Differentiation

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Differentiation
Differentiation
Differentiation
Differentiation
Differentiation
Differentiation
Differentiation
Differentiation
Differentiation
Differentiation
Differentiation
Differentiation
Differentiation
Carla Garr
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• Jim Wiseman is Vice-President of Public Affairs
  for Toyota Manufacturing of North America.
•  
• Toyotas employment needs People with Scope
• Motor skills and dexterity
• Computer knowledge
• Engineers
• Tool and dye expertise
•  
• Hiroto Akuda is CEO of Toyota, employer of
  60,000 employees worldwide.
•    The winds of change are blowing through
  our industry. Whether were toppled by them or
  carried along by them is up to us.
•      Indicative of strong verbal skills
•      Indicative of ability to organize thoughts
•      Indicative of competent presence in public

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•  People with scope demonstrate
• Intelligence
• Judgment capabilities (flexibility)
• Broad interests
• Creativity (in management and production)
• Global view
• Problem solving
• Admit problems (e.g., stop the line)
• Discuss problems
• Create culture of solving problems
• Respect for diversity
• Embracing diversity
• Embracing different ideas
• Enjoyment of the challenge
• Ability to nurture talent in others
• Leadership

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• Creating culture changes within industry
•      Discussion/Assessment at the top
• Commitment from the top
• Defining problems to be solve
• Asking why at least five times

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Why is learning about differentiation
important?
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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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When a teacher tries to teach something to the
entire class at the same time, chances are,
one-third of the kids already know it one-third
will get it and the remaining third wont. So
two-thirds of the children are wasting their
time. Lilian
Katz Willis, S. (November 1993). Teaching Young
Children Educators Seek Developmental
Appropriateness. Curriculum Update, 1-8
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To learn a particular concept, some children
need days some, ten minutes, but the typical
lockstep school schedule ignores this fundamental
fact. Marilyn
Hughes Willis, S. (November 1993). Teaching
Young Children Educators Seek Developmental
Appropriateness. Curriculum Update, 1-8.
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• The Law and Specially Designed Instruction
• IDEA
• Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act
• Kentucky Revised Statues
• Kentucky Administrative Regulations related to
  Exceptional Children
• Kentucky Administrative Regulations related to
  Gifted and Talented students
• From the PowerPoint Presentation Launch Into
  Differentiation Differentiating Instruction in
  the Social Studies Classroom

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• More About the Law
• Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964
• Equal Education Opportunities Act of 1974
• Title VII, Bilingual Education Language
  Enhancement and Language Acquisition Program
  under Improving Americas School Act
• American Disabilities Act
• From the PowerPoint Presentation
  Launch Into Differentiation Differentiating
  Instruction in the Social Studies Classroom

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Differentiation can be planned using

• Historical and Current Curriculum Documents
• Academic Expectations
• Transformations Kentuckys Curriculum Framework
• Program of Studies
• Core Content for Assessment
• Program of Studies Implementation Manual
• Performance Level Descriptions

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What avenues of research will help us learn more
about differentiation?
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Differentiationcan be enhanced by our knowledge
of

• Brain research
• Learning Preferences
• Multiple Intelligences

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So... What is differentiation?
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Differentiation

• Instruction based on differences in
• Students readiness
• Interests
• Learning profiles

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Understanding learning preferences
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Multiple Intelligences A Ka/eidoScOpe of
Choices Kinesthetic
Verbal Logical Mathematical
Visual Naturalist
Rhythmic Intrapersonal
Interpersonal
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Why do we need differentiation?
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• We need to minimize the shoot to the middle
  approach in which the teacher aims the lesson
  at a level that seems accessible to the majority
  of students.
• Schools are gateways to the future for children
  who enter them.
• Students with learning difficulties and
  students who are very advanced have nonstandard
  learning needs.
• Differentiation makes sense for teachers.

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Assumptions Regarding Differentiation
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• Differentiating instruction is
• not a new idea.
• Teachers have always worried that some students
• have serious gaps in learning.
• Visions of student anxiety and student
• boredom accompany teachers home on most nights.
• Over the years, teachers have developed many
  approaches
• to addressing student differences in classrooms.
• The quest to address student differences will
  likely
• continue as long as there are schools.

