Rationale Meet Needs of Diverse Students & Legal Mandates

RationaleRationale

Meet Needs of Diverse Students &

Legal Mandates

• Wide range of diversity in America’s classrooms:– This year it is predicted that 3% of people under the age of 18 in the US

will be African, Asian, or Hispanic American.– Number of children with disabilities from culturally and linguistically

diverse families has increased from 33% (‘92) to 46.7% (‘01) (US Department of Education, 2001).

• 2001 No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act – Require closing the achievement gap with accountability, flexibility, &

choice– Disaggregation & review of data for all learners– Highly qualified staff

• 2004 Individuals with Disabilities Improvement Act (IDEIA) – Promote inclusion – Access, participate, & progress

Thousand, Villa, & Nevin (2007). Differentiating Instruction. Corwin Press.

RationaleRationaleBe Ethical in Implementing

Democratic Values& Dispel Myths

• Teachers can make the content, processes, and outcomes of instruction more accessible to all students- regardless of the students’ race, gender, ethnicity, language, or differing abilities

• Dispel assumptions about an individual based on a classification (language proficiency, social or economic class, race, or ability or disability)

• Prevent “Disability spread:” a state where people only see the limitations of a student


RationaleRationale

Be Effective

• Research shows positive academic and behavioral outcomes for diverse learners, increased capability to personalize support for students, and the increased effectiveness of instruction.

• Encourages teachers to try new arrangements in the presentation of curricular content

• Create ‘classroom elevators’ that take students to higher & higher levels, rather than as ‘stairwells’ that take students to a certain grade-level landing where they stop (Tomlinson)


Definition

FromCarol Ann Tomlinson

• “ Differentiated instruction is a teaching philosophy based on the premise that teachers should adapt instruction to student differences. Rather than marching students through the curriculum lockstep, teachers should modify their instruction to meet students’ varying readiness levels, learning preferences, and interests. Therefore, the teacher proactively plans a variety of ways to ‘get at’ and express learning.”

DefinitionDefinition

A visual representation

DefinitionDefinition

A teacher can differentiate:

DefinitionDefinitionA teacher can differentiate

according to a student’s:

Readiness

Learning Profile

Interest

Student’s knowledge, understanding, and skill related to a particular sequence of learning.

Topics or pursuits that evoke curiosity and passion in a learner.

How students learn best. Those include learning style, intelligence preference, culture and gender.

How the students feel about themselves, their work, & classroom as a wholeTomlinson, 2003

Affect

What Differentiation IsWhat Differentiation Is

For every student

• Every student has a particular interest and learning preferences as well as readiness level that varies over time and context. Each learner needs appropriate support.

Carol Ann Tomlinson, Kay Brimijoin, & Lane Narvaez. The Differentiated School.


At the core of effective planning

• Differentiation is not something you do when the real lesson is finished. It’s integral to ensuring that each student has access to success with key content goals.


What Differentiation IsWhat Differentiation IsTeaching up: supporting students in achieving at a higher level than they

thought possible.

• Effective differentiation always enables a student to do more than would be possible without it, not less.



A vehicle for ensuring student success with

standards

• A goal of differentiation is ensuring that each student succeeds with whatever is important for him to know, understand, and do.


What Differentiation IsUse of flexible

approaches to space, time, materials,

grouping, & instruction

• Flexibility is a hallmark of differentiation, but no single instructional strategy is required to differentiate effectively.



The antithesis of tracking

• Differentiation requires use of flexible grouping patterns so that students work in a variety of groups based on readiness, interest, learning preference, random assignments, teacher choice, and student choice.



Within a classroom

• When students are removed from their classrooms and placed with students deemed similar in other classrooms, a kind of tracking is taking place. Real flexibility is lost.



Systematic attention to readiness, interest, and

learning profile

• A single approach to intelligence preferences in the classroom is a narrow segment of the big picture of differentiation.



A balance of teacher choice and student

choice

• Teachers need to assign some tasks to move the student forward in key ways. Other times students should call the shots and learn about making wise choices.



Focused on individuals, small

group, and class as a whole

• Although it is the aim of differentiation to focus on individuals, it is not the goal to make individual lesson plans for each student.



Varied avenues to the same essential

understandings

• Differentiation asks students to work with essential understandings at varied degrees of complexity and with varied support systems. Information-based tasks and skills-based tasks should ne congruent with students’ current needs. Struggling students don’t benefit from doing less of what they don’t understand, and advanced learners don’t benefit from doing more of what they already know.



Something a teacher does in response to

particular human beings

• Differentiation should be responsive instruction, not mechanical instruction.



Something that happens when there

is a need for it

• Whole-class instruction is important and effective at times. Teachers need to build community as well as attend to individual needs.


What Differentiation IsWhat Differentiation IsSomething a teacher plans prior to a lesson based on assessment evidence of student

needs (proactive)

• The most powerful differentiation is based on pre-assessment and ongoing assessment of student progress toward key goals. The teacher uses the assessment information to make proactive plans to address student needs. Some improvisation is still needed, but it is not a dominant means of differentiation.


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Rationale Meet Needs of Diverse Students & Legal Mandates