Integrating Differentiated Instruction (DI) & Understanding by Design (UbD) Carol Ann Tomlinson & Jay McTighe My Take-a-Way Notes by P. Samaddar, August

1. Establishing Clarity About Curricular Essentials  Goals matter as we can't teach everything  Take care to teach that which is most durable and useful  Powerful understanding-based goals will nearly always "belong" to everyone  Communicate the importance of the classroom agenda and the capacity of every student to benefit from and contribute to that agenda  Remember to pre-assess learners' proficiency with those goals  Goals give teacher road map for the learning journey that directs ongoing assessments and adjustment of teaching and learning plans throughout the unit  Based on important concepts and principles – likely to be engaging, link with experiences/interests of students, can establish relevance…leading to enhanced motivation  Flexible with entry points  Teacher more likely to be at ease in offering students options to explore and express learning in a mode appropriate for the student's learning profile 2

2. Accepting responsibility for Learner Success  If a student is not growing – even if he or she is making As – the teacher is not teaching that student  The teacher accepts the premise that if he or she doesn't ensure that the day works for the child, it may be a lost day  Part of the teacher's job is to establish an environment in which shared responsibility for successful learning is part of the classroom ethic and practice  A teacher in an effectively differentiated class will not allow economics, gender, race, past achievement, lack of parental involvement, or any other factor become an excuse for shoddy work or outcomes that are less than a student is able to accomplish 3

3. Accepting responsibility for Learner Success  Get to know each student, continually map the progress of students against essential outcomes, find alternate ways of teaching/alternate paths to learning to ensure continual growth of each student  Send consistent messages to students that if something didn't work today, both teacher and student will be back at it tomorrow and the day after until success occurs  Provide support systems that articulate and model what quality work looks like and what it takes to attain quality results 4

4. Developing Communities of Respect  We learn to accept and appreciate one another's variances  Celebrate one another's victories and support one another's efforts  It is crucial for students to accept and ultimately understand both their commonalities and differences  Classroom has to be a place where each student fees safe (not seen as a failure, a nerd, a test score, a social pariah) and also challenged 5

5. Developing Communities of Respect Teachers in such classrooms:  Communicate respect and positive expectation  Seek out, affirm, and draw on the unique abilities of each student  Elicit and value multiple perspectives on issues, decisions, and ways of accomplishing work  Make sure all students are called upon to participate regularly  Help students identify and adhere to constructive ways of interacting with one another  Design tasks that enable each student to make important contributions to the work of the group  Ensure languages, cultures, and perspectives of varied cultures are represented in the important work of the group  Help students reflect on the quality of their contributions to the developing classroom community  Seek and respond to students' ideas about how to foster respect in the classroom 6

6. Building Awareness of What Works for Each Student  Hunt and gather info about what best propels learning for each student  Make opportunities to communicate individually with individual learners  Garner info on students' interests, dreams, and aspirations  Work to understand each student's profile of academic strengths and weaknesses  Understand the inevitable learning profile variance that exists in groups and individuals  Observe students working individually, in small gorups, and in the class as a whole with the intent to study factors that facilitate or impede progress for individuals and for the groups as a whole  Create opportunities to learn from parents, guardians, and community members about students 7

7. Classroom Management Routines that Contribute to Success  Multiplicity of tasks, combined with frequency and rotation is one reason why teaching is so exhausting  Developing a system through which students learn to play a large role in managing themselves, their work, and their success is not an ideal, but a necessity  Students are capable of doing many of the routine operations in a classroom, and they benefit from the responsibility  They beome more aware of classroom operations, more independent as thinkers and problem solvers, more a part of a team effort and they develop more ownership in outcomes  Teachers are then freer to provide the kind of assistance to students that makes good use of his or her professional abilities 8 DIFFERENTIATED CLASSROOMS ENLIST EVERYONE'S BEST EFFORTS IN MAKING SURE THE CLASSROOM OPERATES SMOOTHLY

