Video Clips
Differentiated Instruction You Tube Video Clip
http://www.differentiationcentral.com/whatisdi.html
http://www.readingrockets.org/webcasts/1001
A Visual Model of Differentiated Instruction
http://www.diffcentral.com/model.html
Links to Brain Research
Brain based research and brain based learning are closely linked to differentiated instruction. Brain research has shown us what many teachers have known for years:
1. No two students are exactly alike
2. No two students learn in exactly the same way
"It necessarily follows that although essential curricula goals may be similar for all students, methodologies employed in a classroom must be varied to suit to the individual needs of all students: ie. learning must be differentiated to be effective. "
"Three principles from brain research: emotional safety, appropriate challenges, and self constructed meaning suggest that a one-size-fits-all approach to classroom instruction teaching is ineffective for most students and harmful to some."
SOURCE: http://members.shaw.ca/priscillatheroux/brain.html
Differentiated Instruction as a model began in the general education classroom for students considered gifted but whom perhaps were not sufficiently challenged by the content provided in the general classroom setting. As classrooms have become more diverse, differentiated instruction has been applied at all levels for students of all abilities.
The principles and guidelines of differentiated instruction are rooted in years of educational theory and research. Differentiated instruction adopts the concept of readiness. That is, the difficulty of skills taught should be slightly in advance of the child’s current level of mastery. This is grounded in the work of Lev Vygotsky (1978), and the zone of proximal development (ZPD), the range at which learning takes place. The classroom research by Fisher et al., (1980), strongly supports the ZPD concept. The researchers found that in classrooms where individuals were performing at a level of about 80% accuracy, students learned more and felt better about themselves and the subject area under study (Fisher, 1980 in Tomlinson, 2000).
Other practices noted as central to differentiation have been validated in the effective teaching research conduced from the mid 1980’s to the present. These practices include effective management procedures, grouping students for instruction, and engaging learners (Ellis and Worthington, 1994).
Identifying Components/Features
According to the authors of differentiated instruction, several key elements guide differentiation in the education environment. Tomlinson (2001) identifies three elements of the curriculum that can be differentiated: Content, Process, and Products. These are described in the following three sections, which are followed by several additional guidelines for forming an understanding of and developing ideas around differentiated instruction.
Content
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Several elements and materials are used to support instructional content.
These include acts, concepts, generalizations or principles, attitudes, and skills. The variation seen in a differentiated classroom may be in the manner in which students gain access to important learning. Access to the content is key.
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Align tasks and objectives to learning goals.
Alignment of tasks with instructional goals and objectives as essential. Objectives are frequently written in incremental steps resulting in a continuum of skills-building tasks. An objectives-driven menu makes it easier to find the next instructional step for learners entering at varying levels in order to obtain and possibly exceed the goal.
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Instruction is concept-focused and principle-driven.
Concepts should be broad-based, not focused on minute details or unlimited facts. Teachers must focus on the concepts, principles and skills that students should learn. Degree of complexity should be adjusted to suit diverse learners.
Process
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Flexible grouping is consistently used. Strategies for flexible grouping are essential. Learners are expected to interact and work together as they develop knowledge of new content. Teachers may conduct whole-class introductory discussions of content big ideas followed by small group or paired work. Student groups may be coached from within or by the teacher to complete assigned tasks. Grouping of students is not fixed. As one of the foundations of differentiated instruction, grouping and regrouping must be a dynamic process, changing with the content, project, and on-going evaluations.
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Classroom management benefits students and teachers. To effectively operate a classroom using differentiated instruction, teachers must carefully select organization and instructional delivery strategies.
Products
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Initial and on-going assessment of student readiness and growth are essential. Meaningful pre-assessment naturally leads to functional and successful differentiation. Incorporating pre and on-going formative assessment informs teachers so that they can provide scaffolds for the varying needs, interests and abilities that exist in classrooms of diverse students.
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Students are active and responsible explorers.
Teachers respect that each task put before the learner will be interesting, engaging, and accessible to essential understanding and skills. Each student should feel challenged most of the time.
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Vary expectations and requirements for student responses. Items to which students respond may be differentiated so that different students can demonstrate or express their knowledge and understanding in different ways. Varied means of expression and alternative procedures offer varying degrees of difficulty, types of evaluation, and scoring.
Additional Guidelines That Make Differentiation Possible for Teachers to Attain
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Clarify key concepts and generalizations. Ensure that all learners gain powerful understandings that can serve as the foundation for future learning. Identify essential concepts and instructional foci.
