Differentiated Instruction

1
Differentiated Instruction

• David W. Dillard

2
Objectives

• Based on the information provided today, teachers
  will be able
• To define differentiated instruction (evaluation)
• Implement differentiated instruction by
  overcoming obstacles and/or identifying current
  practices (evaluation)
• List three strategies they have used or might use
  in their classroom (evaluation)
• Find information and additional resources
  (provided in handout)

3
Definition I

• Differentiated instruction is a process through
  which teachers enhance learning by matching
  student characteristics to instruction and
  assessment. Differentiated instruction allows
  all students to access the same classroom
  curriculum by providing entry points, learning
  tasks, and outcomes that are tailored to the
  students needs.

4
Definition II

• In differentiated classrooms, teachers begin
  where students are, not the front of a curriculum
  guide. They accept and build upon the premise
  that learners differ in important ways. Thus,
  they also accept and act on the premise that
  teachers must be ready to engage students in
  instruction through different learning modalities
  by appealing to differing interests, and by using
  varied rates of instruction along with varied
  degrees of complexity. (Carol Ann Tomlinson)

5
Definition III

• In differentiated classrooms, teachers provide
  specific ways for each individual to learn as
  deeply as possible and as quickly as possible,
  without assuming one student's road map for
  learning is identical to anyone else's. These
  teachers believe that students should be held to
  high standards. They work to ensure that
  struggling, advanced, and in-between students
  think and work harder than they meant to achieve
  more than they thought they could and come to
  believe that learning involves effort, risk, and
  personal triumph.
• (Carol Ann Tomlinson)

6
Differentiated instructionFrom Wikipedia, the
free encyclopedia

• Differentiated instruction (sometimes referred to
  as differentiated learning) is a way of thinking
  about teaching and learning. It means using a
  variety of instructional strategies that address
  diverse student learning needs. It places
  students at the center of teaching and learning
  and student needs drive instructional planning.
  Differentiated instruction is a way to enhance
  learning for all students by engaging them in
  activities that respond to particular learning
  needs, strengths, and preferences.

7
Differentiated instructionFrom Wikipedia, the
free encyclopedia

• The goals of differentiated instruction are to
  develop challenging and engaging tasks for each
  learner (from low-end learner to high-end
  learner). Instructional activities are flexible
  and based and evaluated on content, process and
  product. Teachers respond to students readiness,
  instructional needs, interests and learning
  preferences and provide opportunities for
  students to work in varied instructional formats.
  In a nutshell, a classroom that utilizes
  differentiated instruction is a
  learner-responsive, teacher-facilitated classroom
  where all students have the opportunity to meet
  curriculum foundational objectives. Lessons
  should be on inquiry based, problem based and
  project based instruction.

8
Carol Tomlinson, professor at the University of
Virginia, identifies four classroom elements that
can be differentiated

• Content   What the student needs to learn. The
  instructional concepts should be broad based, and
  all students should be given access to the same
  core content. However, the contents complexity
  should be adapted to students learner profiles.
  Teachers can vary the presentation of content,(
  i.e., textbooks, lecture, demonstrations, taped
  texts) to best meet students needs.

9
Carol Tomlinson, professor at the University of
Virginia, identifies four classroom elements that
can be differentiated

• Process   Activities in which the student
  engages to make sense of or master the content.
  Examples of differentiating process activities
  include scaffolding, flexible grouping, interest
  centers, manipulatives, varying the length of
  time for a student to master content, and
  encouraging an advanced learner to pursue a topic
  in greater depth.

10
Carol Tomlinson, professor at the University of
Virginia, identifies four classroom elements that
can be differentiated

• Products The culminating projects that ask
  students to apply and extend what they have
  learned. Products should provide students with
  different ways to demonstrate their knowledge as
  well as various levels of difficulty, group or
  individual work, and various means of scoring.

11
Carol Tomlinson, professor at the University of
Virginia, identifies four classroom elements that
can be differentiated

• Learning Environment The way the classroom works
  and feels. The differentiated classroom should
  include areas in which students can work quietly
  as well as collaborate with others, materials
  that reflect diverse cultures, and routines that
  allow students to get help when the teacher isnt
  available (Tomlinson, 1995, 1999 Winebrenner,
  1992, 1996).

