Differentiated Differentiated InstructionInstruction

Differentiated Differentiated InstructionInstruction

Responding to the Needs of Responding to the Needs of All LearnersAll 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 Ways to DifferentiateDifferentiate

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 Learning Science Literature Art

Facts Water boils at 212° Katherine Paterson wrote Bridge to Terebithia.

Monet was an Impressionist.

Concepts Interdependence Voice Perspective

Principles All 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.

Attitudes Conservation benefits our ecosystem.

Reading poetry is boring.

I prefer Realism to Impressionism.

Skills Creating 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

Content Process Product

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

CentersFlexible GroupingOpen-Ended ActivitiesTiered ActivitiesLearning ContractsIndependent StudiesPortfoliosGroup Investigations