Strategies to Make Differentiation Work

1.Tiered Instruction – Effective for managing diversity in the classroom.

            Changing the level of complexity or required readiness of a task or unit of study in order to meet the developmental needs of the students involved.  Use scaffolding strategies moving from simple to more complex.  Gradual release of dependence.

 

2.  Anchoring Activities 

            These are activities that a student may do at any time when they have completed their present assignment or when the teacher is busy with other students.  They may relate to specific needs or enrichment opportunities, including problems to solve or journals to write.  They could also be part of a long term project. 

3.  Flexible Grouping

            This allows students to be appropriately challenged and avoids labeling a student’s readiness as a static state.  It is important to permit movement between groups because interest changes as we move from one subject to another or one topic to another.

 

4.  Compacting Curriculum

Compacting the curriculum means assessing a student’s knowledge and      skills, and providing alternative activities for the student who has already mastered curriculum content.  This can be achieved by pre-testing basic concepts or using performance assessment methods.  Students demonstrating they do not require instruction move on to tiered problem solving activities while others receive instruction.

Differentiating Instruction

As I visit various classrooms having different content specific instruction, it is becoming so clear to me that curriculum and content knowledge is not necessarily the key to good teaching.

Now, don't get me wrong, it is very important that a teacher know and understand their content area.  It is very important for our teachers to have a solid understanding of their curricular outcomes in order to be able to set and plan for clear learning targets, but time and time again I have observed that good teaching pedagogy is the key to success for all learners.

It does not matter if we are talking about a 9th grade vocational, 10th grade francais or 11th grade chemistry class.  It is safe to say that teachers know and understand their curriculums and the content that needs to be delivered, but the challenge that we all have is how to teach the different kinds of students that we have in our presence.

It is about knowing how to support learning for all students regardless of what they are coming with.  It is about knowing how to support a class of diverse learners while providing meaningful and authentic learning opportunities.  In order to meet the needs of all students teachers must be aware of how to effectively differentiate the learning.
 
First off…
Let’s agree on a common understanding for Differentiated Instruction

• Differentiating instruction is doing what’s FAIR for students.
• FAIR is not always equal, but rather is providing the supports that each child needs to “get” as much of the intended learning outcomes as possible.   (Faye Brownlie)
• It means creating multiple paths so that students of different abilities, interests, or learning needs experience equally appropriate ways to learn.
• Is a teacher’s response to learner needs. (Response To Intervention)

  Why do we need to Differentiate? 

• Different levels of   readiness
• First level of RTI  
• To Engage students in the learning  
• Varied Ability Levels 
• Different Preferred Learning Styles 
• To meet the needs of students from where they are at  
• Different Interests      

 Teachers can differentiate according to ….

    1.   The content (the “what”)

• Reading materials at varying readability levels
• Adjusting Questions
• Scaffolding – from simple to more complex
• Compacting Curriculum

    2.  The process (the “how”)

• Use leveled or tiered instruction/ learning activities (first pre-assess for readiness)
• Peer Teaching – “resident expert” 
• Graphic organizers
• Vary pacing according to readiness
• Allow for working alone, in partners, triads, and small groups
• Allow choice in strategies for processing and for expressing results of processing
• Flexible short term groups.

    3.  The product (the “data/evidence”)

• Model, use and encourage student use of technology within products and presentations
• Provide product choices that range in choices from all multiple intelligences
• Performance Tasks
• Projects, Conversations, Presentations
• Journals, Posters, Research
• Glogs, Blogs, LiveBinders

    4.  The environment

• Flexible Grouping
• Physical design of the learning environment
• What is the emotional climate of the classroom?
• What is visible on the wall/around the room?  

Over the next several posts I will spend some time describing various differentiated instructional strategies.  I hope that you may find them useful for some of your future planning.  As always, I welcome any comments or feedback related to the blog post.