12
DESE MSIP pt. I

• DIFFERENTIATED INSTRUCTION AND SUPPLEMENTAL
  PROGRAMS
• 7.1 Comprehensive services for all resident
  children with disabilities, as required by the
  Individuals with Disabilities Education Act
  (IDEA) and Chapter 162, RSMo, are an integral
  component of the districts educational program.
• 1. The district has policies and procedures in
  place to ensure provision of effective special
  education services to children (ages 3-21) and
  their parents in accordance with state and
  federal regulations.
• 2. All students with disabilities have access to
  the general curriculum, participate in regular
  education settings with nondisabled peers, and
  demonstrate progress in the general curriculum.
• 3. The district ensures that all students with
  disabilities receive appropriate supports,
  services, and modifications (including related
  services, assistive technology, and positive
  behavioral interventions) to address their
  individual needs.
• 4. The district implements programs which result
  in improved opportunities for post-secondary
  education and employment for students with
  disabilities.

13
DESE -- MSIP pt. II

• 6.3 The district has implemented effective
  instructional programs designed to meet the
  assessed needs of its students, as well as the
  practices and procedures needed to support these
  programs.
• 1. Classroom strategies that accommodate
  students individual learning needs are
  implemented.
• 2. A balanced, research-based reading program is
  in place for grades K-3.
• 3. The district consistently provides access to
  extended learning time and alternative
  instructional delivery systems for all students.
• 4. The district identifies and provides targeted
  instruction or other needed services/interventions
  for educationally-disadvantaged, ESOL, migrant,
  and homeless students, as well as students who
  may, for other reasons, be at risk of leaving
  school without completing high school.

14
Obstacles

• I Long to return to the Good Old Days
• I thought I was differentiating
• I teach the way I was taught
• I dont know how
• I have too much content to cover
• Im good at lecturing
• I cant see how I would grade all those different
  assignments
• Kathie F. Nunley, Differentiating in the High
  School, Thousand Oaks, CA Corwin Press, 2006.

15
Obstacles

• I thought differentiation was for the elementary
  school
• I subscribe to ability grouping
• I have real logistic issues
• I want my classroom under control
• I dont know how to measure my students learning
  styles
• I have neither the time nor the funding for all
  that
• Kathie F. Nunley, Differentiating in the High
  School, Thousand Oaks, CA Corwin Press, 2006.

16
Obstacles

• Ive been teaching this way for years and it
  works
• Theres no support for it at my school
• My district requires me to follow a prescribed
  text
• Parents expect lecture format in high school for
  college prep
• The bottom line if they are learning, you are
  teaching
• Kathie F. Nunley, Differentiating in the High
  School, Thousand Oaks, CA Corwin Press, 2006.

17
Response to

• Student readiness
• Student interests
• Student learning style
• Multiple intelligences
• Success for all students
• What is practical and what is doable

18
CRIME

• Curriculum content, difficulty, standards
• Rules explicit, implicit, written
• Instruction teaching style, individual group
  work pace, teacher student directed
• Materials textbooks, trade books, tests,
  homework, equipment, supplies
• Environment furniture, seating, space, doors,
  windows, barriers
• Mary Anne Prater, She Will Succeed! Strategies
  for success in Inclusive Classrooms, Council for
  Exceptional Children

19
SHE WILL SUCCEED
Mary Anne Prater, Council for Exceptional Children
20
Key Guidelines for Differentiation

• All of you are already doing some differentiation
• Take small steps to implement
• Clarify key concepts and generalizations note
  taking is critical
• Use assessment as a teaching tool to extend
  rather than merely measure instruction
• Emphasize critical and creative thinking as a
  goal in lesson design
• Engaging all learners is essential
• Provide a balance between teacher-assigned and
  student-selected tasks

21
Strategies for Differentiated Instruction
22
Assessment

• Informal and formative as opposed to summative
• Classroom assessment is ongoing through personal
  communications
• Questioning try to question all students
  level the question to ability and aim at higher
  order thinking
• Observation move around the room, have a room
  chart and make notes
• Observation II (class management) you should
  know when you have lost them
• Discussion with the whole class, group, or
  individual

23
Classroom Assessments

• You have their attention (They have a pulse)
• One-minute paper (what did the students lean)
• Note-check teacher and or peer
• Three (???) questions you still have or would
  like clarified (collect and answer the next day)
• The Muddiest Point
• One-sentence Summary
• Whats the Principle/Process
• Clickers -- eLearning
• Questioning

24
Classroom Assessments

• Use a seating chart to log questions/responses
• Can be as easy as /-
• Can be used for behavior/attention
• Have students keep a response sheet to questions
  and collect/check at the end of the lesson/day
• Clickers/eLearning automated responses
• Thumbs up thumbs down response to questions