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Use assessment as a teaching tool to extend rather than merely measure instruction.
Assessment occurs before, during, and following the instructional episode, and it should be used to help pose questions regarding student needs and optimal learning.
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Emphasize critical and creative thinking as a goal in lesson design. The tasks, activities, and procedures for students should require that they understand and apply meaning. Instruction may require supports, additional motivation, varied tasks, materials, or equipment for different students in the classroom.
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Engaging all learners is essential. Teachers are encouraged to strive for the development of lessons that are engaging and motivating for a diverse class of students. Vary tasks within instructional periods as well as across students.
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Provide a balance between teacher-assigned and student-selected tasks. A balanced working structure is optimal in a differentiated classroom. Based on pre-assessment information, the balance will vary from class-to-class as well as lesson-to-lesson. Teachers should ensure that students have choices in their learning.
SOURCE: (http://www.cast.org/publications/ncac/ncac_diffinstructudl.html, 2010)
Non-negotiables' of defensible differentiated instruction
===1. Teacher-kid connections.
===2. An environment that is a catalyst for learning.
===3. A sense of community in the classroom.
===4. Curriculum focused on student understanding for all students.
===5. Persistent assessment to inform teaching and learning.
===6. Respectful tasks for each student.
===7. Flexible grouping.
===8. Attention to student readiness, interest, and learning profile.
===9. Modification of content, process, product, effect, and learning environment
to address student need.
===10. Teaching up.
Source: Carol Ann Tomlinson, Ed.D., University of Virginia-Charlottesville
Defensible Differentiation: Separating Wheat from Chaff.
2007 ASCD Annual Conference -- Anaheim, Calif.
March 17, 2007.
Some Real World Examples
Differentiation is a process through which teachers enhance learning by matching student characteristics to instruction and assessment. Differentiation allows all students to access the same classroom curriculum by providing entry points, learning tasks, and outcomes that are tailored to students’ needs. In a differentiated classroom, variance occurs in the way in which students gain access to and demonstrate understanding of the content being taught (Hall, Strangman, & Meyer, 2003).
Teachers can differentiate content, process, and/or product for students (Tomlinson, 1997). Differentiation of content refers to a change in the material being learned by the student. Differentiation of process refers to the way in which the student accesses material. Differentiation of product refers to the way in which the student shows what he or she has learned.
When teachers differentiate, they do so in response to students’ readiness, interest, and/or learning profile. Readiness refers to the skill level and background knowledge of the child. Teachers use diagnostic assessments to determine students’ readiness. Interest refers to topics that the student may want to explore or that will motivate the student. Teachers can ask students about their outside interests and even include students in the unit-planning process. Finally, the student’s learning profile includes learning style (for example, is the student a visual, auditory, tactile, or kinesthetic learner), grouping preferences (for example, does the student work best individually, with a partner, or in a large group), and environmental preferences (for example, does the student need lots of space or a quiet area to work). When a teacher differentiates, all of these factors can be taken into account individually or in combination (Tomlinson, 1997).
How are Universal Design for Learning & Differential Instruction related?
Differentiated Instruction and the Three Universal Design for Learning Principles
The following section looks at the three UDL network appropriate teaching methods, recognition, strategic, and affective, in order to address the ways in which differentiated instruction coordinates with UDL theory. Differentiated instruction is designed to keep the learner in mind when specifying the instructional episode related to content, process and product.
Recognition Learning: Content, Process & Product
The first UDL principle focuses on pattern recognition and the importance of providing multiple, flexible methods of presentation when teaching patterns—no single teaching methodology for pattern recognition will be satisfactory for every learner. The theory of differentiated instruction incorporates some guidelines that can help teachers to support critical elements of recognition learning in a flexible way and promote every student’s success. Each of the three key elements of differentiated instruction, content, process, and product, supports an important UDL Teaching Method.
The content guidelines for differentiated instruction support the first UDL Teaching Method for recognition networks, provide multiple examples, in that they encourage the use of several elements and materials to support instructional content. A teacher following this guideline might help students in a social studies class to understand the location of a state in the union by showing them a wall map or a globe, projecting a state map, or describing the location in words. Also, while preserving the essential content, a teacher could vary the difficulty of the material by presenting smaller or larger, simpler or more complex maps. For students with physical or cognitive disabilities, such a diversity of examples may be vital in order for them to access the pattern being taught. Other students may benefit from the same multiple examples by obtaining a perspective that they otherwise might not. In this way, a range of examples can help to ensure that each student’s recognition networks are able to identify the fundamental elements identifying a pattern.
