PowerPoint Presentation Differentiating Curriculum

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When we no longer know what to do, we have come
to our real work. When we no longer know which
way to go, we have begun our real journey. The
mind that is not baffled is not employed. The
impeded stream is the one that sings. -Wendell
Berry
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Differentiating Curriculum

• For the high-end learner

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Differentiated Instruction

• Modifying
• CONTENT - PROCESS - PRODUCT
• based on students
• READINESS - INTEREST - LEARNING PROFILE
• through a range
• of instructional and management strategies

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Instructional and Management Strategies

• Pre-testing
• Flexible grouping options
• Compacting and flexible time-use
• Tiered activities and products (cubing, centers)
• Homework options varied by student need
• Higher-level questions
• Advanced texts or supplementary materials
• Varied journal prompts
• Learning contracts
• Independent study / Mentorships
• Expert-level goals for student products
• Alternate forms of assessment

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Instructional Arrangements

• Whole class pre-assessment, introduction of
  concepts, planning, sharing, wrap-up
• Small Group teaching skills, directed reading,
  investigation
• Individualized application of skills, homework,
  independent study, testing, products
• Student Teacher Conferences assessment,
  guidance, evaluation, planning

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Addressing Advanced Learner Needs

• Describe one or two students you teach who have
  advanced learning needs.
• What would those learners need in their classes
  to make it a great year?
• How do you currently address the needs of
  students with advanced learning profiles?
• What factors make it difficult to modify
  curriculum and instruction for advanced learners?

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One size just doesnt fit all(not even the
gifted students)

• Some manifest talents, others have promise
• Some have strengths in multiple areas, others in
  a single area
• Some are motivated, some underachieve
• Some achieve in spite of us, some because of us,
  and others dont achieve
• Their interests differ
• Some who are not identified will later encounter
  opportunity, support, passion for learning
• Goal meeting the potential of many learners

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In a Differentiated Classroom

• Student differences shape instruction
• Assessment is on-going and diagnostic
• Excellence defined by individual growth
• Essential skills are focus of learning
• Use of time flexes with student need
• Multiple materials assignments provided

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Quality Curriculum vs Quality Differentiation

• Stretches students
• Promotes understanding
• Provides choices
• Engaging
• Focused goals
• Requires high-level thinking
• Connects with lives world

• Stretches each learner
• Promotes rewards individual excellence
• Derived from on-going assessment
• Flexible time, space, materials, groupings
• Scaffolds growth for each learner
• Rooted in student need

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ADVANCED LEARNERS

• GOAL STRETCH BEYOND COMFORT
• Materials, activities, projects should be more
• Abstract
• Complex
• Open-ended
• Multi-faceted
• Independent
• Faster pace
• than would be appropriate for many other students
  of same age.

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The Achievement Zone

• I know some things
• I have to think
• I have to hit some walls
• I have to persist
• I feel challenged
• Effort leads to success

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Content Modification

• Concept Generalization-based
• Abstraction
• Complexity
• Variety
• Organization
• Study of people
• Study of methods

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Process Modification

• Concept Generalization-based
• Higher levels of thinking
• Open-endedness
• Discovery
• Proof and reasoning
• Freedom of choice
• Group interaction/simulations

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Product Modification

• Concept issue-centered
• Student choice
• Real Problems
• Real Audiences
• Individually-set criteria
• Self-evaluation
• Expert goals
• Transformations

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Parallel Curriculum

• The Basic or Core Curriculum
• The Curriculum of Connections
• The Curriculum of Practice
• The Curriculum of Identity

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Core curriculum the advanced learner

• Using more advanced resources
• Adjusting to faster pace of teaching/learning
• Working a greater levels of depth, breadth,
  complexity, abstractness
• Applying ideas to unfamiliar or dissimilar
  contexts
• Designing more ambiguous tasks
• Developing rubrics with expert-level indicators

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Connections for the Advanced Learner

• Apply understandings or skills in contexts that
  are markedly unfamiliar
• Looking for patterns of interaction among
  multiple areas of connection
• Looking through a perspective unlike the
  students own
• Making proposals or predictions for future
  directions
• Developing solutions that effectively bridge
  differences

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Practice for the Advanced Learner

• Distinguish between school rules of practice and
  those relevant in tackling authentic problems
• Test frameworks of knowledge through field-based
  tasks
• Establish goals for own work at what they believe
  to be next steps in quality
• Submit best-quality exemplars of work to experts
  in field
• Work with problems currently posing difficulties
  to experts in field

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Identity for the Advanced Learner

• Looking for and reflecting on truths that typify
  the field
• Engaging in long-term problem solving on an
  intractable problem in the discipline that causes
  them to encounter and mediate multiple points of
  view.
• Collaborating with a high-level professional in
  the field in shared problem solving and
  reflection
• Researching and establishing standards of quality
  work and applying to self

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The Equalizer

• Transformational
• Abstract
• Complex
• Multi-Facets
• Greater Leap
• More Open
• Fuzzy Problems
• Greater Independence
• Quicker