25
Questioning I

• Remember wait time
• Provide at least three seconds of thinking time
  after a question and after a response
• Utilize "think-pair-share"
• Allow individual thinking time, discussion with a
  partner, and then open up the class discussion
• Ask "follow-ups" (Why? Do you agree? Can you
  elaborate?)
• Tell me more. Can you give an example?
• Withhold judgment

26
Questioning II

• Respond to student answers in a nonevaluative
  fashion
• Ask for summary (to promote active listening)
  "Could you please summarize John's point?"
• Survey the class "How many people agree with the
  author's point of view?" ("thumbs up, thumbs
  down")
• Allow for student calling "Richard, will you
  please call on someone else to respond?"
• Play devil's advocate

27
Questioning III

• Require students to defend their reasoning
  against different points of view
• Ask students to "unpack their thinking"
• "Describe how you arrived at your answer."
  ("think aloud")
• Call on students randomly. Not just those with
  raised hands
• Student questioning. Let the students develop
  their own questions.
• Cue student responses. "There is not a single
  correct answer for this question. I want you to
  consider alternatives."

28
Graphic Organizers Note Taking

• Do you really know what students are learning,
  writing down, understanding?
• T-Notes
• Cornell Notes
• Lit Circle
• Q-Notes
• Inference Notes
• Cluster Notes
• Hierarchical Notes
• Think-in-Threes

• Timeline Notes
• Venn Diagrams
• Conversational Roundtable
• Episodic Notes
• Spreadsheet Notes
• This is a skill that must be taught, use
  different organizers with a specific purpose in
  mind
• Check what students create

29
Lit Circle Notes
30
Inference Notes
31
Q-Notes
32
Cornell Notes
33
Tiered Assignments

• Designed to provide different levels of
  complexity, abstractness, and open-endedness.
  The curricular content and objective(s) are the
  same, but the process and/or product are varied
  according to the students level of readiness

34
Interest Centers or Interest Groups

• Interest centers are set up so that learning
  experiences are directed toward a specific
  learner interest. Allowing students to choose a
  topic can be motivating to them. The teacher may
  select a variety of topics or areas that students
  or groups can select.

35
Flexible Grouping

• Students work as part of many different groups
  depending on the task and/or content.
• Groups assigned
• Readiness
• Assigned by teacher
• Randomly
• Chosen by students
• Allows students to work with a wide variety of
  peers and keeps them from being labeled

36
Learning Contracts

• An agreement between the student and the teacher
  (they may or may not be written, but written
  often works better)
• Teacher specifies the necessary skills
• Student identifies the methods for completing the
  task (there may or may not be debate on
  establishing and there may or may not be
  amendments)
• Allows students to
• Work at an appropriate pace
• Target their learning style
• Helps students work independently
• This is an excellent way for students to
  understand what is EXPECTED of them.

37
Choice Boards

• Organizers that contain a variety of activities
• Students choose activities to complete as they
  learn a skill or develop a product
• These may contain small groups, pairs, or
  individual assignments

38
Differentiated Instructional Strategies I

• Anchor Activities are on-going assignments tied
  to the curriculum and for which students are
  accountable that can be worked on independently
  throughout a grading period or longer.
• Allowing for multiple right answers are
  open-ended assignments that focus on the process
  of solving the problem and/or critical thinking.
• Adjusting questions In class discussions, tests,
  and homework, teachers adjust the sorts of
  questions posed to learners based on their
  readiness, interests, and learning profiles.
• Agendas These are personalized lists of tasks
  that a student must complete in a specified time,
  usually two to three weeks. Student agendas
  throughout a class will have similar and
  dissimilar elements. The agendas can be
  personalized (e.g., include IEP tasks, more
  challenging work) for individual students, if
  needed. Students work individually (or in small
  groups) to complete the agenda tasks.

39
Differentiated Instructional Strategies II

• 4MAT Teachers who use 4MAT plan instruction for
  each of four learning preferences over the course
  of several days on a given topic. Thus, some
  lessons focus on mastery, some on understanding,
  some on personal involvement, and some on
  synthesis. Each learner has a chance to approach
  the topic through preferred modes and also
  strengthen weaker areas.
• Attention to social issues, real world
  experiences, and community projects are
  performance assessment tasks, role-plays,
  simulations, etc. based on authentic situations
  of interest to students.
• Centers are flexible areas in the classroom that
  address variable learning needs. Centers differ
  from stations in that centers are distinct.
  Stations work in concert with one another. Two
  kinds of centers are particularly useful for
  differentiated instruction learning centers and
  interest centers.
• Chunking is breaking assignments and activities
  into smaller, more manageable parts and providing
  more structured directions for each part.

