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Running head: WIKI IN EDUCATION: ADDRESSING TEACHING STYLES AND

DIFFERENTIATION

Wiki in Education: Addressing Teaching Standards and Differentiation

Richard Joffray

Argosy University

November 11, 2007

E6331 Curriculum Theory and Design


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Wiki in Education: Addressing Teaching Standards and Differentiation

Demands in the current teaching environment for standards based teaching has left many

educators grasping for solutions for addressing the continually diversifying student body and still

accomplishing a required standard of curriculum. While scurrying to cover all of the required

standards to ensure that most of the students obtain a high quality of knowledge, teachers are

leaving behind both the student below and above the median.

The very definition of teaching through differentiation conflicts with teaching standards.

Students are individuals and should be addressed as such rather than forcing them to a standard.

Differentiation must support and not substitute a high quality curriculum and instruction.

Good teaching focuses on the understanding and skills of a discipline, causes students to

grapple with ideas, causes students to use what they learned in unique ways, helps students

organize and make sense of ideas and information, and aids students in connecting what they

have learned with real world experiences (Brandt, 1998; Danielson, 1996; Schlechty, 1997;

Wiggins & McTighe, 2005).

Further understanding of the conflict between standards in curriculum versus focusing on

individual learning styles may ultimately be blended to create an environment that addresses

standards and curriculum as what to teach and differentiation as how to teach. Finding a

framework that compliments both the planning stages of teaching as well as a practical platform

might seem to be hoping for the impossible. Frameworks that naturally coincide with standards

of curriculum and allows for differentiation of instruction should be the ultimate goal.


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allows for diverse skill levels to communicate on an even less technical development platform.

This collaborative framework facilitates the investigation of integration of curriculum between

classes and prevents overlapping while exposing missing coverage on material from class to

class. The inherent functionality of individual discussions to take place on a page-by-page basis

throughout a wiki lends itself to a natural implementation of this portion of the planning process.

Open communication of the curriculum planning process as well as transparent planning goals to

the student, can foster collaborative enrichment for the administrator, teacher and student alike.

Wiki Differentiation

The goal of an educator is basically to provide an arena for a student to gain

understanding and knowledge about a topic or discipline. Delivering the information or providing

a path to the knowledge for a student to gain that understanding is the ultimate structure. Having

a framework that gives access to multi-level students and allows each of them the same

opportunity for advancement is the challenge.

A wiki seems to provide an opening for all of the basic facets of understanding a student

needs to succeed. The ability to explain, interpret, apply, give perspective, emphasize, and to

demonstrate self-knowledge is inherent in the abilities provided to educators and students by the

nature of a wiki (Wiggens & McTighe, 2005).

Every user or viewer of a wiki has the ability to contribute knowledge, links to knowledge

or comments about others input. This allows for monitoring, assignment and assessment by both

instructors and students alike.


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References:

Tomlinson, Carol A. (2000).Reconcilable Differences? Standards-Based

Teaching and Differentiation. Educational Leadership. 58, 6-10.

Hall, T., Meyer, A., & Strangman, N. (2005). UDL implementation: Examples

using best practices and curriculum enhancements. In D.H. Rose, A. Meyer, & C.

Hitchcock (Eds.), The universally designed classroom: Accessible curriculum and

digital technologies. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Education Press.

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