• Foundational
• Concrete
• Simple
• Fewer Facets
• Smaller Leap
• More Structured
• Defined Problems
• Less Independence
• Slower

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Analyzing a Readiness-Based Task

• Read tasks
• With partner, analyze why tasks escalate in
  difficulty, using the language on The Equalizer
• Share with a second group

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A Differentiated Task

• Appeals to students
• Calls on students to grapple with key
  understanding and skills of unit
• Challenges students to perform at very high
  levels of thought and production (not able to
  take the low road)
• Stretches students in use of information,
  critical and creative thinking, skill and
  accuracy, or research insight

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A Closer Look at Instructional Strategies

• Tiered Assignments
• Adjusting Questions
• Cubing
• Learning centers
• Learning contracts
• Independent Study

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Tiered Instruction

• While material may be introduced in whole group
  instruction, the tasks students are assigned or
  choose should be appropriate challenge for their
  ability levels.
• Allows all students to learn the same skills and
  key concepts, but they approach these through
  varied content, process, or products.

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FOUR STEPS TO TIERING

• HOOK
• FOCUS
• RATCHET
• TIGHTEN

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Generating a Tiered Lesson

• Generate a tiered lesson activity that you might
  use with your students.
• It should have two tiers based on readiness.
• It should also ensure that all learners are
  working with the same key understands and all are
  working with interesting and respectful tasks.
• Use the language of the The Equalizer to talk
  about why one tier is more advanced that the
  other.

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Interest Groups

• Adjusting Questions - Activity 4
• Cubing - Activity 5
• Learning Centers - Activity 6
• Learning Contracts - Activity 7
• Independent Study - Activity 8

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Group 1 Adjusting Questions

• Allfocus on essential ideas
• Allask for thought
• Allrequire each individual to function at a high
  level of challenge
• Read handout.
• Develop set of questions for a discussion, test,
  or activity.

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Group 2 Cubing

• Describe it
• Compare it
• Associate it
• Analyze it
• Apply it
• Argue for it or against it
• Create at least 2 cubes with prompts that vary in
  difficulty.
• Models for reference

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Group 3 Learning Centers

• Allow all students to work with same key ideas
  and skills, but at different degrees of
  difficulty.
• May encourage student exploration of a topic or
  provide practice with a skill
• Design center for a class on a topic or skill,
  with at least 2 levels of difficulty.
• Models for reference

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Group 4 Learning Contract

• Everyone works within given framework
• Allows student more choices
• Enables teacher to focus groups of learners on
  goals that are important for current growth.
• Map out contract with at least 2 levels of
  readiness
• Models for reference

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Group 5 Independent Study

• Learners explore a topic in depth.
• Learners grow towards independence.
• Sketch out independent study plan that would
  align with a unit of study.
• Models for reference.

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Interest Groups

• Adjusting Questions - Activity 4
• Cubing - Activity 5
• Learning Centers - Activity 6
• Learning Contracts - Activity 7
• Independent Study - Activity 8

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Designing Complex Curriculum

• What are the big ideas or concepts that can be
  explored in this unit or text?
• What are the essential questions that can be
  asked about these concepts?
• What content will be explored?
• Which simple and complex processes will be taught
  or applied?

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Exploring Abstraction
KEY WORD Kinds Purpose Relationship Importance
Structure Effects Influence
CONCEPT Power Exploration Courage Conflict Tradit
ion Equality Adaptation

• DISCIPLINE
• Economics
• Ecology
• Literature
• Law
• History
• Physics
• Mathematics

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Focus for unit studies

• What is the importance of loyalty to country in
  an individuals decisions to fight in war?
• What is the purpose of conflict in determining
  species survival?
• What influences changes in human understanding
  about the solar system?
• How can words be powerful in different contexts?
• Does art reflect culture or shape it?
• Must a story have a beginning, middle, and end?

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Exploring Abstraction 2

• Unit topics
• Unit concept(s)
• Essential understanding in regards to concept
• Essential questions that can be asked
• Critical content/resources to be explored
• Process skills that will be taught or applied
• Activities to engage students in uncovering, not
  covering essential understandings and questions.
• Performance tasks that illustrate deep
  understanding of the principles and concepts.

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In Summary

• Indicators of Differentiation
• Consistent use of pre-assessment
• Speeding up or slowing down for different
  learners
• Flexible small group activities
• Individual alternatives through centers,
  contracts, homework
• Student choice on demonstration of learning

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• Where do we go from here?

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• The biggest mistake of past centuries in
  teaching has been to treat all children as if
  they were variants of the same individual and
  thus to feel justified in teaching them all the
  same subjects in the same way.
• - Howard Gardner

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Resources

• Math
• Math Forum
• Math Olympiads
• Math Counts
• National Library of Virtual Manipulatives
• Science
• Stevens Institute of Technology
• Social Studies
• Future Problem Solving
• English Language/Arts
• Junior Great Books
• William Mary Gifted Curriculum