40
Differentiated Instructional Strategies III

• Compacting is a process that involves
  pre-assessing students, giving them credit for
  what they already know and allowing them to move
  ahead in the curriculum. Compressing the
  required curriculum into a shorter period of time
  so students who master it ahead of their
  classmates can use the time they "buy back" for
  other activities.
• Emphasis on Thinking skills giving students the
  opportunity to think aloud, discuss their
  thinking with their peers, and reflect on their
  thinking in journals.Developing student
  responsibility giving the students opportunity
  to help develop the evaluation rubrics, write
  project proposals, and complete self and group
  evaluations.Flexible grouping matching
  students to skill work by virtue of readiness,
  not with the assumption that all need the same
  task, computation skill, writing assignment, etc.
  Movement among groups is common, based on
  readiness on a given skill and growth in that
  skill.Flexible pacing allowing for differences
  in the students' ability to master the curricula.

41
Differentiated Instructional Strategies IV

• Goal setting and planning involving students in
  their individual goal setting and the planning of
  learning activities, one to one with the
  teacher.Group investigation working in
  cooperative mixed-ability groups on open-ended
  tasks or in like-ability groups working on
  appropriately challenging tasks. Usually the
  focus is on the process and thinking
  skills.Hands-on projects/activities using
  manipulative to motivate instructions.High-level
  questions questioning that draw on advanced
  levels of information, requiring leaps of
  understanding and challenging thinking.Independe
  nt study providing students with the opportunity
  to work independently to investigate topics of
  interest to them.

42
Differentiated Instructional Strategies V

• Interdisciplinary/integrated curricula around a
  theme thematic units, which make connections
  across multiple curricular areas.Interest
  centers are designed to motivate students'
  exploration of topics for which they have a
  particular interest.Learning centers are
  classroom areas that contain a collection of
  activities or materials designed to teach,
  reinforce, or extend a particular skill or
  concept.Learning contract is a proposal made
  prior to beginning a project or unit in which the
  resources, steps toward completion, and
  evaluation criteria are agreed upon with the
  teacher.Portfolios provide a means for helping
  teachers and parents reflect on student growth
  over time. These are collections of student work
  are excellent for helping children set
  appropriate learning goals and evaluating their
  own growth.

43
Differentiated Instructional Strategies VI

• Problem-Based learning placing students in the
  active role of solving problems in much the same
  way adult professionals perform their jobs. The
  teacher presents students with an unclear,
  complex problem. Students must seek additional
  information, define the problem, locate
  resources, make decisions about solutions, pose
  solution, communicate that solution to others,
  and assess the solution's effectiveness.Stations
  are different spots in the classroom where
  students work on various tasks simultaneously.
  Stations work in concert with one another.
  Stations allow different students to work with
  different tasks. They invite flexible grouping
  because not all students need to go to all
  stations all the time or spend the same amount of
  time in each station.This page was created by
  Michael Szesze, Program Supervisor for
  Science.http//www.mcps.k12.md.us/curriculum/scie
  nce/instr/differstrategies.htm

44
Websites

• http//faculty.rmwc.edu/mentor_grant/Differentiate
  d/differentiated_instruction.htm
• http//www.weac.org/kids/1998-99/march99/differ2.h
  tm
• http//pdonline.ascd.org/pd_online/diffinstr/el199
  909_tomlinson.html
• http//www.sresd.k12.mi.us/pages/resources/differe
  ntInstr.htm
• http//www.njpep.org/pd/learning/differentiated_le
  arning.html
• Note taking http//www.englishcompanion.com/Tool
  s/notemaking.html

45
http//www.frsd.k12.nj.us/rfmslibrarylab/di/differ
entiated_instruction.htm
46
http//eduscapes.com/tap/topic73.htm
47
http//www.internet4classrooms.com/di.htm
48
http//www.plpsd.mb.ca/division/differen.htm
This page has an Excellent 36-page handout
49
http//www.kurwongbss.qld.edu.au/thinking/Bloom/bl
ooms.htm
50
http//www.kn.sbc.com/wired/fil/pages/listdifferen
sp.html
51
http//www.openc.k12.or.us/reaching/tag/dcsamples.
html
52
http//www.funlessonplans.com/differentiated_instr
uction.htm
53
http//www.k8accesscenter.org/training_resources/d
ifferentiationmodule.asp