Differentiated Instruction&

Culturally Responsive Teaching

What is differentiated instruction?

Where and when would you apply it?

Who requires differentiated instruction?

Consider the following outcomes and devise

strategies for differentiated Instruction

Gr. 1

Gr. 5

Differentiated Instruction – As much a philosophy as a teaching

practice.

Three elements:

1. Content – support for instructional subject matter (teaching the

same concepts but adjusted for complexity of academic diversity of learners.

2. Process – how you teach (use of small groups etc.)

3. Product – ongoing formative assessment as a tool for teaching and planning strategy development.

Academic readiness skills, personal interests and learning profiles tell us how students learn whereas Gardiners Multiple Intelligences tell us what kind of learning the students are proficient in.

Personality Types – Learning Profiles

Zone of Proximal Development (Vygotsky ) {scaffolding}

General Guidelines for Differentiated Instruction:

1. Give clarification and focus of key concepts and generalizations

2. Use assessments as teaching tools to extend (rather than merely measure) instruction before, during (process), and after learning takes place (product)

3. Emphasize critical and creative thinking in global lesson design

4. Engage all learners within a variety of learning tasks

5. Provide a balance between teacher-assigned and student- selected (process) tasks based on assessment data (product)

Care must be taken that, in our efforts to meet the diverse needs found in heterogeneous classrooms, we do not import problems of homogeneous classrooms such as debilitating low expectations for some students

Issues that remain troublesome for many teachers:

• Making multilevel instructional decisions (e.g., who learns at whatlevel?) in a way that is manageable within a standards-based instructional context.

• Devising additional supports for struggling learners, especiallyresources that can be provided with or without additional staffassigned to the general education classroom.

• Providing an appropriate education for students with special gifts and talents and for students with severe disabilities, who both may be members of the same heterogeneous, inclusive classrooms.

• Differentiating primarily within whole-class lessons, avoiding separate, parallel tasks as much as possible.

Read Differentiating Instruction: Why Bother?

Summarize what the English teacher did right and what the math teacher did wrong

Model – from “DIFFERENTIATED INSTRUCTION: INCLUSIVE STRATEGIES FOR STANDARDS-BASED LEARNING THAT BENEFIT THE WHOLE CLASS” ACCESS TO THE GENERAL CURRICULUM

ASSISTIVE TECHNOLOGY

FIND VS. GUESS

PERSONAL ASSISTANCE

ADDING STRUCTURE

EMPHASIZE THE MOST IMPORTANT CONCEPTS AND SKILLS

PROVIDE CLEAR EXPECTATIONS AND EXAMPLES

SYSTEMATIC BREAKDOWN OF SPECIFIC STRATEGIES, SKILLS, AND CONCEPTSa. Describe problem in your own words.b. Decide if the answer should be more or less than what you started with.c. Represent the problem concretely (e.g., use manipulatives or draw pictures).d. Write the problem and the answer.e. Check the answer.f. Self-evaluate (did I complete all the steps?).

MAKE SPECIFIC CONNECTIONS WITH PRIOR KNOWLEDGE AND EXPERIENCES

WORK TOWARD INCREASED INDEPENDENCE BY FADING ASSISTANCE SYSTEMATICALLY.

GOAL ADAPTATIONS TO THE GENERAL CURRICULUM

ENRICHED CURRICULUM

PRIORITIZED CURRICULUM

AUTHENTIC INSTRUCTION

COMMUNITY-BASED INSTRUCTION

EVALUATING EFFECTIVENESS

MythsMyth 1: Students Will Be Unprepared for TestsMyth 2: Differentiation Equals IndividualizationMyth 3; Differentiation Means Unbalanced WorkloadsMyth 4' Lack of Mastery at the Same Time as Classmates

Means Lack of CreditMyth 5? "I Taught It. It's Up to Students to Learn It.”Myth. 6: Lesson Plans Must Be Turned InMyth 7: Summative Assessment Leads to LearningMyth 8: Students Won't Be Able to Compete in the Real WorldMyth 9: If We Don't Differentiate, Students Will

Toughen UpMyth 10: There Is Only One Way to Differentiate

Culturally responsive teaching (CRT) defined - CRT is a way of teaching used to empower students intellectually, socially, emotionally, and politically by the use of cultural references that impart knowledge, skills, and attitudes (Ladson-Billings, 1994).

View students’ language and culture as resources rather than as barriers to learning

Using a CRT approach assists learners within their ZPD by the use of interactive teaching strategies developed within the student’s ethnic identities, home language, and cultural background.

Six descriptive characteristics of CRT -

1. validating, 2. comprehensive, 3. multidimensional, 4. empowering, 5. transformative, 6. emancipatory

In your breakout groups discuss how these six characteristics may manifest or appear in a math classroom.

Teacher’s Academic Achievement

- Belief that all students can learn

- Show students what success looks lie in their class

- Knowledge of course content

- Ability to teach content- Encourage academic

achievement as a multidimensional concept

Teacher’s Cultural Competence

- Understanding of student’s culture

- Understanding role of culture in education

- Learn about student’s culture and community

- Use student’s culture as a foundation for learning

- Support of the flexible use students’ local and global culture (sociopolitical consciousness)

CRT validates learners by incorporating their cultures and frames of reference into existing curriculum, thereby lifting the “veil” of authority assumed by the historical renditions of the way that “truth” has been taught

Student-centered instruction is fundamental to CRT

Three elements re-visited

1. Content – instructional subject matter support2. Process – how are you going to teach it3. Product – ongoing formative assessment

Discuss some general and/or specific ideas about how to address these issues in a math class with the outcomes looked at earlier

Gr. 1

Gr. 5

Ideas:

Nineteen campers are hiking through Acadia National Park when they come to a river. The river moves too rapidly for the campers to swim across it. The campers have one canoe, which holds three people. On each trip across the river, one of the three canoe riders must be an adult. There is only one adult among the 19 campers. How many trips across the river are necessary to get all the children to the other side?

Journal – Read math.pdf (in the transfer or on the wiki site on the differentiation assignment page). Reflecting on this reading evaluate your own mathematical learning style and discuss how this can be a strength and an obstacle to your effectiveness as a math teacher.