential Questions

What questions- have no obvious right answer? are arguable – and important to argue about? raise other important questions? often raise important conceptual or philosophical issues related to a discipline? can effectively provoke or sustain engaged inquiry and focus?

What can we infer about the artifacts we find? Does a decade serve as a meaningful demarcation of an era? What do different versions of the Cinderella story reveal about culture? What can fairy tales from around the world teach us? Can censorship exist in a democracy? What truths would be lost if there was no fiction?

To what extent does science depend upon or get beyond trial and error? What is clean water? Can a formula be developed for any given data situation? What should we do when the primary sources disagree? Are modern civilizations more civilized than ancient ones? Is industrial capitalism moral, immoral or amoral?

Teachers can differentiate ContentProcessProduct

Content What a student should know, understand and be able to do as a result of the study.

How do we differentiate content? By adapting or modifying how and what we teach students.

Process Activities designed to help the student come to make sense of or “own” the content.

How do we differentiate product? By adapting or modifying the ways in which students produce evidence of their learning. (Tests, presentations, models, etc.)

Product How the student will demonstrate and extend what she has come to know, understand and be able to do.

Strategies to Support Differentiation Centers Flexible Grouping Open-Ended Activities Tiered Activities Learning Contracts Independent Studies Portfolios Group Investigations