8. Classroom Management Routines that Contribute to Success Teachers in such classrooms:  Establish high expectations for routines as an important factor in student growth  Study operational routines to make sure they are working well  Work with students to develop a rationale and rules for effective classroom operation  Make clear on an ongoing basis criteria for success in varied roles in varied tasks  Gather info from students about what is and is not working well for them as individuals and as part of small groups  Seek student advice on making class operate effectively  Enlist students in performing routine functions whenever possible  Help students perform those functions effectively and efficiently  Ensure everyone's participation in making the classroom work 9

9. Helping Students Become Effective Partners in Their Own Success Students need to:  become effective in speaking about and playing a role in addressing their own learning goals and needs  become effective in charting their own success  develop a growing sophistication about one's strengths and weaknesses, understanding what facilitates and hinders one's learning, setting and monitoring personal learning goals, and so on  become increasingly more self-reliant (this is also propelled by the need to provide differently for different learners in order to maximize their growth It is important for students to participate in crafting their own success. They need to be able to:  say that particular work is too hard or too easy for them  distinguish between more productive and less productive working arrangements  determine when they are moving toward goals and when they are becoming derailed  set personal goals beyond those established for the class as a whole 10

10. Helping Students Become Effective Partners in Their Own Success Teachers in such classrooms:  Help students understand, accept, and ultimately benefit from their differences  Nurture a growing awareness of students' particular strengths  Help students acknowledge areas of weakness  Facilitate ways to remediate or compensate for weaknesses  Guide students in developing a vocabulary related to learning preferences and in exercising those preferences that facilitate their growth  Ask students to reflect on their own growth, factors that facilitate that growth, and likely next steps to ensure continual growth  Support students in setting and monitoring personal learning goals  Provide opportunities for students to talk with their parents or guardians about their growth and goals 11

12. Developing Flexible Classroom Teaching Routines  Continually seek varied ways of thinking about time, materials, tasks, student groupings, teacher-guided instruction, space, grading, and so on…  Simply put, there is no other way to craft a classroom that works well for each learner 12

13. Developing Flexible Classroom Teaching Routines Teachers in such classrooms:  Allow for students' different pace of learning  Gather both basic and suplementary materials of different readability levels that reflect different cultures, connect with varied interests, and are in different modes (e.g., auditory and visual)  Experiment with ways to rearrange furniture to allow for whole-class, small-group and individual learning spaces  Vary student groupings so that in addition to meeting readiness needs, they enable students to work with peers who have similar and dissimilar interests, learning preferences, in random groups, in groups selected by the teacher and those students select themselves  Regularly teach to whole class, small groups based on assessed need, and to individuals  Teach in a variety of ways to accommodate students' varied readiness, needs, interests and learning preferences  Ensure grades communicated both personal growth and relative standing in regard to specified learning outcomes 13

14. Expanding a Repertoire of Instructional Strategies  Comfortably and appropriately using an array of instructional strategies engages learners  Students need an element of variety, novelty and surprise injected into the classroom  Teacher who has many instructional tools at hand is better equipped to find the tool that fits the purpose, the agility in reaching out to students 14

15. Expanding a Repertoire of Instructional Strategies Teachers in such classrooms:  Use a variety of strategies when they present to the class as well as when students are actively engaged in learning  Use strategies that enable them to address readiness, interest, and learning profile needs  Guide students in understanding how to work with instructional approaches effectively (Anne Davies – keep ongoing list of strategies "posted)  Help students reflect on which strategies work well for them, why that might be the case, and what that reveals to the student about him-or- herself as a learner 15

16. Reflecting on Individual Progress with an Eye Toward Curricular Goals and Personal Growth Teachers in such classrooms:  Use pre-assessment data to begin planning for both in-common learning goals and individual learning needs  Use ongoing assessment to ensure as close a match as possible between instruction and learner needs  Observe personal growth relative to a student's particular profile  Engage students in setting personal goals and evaluating progress toward those goals  Reflect consistently on individual and group growth in order to adjust instruction in ways of greatest benefit to individuals and the class as a whole  Help parents understand a student's personal growth and standing relative to in-common goals Note to self: Design index card for gathering observations where I can sort as I go (saves time at report card time) 16