This same use of varied content examples supports a second recommended practice in UDL methodology, provide multiple media and formats. A wide range of tools for presenting instructional content are available digitally, thus teachers may manipulate size, color contrasts, and other features to develop examples in multiple media and formats. These can be saved for future use and flexibly accessed by different students, depending on their needs and preferences.
The content guidelines of differentiated instruction also recommend that content elements of instruction be kept concept-focused and principle-driven. This practice is consistent with a third UDL Teaching Method for recognition, highlight critical features. By avoiding any focus on extensive facts or seductive details and reiterating the broad concepts, a goal of differentiated instruction, teachers are highlighting essential components, better supporting recognition.
The fourth UDL Teaching Method for recognition is to support background knowledge, and in this respect, the assessment step of the differentiated instruction learning cycle is instrumental. By evaluating student knowledge about a construct before designing instruction teachers can better support students’ knowledge base, scaffolding instruction in a very important way.
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UDL: Recognition Network |
Differentiated Instruction: Varying Content, Process, Product |
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Multiple Flexible methods of Presentation |
Several Elements and Materials to Support Instructional Content |
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Multiple Meida and Formats |
Varied Content Examples |
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Highlight Critical Features |
Concept Focused and Principal Driven |
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Support Background Knowledge |
Assessment Before Designing Instruction |
Strategic learning: Scaffolding
People find for themselves the most desirable method of learning strategies; therefore, teaching methodologies need to be varied. This kind of flexibility is key for teachers to help meet the needs of their diverse students, and this is reflected in the 4 UDL Teaching Methods. Differentiated instruction can support these teaching methods in valuable ways.
Differentiated instruction recognizes the need for students to receive flexible models of skilled performance, one of the four UDL Teaching Methods for strategic learning. As noted above, teachers implementing differentiated instruction are encouraged to demonstrate information and skills multiple times and at varying levels. As a result, learners enter the instructional episode with different approaches, knowledge, and strategies for learning.
When students are engaged in initial learning on novel tasks or skills, supported practice should be used to ensure success and eventual independence. Supported practice enables students to split up a complex skill into manageable components and fully master these components. Differentiated instruction promotes this teaching method by encouraging students to be active and responsible learners, and by asking teachers to respect individual differences and scaffold students as they move from initial learning to practiced, less supported skills mastery.
In order to successfully demonstrate the skills that they have learned, students need flexible opportunities for demonstrating skill. Differentiated instruction directly supports this UDL Teaching Method by reminding teachers to vary requirements and expectations for learning and expressing knowledge, including the degree of difficulty and the means of evaluation or scoring.
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UDL: Stragegic Learning |
Differenitated Instruction: Scaffolding Content, Process and Product |
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Flexible Models of Skilled Performance |
Demonstrate Information and Skills Multiple Times and at Varying Levels |
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Supported Practice to Ensure Success and Eventual Independence |
Respect for Learning Differences: Scaffolding |
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Flexible Options for Demsonstrating Skill |
Vary requirements and Expectations for Learning and Expressing Knowledge |
Affective Learning: Learner Engagement
Differentiated instruction and UDL Teaching Methods bear another important point of convergence: recognition of the importance of engaging learners in instructional tasks. Supporting affective learning through flexible instruction is the third principle of UDL and an objective that differentiated instruction supports very effectively.
Differentiated instruction theory reinforces the importance of effective classroom management and reminds teachers of meeting the challenges of effective organizational and instructional practices. Engagement is a vital component of effective classroom management, organization, and instruction. Therefore teachers are encouraged to offer choices of tools, adjust the level of difficulty of the material, and provide varying levels of scaffolding to gain and maintain learner attention during the instructional episode. These practices bear much in common with UDL Teaching Methods for affective learning: offer choices of content and tools, provide adjustable levels of challenge, and offer a choice of learning context. By providing varying levels of scaffolding when differentiating instruction, students have access to varied learning contexts as well as choices about their learning environment.
| UDL: Affective Learning | Learner Engagement |
| Supporting affective learning through flexible instruction | Importance of engaging learners in instructional tasks |
| Offer choices of content and tools, provide adjustable levels of challenge, and offer a choice of learning context | Offer choices of tools, adjust the level of difficulty of the material, and provide varying levels of scaffolding to gain and maintain learner attention during the instructional episode |
(CAST.org/publications, 2010)
Language Arts Strategies/Lessons that Include Suggestion for Differentiation
http://www.readingrockets.org/strategies
Math Strategies/Lessons that Include Suggestion for Differentiation
