A Quick Quiz What is your DI IQ?

Discuss with peers… What do you know about differentiation? What concerns or fears do you have regarding differentiation? What would you like to learn more about? List words or phrases that, in your mind, are linked to this term.

DIFFERENTIATION Curriculum: Content/Process/Product Student: Readiness/Interest/Learning Style

Let’s begin with a senario!

A Working Definition of Differentiation Differentiation has come to mean “consistently using a variety of instructional approaches to modify content, process, and/or products in response to learning readiness and interest of academically diverse students.” Tomlinson, Carol Ann. The Differentiated Classroom

When Differentiating Instruction, The Three Most Important Questions to Continually Ask Yourself... What do I want may students to know, understand, and be able to do? What will I do instructionally to get my students to learn this? How will my students show what they know?

Readiness is a student’s entry point relative to a particular understanding or skill. To help a student to grow, we must begin where the child is. Some children, particularly those who have had early learning opportunities, begin school with well-developed skills and considerable understanding of various topics; other students arrive as true beginners and need basic instruction and additional practice. Interest refers to a child’s affinity, curiosity, or passion for a particular topic or skill. The advantage to grouping by interest is that it allows students to attach what they have been learning in class to things that they already find relevant and interesting and appealing in their own lives. Learning profile has to do with how students learn. Some are visual learners, auditory learners, or kinesthetic learners. Students vary in the amount of time they need to master a skill or learn a concept. How students learn can be shaped by: environment social organization physical circumstances emotional climate psychological factors Carol Ann Tomlinson/ Diane Heacox

What goals are we trying to achieve through differentiation? Increased academic learning Increased confidence in learning Enhanced intrinsic motivation for learning Self-directed learning behaviors

What Gets Differentiated? The teacher can modify content, process, or product.

CONTENT is what we want students to: - know (facts and information) - understand (principles, generalizations, ideas) - be able to do (skills) Content is differentiated (a) when you preassess students’ skill and knowledge, then match learners with appropriate activities according to readiness; (b) when you give students choices about topics to explore in greater depth; (c) when you provide students with basic and advanced resources that match their current levels of understanding. Diane Heacox, Differentiating Instruction in the Regular Classroom

PROCESS is the “how” of teaching. Process refers to the activities that you design to help students think about and make sense of the key principles and information of the content they are learning. Process also calls on students to use key skills that are integral to the unit. When differentiating process, students are engaged in different activities, but each activity should be directed to the lesson’s common focus on what students should come to know, understand, and be able to do. All students are engaged in meaningful and respectful tasks. Carol Ann Tomlinson

PRODUCTS are the way students show what they have learned or extend what they have learned. They can be differentiated along a continuum: - simple to complex - less independent to more independent - clearly defined problems to fuzzy problems Carol Ann Tomlinson

As teachers, our goal is to make the curriculum accessible to all students. Differentiation makes this possible but before we can begin to differentiate, we must come to know our students. Discovering what your students already know before beginning a unit of study can be accomplished through the use of preassessments. The use of interest inventories and multiple intelligence checklists provides important information about students’ learning profile.

Flexible grouping is at the heart of differentiated instruction

Flexible grouping: A Definition Flexible small groups are within class grouping in which membership varies according to ability (same ability, mixed ability), interest or questions, learning style or processing style, product style, group longevity, group size (2-10). Groups can be teacher-selected, student- selected, purposeful or random.

Designing Differentiated Learning Activities for Flexible Groups Open-ended activities and assignments Purposefully designed choices to accommodate learning or expression style differences Purposefully designed tiered assignments

Tiered Assignments are designed to maximize each student's growth by challenging students with learning experiences that are slightly above their current level of knowledge and performance.

Designing a Tiered Assignment A six step process Identify the content Consider your students’ needs Create an activity Chart the complexity of the activity Create other versions of the activity Match one version of the task to each student Let’s look at a sample lesson plan

Lesson introduction Initial teaching Locating or designing a pretest format based on observed or anticipated differences Pretesting Analysis of pretest results Decision making and planning Formation of flexible groups Differentiated teaching and learning activities Instructional Sequence in a Differentiated Classroom

Sit, back, relax and enjoy… Inclusion and Differentiated Instruction: Teachers in the Movies do it too!