A FollowUp to Kay Toliver and Donna Ford

1
A Follow-Up to Kay Toliver and Donna Ford A
Quick Review/Introduction to Differentiated
Instruction

• W-JCC Administrative Council
• Williamsburg-James City Community Center at
  Longhill Road
• March 13, 2008
• Gary S. Mathews, Ph.D.
• Superintendent

2
Kay Toliver

• Of all the civil rights, the right to learn is
  the most precious fundamental.
• Question How does RtI fit this notion?

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Kay Tolivers Characteristics of POWERFUL TEACHING

• Caring
• Connection
• Communication
• Character

• Compassion
• Conviction
• Commitment

4
Kay ToliverQuestion Can you be a master of
teaching technique (ala Marzanos RBIs) without
mastering Tolivers adaptive Cs?
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Kay Toliver

• Employers want an employee who can adapt to
  change technology, thinking, reading and math
  literacy.
• Employers want powerful learners who are
  master at adaptation and change.
• To have powerful learners, we must have
  powerful teachers.

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Kay Tolivers Pizza Lesson (Fractions)

• Did you see GENERATING AND TESTING HYPOTHESES?
• Did you see COOOPERATIVE LEARNING?
• Did you see NONLINGUISTIC REPRESENTATIONS?
• Did you see HOMEWORK AND PRACTICE?
• Did you see SUMMARIZING AND NOTETAKING?

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Kay Tolivers Pizza Lesson

• Did you see IDENTIFYING SIMILARITIES AND
  DIFFERNCES?
• Did you see SETTING OBJECTIVES AND PROVIDING
  FEEDBACK?
• Did you see CUES, QUESTIONS, AND ADVANCE
  ORGANIZERS?

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Kay Toliver POWERFUL TEACHERS PLAN!

• To accomplish more Pizza lessons in our school
  division, should we not require teachers to plan
  and show evidence of that planning as part of
  ongoing and summative evaluation?

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POWERFUL PLANNING

• Curriculum Objective(s)
• Background Knowledge (Vocabulary)
• 9 Research-Based Instructional Strategies
• Technology Integration

• Non-Graded Formative Assessment (informal
  formal)
• Summative Assessment for a Grade
• Divisionwide Benchmarks
• Remediation/Enrich-
• ment

10
Donna Ford On Closing the Achievement Gap

• Data indicate that African-American and Latino
  17-year-olds often have the math and reading
  skills of white students who are 13 years old
  (e.g., Barton, Parsing the Achievement Gap,
  Educational Testing Service, 2003)
• There are other gaps as well, for example, in
  grade point averages, high school graduation
  rates, and college completion rates.

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Donna Ford on Two Problems to be Solved if Were
to Eliminate or Narrow the Achievement Gap

• Gifted Education Black and Latino students are
  under represented (also in AP classes)
• Special Education Black and Latino students are
  over represented

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Significant Factors Strongly Associated with
the Achievement Gap

• CURRICULUM RIGOR The rigor of the curriculum
  is the strongest predictor of the achievement
  gap. As already noted, Black and Latino students
  have the least amount of access to challenging
  courses, AP classes, and gifted education
  classes.
• Whats our status in W-JCC?
• How do we gain on this problem?

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Achievement Gap Factors contd

• TEACHER QUALITY PREPARATION Students who are
  the most in need of well-trained teachers tend
  not to get them. Specifically, teachers with the
  fewest credentials often teach in the lowest
  performing classrooms, too many of which are
  comprised of Black and Latino students (Kozol,
  2005 Orfield Lee, 2004).
• How does W-JCC stack up school-by-school?
• How do we gain on this problem?

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Achievement Gap Factors contd

• TEACHER EXPERIENCE ATTENDANCE Data indicate
  that teachers working with urban students often
  have higher rates of school absence and turnover
  (Darling-Hammond Sykes, 2003) This lack of
  consistency with teachers (and curriculum and
  instruction) negatively affects the quality of
  students education.
• Whats teacher absenteeism like in W-JCC?
• How do we gain on the problem if it is a
  problem?

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Achievement Gap Factors contd

• CLASS SIZE Students in urban schools are most
  likely to have larger class sizes than students
  in suburban and high performing schools (Barton,
  2003)Classroom management, time on task, and
  opportunities for individualized attention are
  compromised.
• Whats the class size status in W-JCC for
  underachieving students?
• How do we gain on the problem if it is one?

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Achievement Gap Factors contd

• TECHNOLOGY-ASSISTED INSTRUCTION The digital
  divide is real. Today, technology plays a role
  in almost all educational, employment, and
  recreational activities. Computer access has the
  potential to help students complete coursework
  independently, participate in class discussions,
  communicate with peers, access distance learning
  courses, and participate in high technology.
  Despite the power of technology, teachers in
  urban settings seldom have adequate numbers of
  computers and they often work with the least
  updated technology (Kozol, 2005). When computers
  are available, teachers working in urban settings
  do not appear to use them for instruction-related
  purposes (Barton, 2003).
• Whats the status of technology in W-JCC for
  underperforming students?
• How do we gain on the problem if it is one?

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Achievement Gap Factors contd

• SCHOOL SAFETY It appears that concerns about
  safety are on the rise for gifted students,
  diverse students, and gifted diverse
  students(Many gifted students are tormented by
  other students. Similarly, a recent study found
  that Black and Latino students feel less safe in
  schools than White students.)
• Whats the status of school safety in W-JCC?
• How do we gain on this problem if it is one?

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Differentiated Instruction

• That which recognizes a common body of knowledge
  and skills for students to master (equity), but
  takes varying routes for each student to gain
  mastery of the intended curriculum in an optimal
  manner (excellence). Put another way, different
  routes to the same end.
• That which plans and carries out varied
  approaches to content (what students learn),
  process (how students learn), and product (how
  students demonstrate what theyve learned) in
  anticipation of and response to student
  differences in readiness (prior mastery of
  knowledge and skills), interest (a students
  curiosity or passion) and learning profile (how
  the student prefers to learn).
• A teaching philosophy and mindset that has a
  teacher acting responsively to a learners needs,
  i.e., meeting the student where he or she enters
  the classroom.

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Traditional vs. Differentiated Classroom

• Table Task
• Set up 2 columns, i.e., Traditional Classroom and
  Differentiated Classroom
• Read each strip of paper outloud in your group.
• Decide as to whether each strip of paper
  represents Traditional or Differentiated
  Classrooms.
• Be prepared to report out in jigsaw.

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DI BeliefsSource Reconcilable Differences
Standards-Based Teaching and Differentiation,
Educational Leadership, September 2000, 58(1),
pp. 6-11, Carol Ann Tomlinson

• Students who are the same age differ in their
  readiness to learn, their interests, their styles
  of learning, their experiences, and their life
  circumstances.
• Differences in students are significant enough to
  make a major impact on what students need to
  learn, the pace at which they need to learn it,
  and the support they need from teachers and
  others to learn it well.
• Students will learn best when supportive adults
  push them slightly beyond where they can work
  without assistance.

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DI Beliefs contd

• Students will learn best when they can make a
  connection between the curriculum and their
  interests and life experiences.
• Students will learn best when opportunities are
  natural.
• Students are more effective learners when
  classrooms and schools create a sense of
  community in which students feel significant and
  respected.
• The central job of schools is to maximize the
  capacity of each student.

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Ted Sizer

• That students differ may be inconvenient, but it
  is inescapable.