Burns and Purcell, 20021
What is it?Why do it?
How do you do it?
January Ed Director MeetingPrimary Academy
Curriculum Differentiation:
A Quick A Quick QuizQuiz
What is your DI IQ?
Discuss with peers…
What do you know about differentiation?
What concerns or fears do you have regarding differentiation?
What would you like to learn more about?
List 10-15 words or phrases that, in your mind, are linked to this term.
DIFFERENTIATION
Curriculum: Content/Process/ProductStudent: Readiness/Interest/Learning Style
Let’s begin with a
senario!
A Working Definition of Differentiation
Differentiation has come to mean “consistently using a variety of
instructional approaches to modify content, process, and/or products in response to learning readiness and
interest of academically diverse students.”
Tomlinson, Carol Ann. The Differentiated Classroom
When Differentiating Instruction, The Three Most Important Questions to
Continually Ask Yourself...What do I want may students to
know, understand,
and be able to do?
What will I do instructionally
to get my students to learn this?
How will my students show
what they know?
Readiness is a student’s entry point relative to a particular understanding or skill. To help a student to grow, we must begin where the child is. Some children, particularly those who have had early learning opportunities, begin school with well-developed skills and considerable understanding of various topics; other students arrive as true beginners and need basic instruction and additional practice.
Interest refers to a child’s affinity, curiosity, or passion for a particular topic or skill. The advantage to grouping by interest is that it allows students to attach what they have been learning in class to things that they already find relevant and interesting and appealing in their own lives.
Learning profile has to do with how students learn. Some are visual learners, auditory learners, or kinesthetic learners. Students vary in the amount of time they need to master a skill or learn a concept.
How students learn can be shaped by:
environment social organization physical circumstances emotional climate psychological factors
Carol Ann Tomlinson/ Diane Heacox
What goals are we trying to achieve through differentiation?
• Increased academic learning
• Increased confidence in learning
• Enhanced intrinsic motivation for learning
• Self-directed learning behaviors
What Gets Differentiated? The teacher can modify content,
process, or product.
CONTENT is what we want students to:
- know (facts and information) - understand (principles, generalizations,
ideas) - be able to do (skills)Content is differentiated
(a) when you preassess students’ skill and knowledge, then match learners with appropriate activities according to readiness;
(b) when you give students choices about topics to explore in greater depth;
(c) when you provide students with basic and advanced resources that match their current levels of understanding.
Diane Heacox, Differentiating Instruction in the Regular Classroom
PROCESS is the “how” of teaching. Process refers to the activities that you design to help students think about and make sense of the key principles and information of the content they are learning. Process also calls on students to use key skills that are integral to the unit. When differentiating process, students are engaged in different activities, but each activity should be directed to the lesson’s common focus on what students should come to know, understand, and be able to do. All students are engaged in meaningful and respectful tasks.
Carol Ann Tomlinson
PRODUCTS are the way students show what they have learned or extend what they have learned. They can be differentiated along a continuum:
- simple to complex- less independent to more
independent- clearly defined problems to
fuzzy problems Carol Ann Tomlinson
As teachers, our goal is to make the curriculum accessible to all students. Differentiation makes this possible but before we can begin to differentiate, we must come to know our students.
Discovering what your students already know before beginning a
unit of study can be accomplished through the use of preassessments.
The use of interest inventories and multiple intelligence checklists provides important information about students’ learning profile.
2
PreassessmentDiscuss with your peers…
• What are some preassessment options?• How does one select an appropriate
preassessment option?• How does one use preassessment data?
6
Preassessment Tool:A Modified K-W-L
What the studentALREADY KNOWS
What the studentNEEDS TO KNOW
What the student WANTS TO KNOW
K N W
-Prior Experiences-Knowledge-Skills-Accomplishments-Attitudes
-Self-rating of currentproficiency with unitobjectives-Teaching stylepreference
-Interests-Questions-Ideas for explorationor investigation
Flexible grouping is at the heart of differentiated
instruction
Flexible grouping:
A Definition
Flexible small groups are within class grouping in which membership varies according to ability (same ability, mixed ability), interest or questions, learning style or processing style, product style, group longevity, group size (2-10). Groups can be teacher-selected, student-selected, purposeful or random.
Designing Differentiated Learning Activities for Flexible Groups
• Open-ended activities and assignments
• Purposefully designed choices to accommodate learning or expression style differences
• Purposefully designed tiered assignments
Tiered Assignments are designed to maximize each student's growth by challenging students with learning experiences that are slightly above their current level of knowledge and performance.
Designing a Tiered
AssignmentA six step process
• Identify the content• Consider your students’ needs• Create an activity• Chart the complexity of the activity • Create other versions of the activity• Match one version of the task to each student
Let’s look at a sample lesson plan
When creating alternative activit ies f or students, how do youincrease the breadth and depth of a lesson?
• To increase the breadth of a lesson,the teacher fi rst provides a wholegroup introduction and whole groupinstruction. S/ he might then launchsmall groups on alternative activit ies.The key here is to provide studentswith variety.
– choice of resources– product options– alternative activit ies
– varying goals– open-ended questions and
activities
– choices based on learning stylepreferences and interests
• To alter the depth of a lesson, theteacher provides a whole groupintroduction, whole group init ialinstruction, and identifi es studentdiff erences based on priorknowledge, readiness to learn,learning rate, and ability. S/ he willthen increase or decrease
abstraction extent of support
sophist ication complexity
of the goals, resources, activit ies,products. Tiered assignments lendthemselves to this type modification.
• Lesson introduction• Initial teaching• Locating or designing a
pretest format based on observed or anticipated differences
• Pretesting• Analysis of pretest results• Decision making and planning• Formation of flexible groups• Differentiated teaching and
learning activities
Instructional Sequence in a Differentiated Classroom
Sit, back, relax and enjoy…
Inclusion and Differentiated Instruction:
Teachers in the
Movies do it too!