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2. One-size-fits-all instruction is not a good
fit for many learners in an academically
diverse classroom because
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• Students vary widely in readiness.
• Matching learning opportunities to readiness
  levels ensures that students master key skills
  and understandings rather than glossing over
  them.
• Students continue to progress in skills and
  understandings rather than repeating them.

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• Students vary in what interests
• them and in their learning profiles.
• Matching learning opportunities to student
  interests increases the likelihood that a student
  sees school as relevant.
• A student finds and develops passions for
  learning
• and personal talent areas.
• Matching learning opportunities to learning
  profiles
• maximizes efficiency and effectiveness of
• learning for individuals.

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• 3. Teachers in appropriately differentiated
• classrooms continually study their students.
• Teachers seek opportunities to understand various
  students points of entry into topics and
  skills, what individual students like both in and
  out of school, and the sorts of learning
  environments and conditions in which various
  students succeed.
• Assessment is no longer something that comes at
  the end of a unit to see who learned what.
• Assessment is a continual reading of vital signs
  related to readiness levels, interests, and
  learning profiles of each student for the purpose
  of better understanding today how to modify
  tomorrows instruction.

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• 4. Good teaching is predicated upon a teachers
  clarity about what a learner should know,
  understand, and be able to do as a result of a
  given learning experience and set of learning
  experiences.
• Teachers are clear about the essential
  information, understandings, and skills that a
  student must develop during each lesson and unit.
• Brain research tells us that learners cannot
  remember everything about a topic over an
  extended period of time.
• Teachers must identify essential concepts,
  essential principles, and essential skills
  carefully building lessons that cause learners to
  grapple with those essentials until they own
  them.

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5. In an appropriately differentiated classroom,
all learners focus much of their time and
attention on the key concepts, principles, and
skills identified by the teacher as essential to
growth and development in the subject but at
varying degrees of abstractness, complexity,
open-endedness, problem clarity, and structure.
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• All learners should work with the essential ideas
  and skills
• that build toward understanding the subject and
• proficiency in the subject.
• Some learners need to work with ideas and skills
  at a concrete level
• using manipulatives, diagrams, or other devices
  that
• allow them to experience the idea in a clear,
  specified,
• guided, and tangible way.
• Other learners are ready to work with the ideas
  and skills at
• a greater level of abstractness, in fuzzier
  problems,
• and with minimal guidance.
• It is often not the ideas and skills that will
  vary with readiness in a differentiated
  classroom, but rather the degree of difficulty or
  
• complexity in the way students interact with
• the ideas or skills.

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• 6. In an appropriately differentiated classroom,
  all learners should work with respectful tasks.
• All students should be offered tasks that
  encourage them to think at high levels of
  thinking.
• All student should have consistent opportunities
  to be active learners.
• All students should work with a wide variety of
  peers over time.
• All students should sometimes be teachers.
• All students should be involved with learning
  that is new to them.
• All students should be consistently pushed a bit
  beyond their individual comfort zones.

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• 7. An appropriately differentiated classroom
  offers different routes to content, activities,
  and products in response to differing learner
  needs.
• A teacher in a differentiated classroom
  constructs different avenues to
• Content what students learn
• Activities opportunities through which
  students process, or make sense of understandings
  and skills and
• Products how students demonstrate and extend
  what they have learned.
• Sometimes options for learning tasks are based on
  teacher assessment of student readiness and at
  other times on student interests.
• Teachers often provide students with learning
  profile choices.

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• 8. Flexible grouping of students enables all
  learners to work in a wide variety of
  configurations and with the full range of peers,
  while targeting specific learning needs.
• Students sometimes work with peers of similar
  readiness so that the teacher can target the
  complexity of the task to student needs or target
  task by similar interest and learning profile.
• At other times, students work in mixed readiness
  or interest groups with tasks that enable alls
  students to play essential roles in the group's
  success.
• Sometimes the whole class works as a unit, or
  students work independently, or students make
  choices.

