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!