Greetings!
Differentiated Instruction is a hot topic in education. The reality is, your students bring their personal experiences, backgrounds, and distinct personalities with them every day of the school year. This means that in one classroom, you will be trying to meet a broad range of learning needs, and to successfully integrate individuals within one collective unit. Understanding the meaning and implications of Differentiated Instruction can serve you extremely well as you seek and utilize ways to incorporate it.
In the main column, you'll find my perspective on DI with a quick activity you can use. And, as usual, you'll find additional tips to the right, and a list of recommended resources at the bottom beside the Principal's Perspective.
Finally, if you know someone who is interested in professional development, please feel free to give them my contact information:(609) 474-4677 or bcgroup@gmail.com.
Barbara
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Differentiation
In Differentiated Instruction, a teacher varies the content (what), process (how), or product (demonstration of learning) of instruction to enhance student understanding.
So, when we introduce content to our students, we provide the same information, but we then vary the methods and tools for building students' understanding based on what we know about their personal experiences, backgrounds, and personalities. We want to reach each learner in the most effective manner possible. This does not mean that we deny anyone the opportunity to see something a certain way; rather, we use what they already know and in what they are interested as starting blocks for engaging learners and encouraging their growth.
One way to differentiate instruction is by incorporating Howard Gardner's Multiple Intelligences within planning, instruction, and assessment. Gardner's theory essentially suggests that everyone has given strengths pertaining to how they function most successfully as learners. These strengths may be a result of prior experiences, background knowledge, or interests-further supporting the importance of getting to know each one of your students well. By creating lessons that touch upon diverse learning styles, you make material more accessible to all of your students.
This doesn't mean you have to create 36 different lessons for 36 students. One of my favorite strategies is to use a tic-tac-toe grid for an instructional unit. I create a variety of activities geared toward multiple intelligences, and students choose three to create tic-tac-toe. Instant differentiation and the personal choice builds ownership!
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Principal's Perspective
Carol Ann Tomlinson, in a column for AASA, shared these thoughts for leaders:
Educational leaders have a chance to model differentiation through such means as:
- Reflecting on the nature and needs of schools and teachers and being responsive to the variance that exists on those levels, just as it does in classrooms;
- Establishing clear goals, but remaining open to varied ways of achieving those goals;
- Providing support to teachers based on their particular needs;
- Crafting staff development to respond to a wide range of levels of teacher comfort with differentiation; and
- Basing teacher evaluation, at least in large measure, on the degree to which individual teachers set and achieve differentiation goals appropriate for their level of professional development.
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Other Technology Ideas
You can also differentiate by student characteristics, such as readiness, interest, and learning profile.
Strategies include:
- Using jigsaw activities,
- Providing different texts for students,
- Creating interest centers,
- Using tiered homework (sample linked below),
- Varying activities on a learning contract,
- Providing problems with different steps (such as a one-step vs. multi-step problem), and
- Allowing students to choose how they demonstrate understanding.
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