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• 9. Learning to effectively differentiate
  instruction in academically diverse classrooms is
  complex and requires support for teacher over
  extended periods of time.
• For most of us, developing and refining the
  skills of differentiation is complex,
• uncertain, and carries an initial price tag of
  discomfort and added effort.
• Teachers need training and assurance from the
  administration that they will be
• valued for attempting positive change than for
  preserving the status quo.
• Teachers need time for planning, support for
  in-classroom coaching, and time to visit and work
  with other teachers who are pursuing
  differentiated instruction.
• Policymakers need to help teachers reconcile the
  call for responsive and flexible classrooms with
  practices that discourage responsiveness and
  flexibility.

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• Like students, teachers are a diverse group.
  They, too, need a differentiated approach to
  learning and growing along supportive, responsive
  environments.
• Teachers may need assistance in
• Developing a sound rationale for differentiation
• Identifying and understanding the needs of
  diverse learners
• Preparing students and parents for differentiated
  classes
• Managing differentiated classrooms
• Identifying key understandings and skills in
  their subjects
• Applying principles of differentiation
• Using instructional and management strategies
  that facilitate differentiation
• Steps in beginning to implement differentiation.

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• 10. Differentiation is not a license to eliminate
  specialists,
• but rather an opportunity for specialists and
  generalists
• to collaborate in ways that focus their combined
  skills
• on improving instruction in the regular
  classroom.
• Differentiation will work best when time and
  support are provided
• for a team of educators special educators,
  educators of the gifted,
• remediation experts, librarians, guidance
  counselors, and others to
• collaborate in reconfiguring classrooms and
  redesigning
• curriculums in ways that draw on the expertise
  of each participant
• in the planning process.

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Differentiation is a complex topic and involves
educators thinking about change. There are no
easy or automatic answers.
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Extensions for Diverse Learners Purpose and
Appropriateness of Task Matching the intent,
goal, or reason for the task to the interests,
needs, and abilities of the student.   Complexity
of Task Level of sophistication of task, depth,
approach to problem, process for solving
problems, dimensions, degree of decision making
required level of challenge.   Size of
Task Quantity, scope, size, proportions of
task.   Time Duration, cycle, length or intervals
for learning and demonstrating knowledge.   Pace R
ate, velocity, speed, acceleration of
learning.    
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Environment of Learning The variety of settings,
situations or domains necessary for learning
access and need for specialized resources
physical characteristics of environment. Order
of learning Attention to students prior
knowledge to determine the appropriate
instructional sequence, priority, or progression
of learning experiences.   Procedures and
Routines (Input-Output) The variety of methods
used to organize, manipulate and translate
content, skills and processes into understandable
structures for students.   Resources and
Materials The software, equipment, fixtures,
gear, supplies, print, non-print, human
resources, and furnishings appropriate for
learning.   Application and Demonstration of
Knowledge The process of transferring learning to
real life situations by making connections among
familiar and unfamiliar ideas.
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  Level of Support and Independence Degree of
dependence/independence need for direct or
indirect guidance, encouragement.   Participation
Degree of interaction for optimum
learning.   Motivation Incentives (extrinsic or
intrinsic) that match to the students needs,
interests, and abilities.
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Pathways of Learning
David Lazear Teaching with the Brain in
Mind Eric Jensen A Celebration
of Neurons Robert
Sylwester How to Differentiate Instruction In
Mixed-Ability Classrooms (Second
Edition)
Carol Ann Tomlinson Teaching Gifted Kids in The
Regular Classroom
Susan Winebrenner (Second Edition) Gifted Program
Standards Landrum,
Callahan, Shaklee The Parallel Curriculum
NAGC service
publication Teaching Young Gifted Children In the
Regular Classroom
Walker, Smutny, Meckstroth The National Research
Center for Gifted Education
http//www.teachinteract.com Dr. Joseph
Renzulli-Director
http//www.brainconnection.com Dr. E. Jean
Gubbins-Associate Director ASCD Videos At Work
in the Differentiated Classroom Differentiating
InstructionCreating Multiple Paths for
Learning Differentiating InstructionInstructional
and Management Strategies
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The Power of One
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