VIDEO: Differentiating Instruction: It’s Not as Hard as You Think

TEXT: Strengths-Based Teaching is About Starting with the Known “All children are ready to learn something, but each starts their learning from a different place. Teachers must find out what children already know, and prepare to take them from where they are to somewhere else.” (Clay, 2016, p. 27) Recently, my mother-in-law had a mild stroke. When I spoke to her after her driving exam, she recalled her uncertain start, but explained that the driving assessor had provided her with positive interaction right away. And so it is with teaching. In turn, the student becomes more confident, experiencing success and feeling in control of his learning (Clay, 1998). Support teachers through focused messages about assessment and student progress How can administrators support teachers to teach from a lens of strengths? What does this assessment tell us about what this student knows? Consider how this student’s strengths can support further learning in this area.What does this student know about [insert topic]? Consider links, not gaps Works Cited Vygotsky, L.

10 scaffolding strategies to help all students reach their goals Scaffolding strategies help get the job done. Imagine being asked to scale a twenty-foot wall. Your only directions are to get to the top. You might be one of the few people who can climb up the wall effortlessly, but in reality, you may need a little help. A rope or a ladder would be useful, but a scaffold would ensure your success. Teacher-assigned learning tasks can seem just as insurmountable as a tall wall to kids. Scaffolded instruction doesn’t mean giving students answers. The zone of proximal development Developed by psychologist Lev Vygotsky, the zone of proximal development (ZPD) explains how students who are near mastering concepts can be successful with extra help. Scaffolding comes in many forms. Try these 10 ideas for scaffolding instruction in your classroom: Gauge what students already know. Teachers can gradually reduce the level of scaffolded support as students master learning. It’s been said that the only way to eat an elephant is one bite at a time.

The D Word In the course of my work with teachers, I'm often asked about a little something called differentiation. Maybe you've heard of it. They might say something like: Admin is requiring us to have differentiation options in our lesson plans. What's a good way to account for all the levels of learners in my class? I've got a lot of low kids in my class. One common method I've seen employed is dividing students into ability-based groups. Step One: Grab a scissors. Step Two: After a quick notice and wonder, ask the students to write their own questions, questions that can be solved using the information in the prompt. Step 3 Select a variety of questions and post them around the room. I like this model because it avoids the stigmatization of students being put in high, middle, and low groups and it allows for students to self-differentiate, both in terms of the questions they write and the questions they elect to solve.

Universal Design for Learning in Higher Education | Taylor Institute for Teaching and Learning | University of Calgary Helen La, Dr. Patti Dyjur, PhD, Haboun Bair May 2018 Universal Design for Learning is a framework that guides the design of courses and learning environments to appeal to the largest number of learners. It emphasizes flexibility in how instructional material is presented, how students demonstrate their knowledge and skills, and in how they are engaged in learning. The principles of multiple means of engagement, representation, and action and expression offer instructors an instructional design model to strive for equitable access for all students by offering options, flexibility, and sets goals to accommodate diverse learners regardless of the discipline. This guide includes the following sections: A description of universal design for learning, including definitions, rationale for use, criticisms of UDL, and selected research that informs the approach.

The Laws of Figure/Ground, Prägnanz, Closure, and Common Fate - Gestalt Principles (3) We’re now going to take a look at some more Gestalt principles, building on what we’ve learned in the first two articles. This third piece is particularly useful because having a good grasp of Figure/Ground, Prägnanz, Closure, and Common Fate will enhance your ability to design with more thoughtfulness, confident that you’re making the best use of some basic human tendencies to access your design and its impact. “The eye tends to build a relationship between elements, it fills in the gaps, and identifies hidden motion in the design.” Figure/Ground, Prägnanz, Closure, and Common Fate are Gestalt Principles that help the eye build these relationships: The Figure/Ground law examines how the eye can separate shapes in a design from the background of that design. This article is the third in the Gestalt series. So, for example, text on a page makes use of this law. There are two main factors that affect the way we perceive the figure and the ground in any given design: The Law of Closure

TEXT: Teaching Styles In Physical Education It is important to highlight that there is not a preferred teaching style, nor are lessons taught entirely with one teaching style [7, 8]. Rather, it is encouraged that teachers use a range of approaches in their lesson and unit plans, as one particular style may best suit particular tasks. For example, a command style may be deemed safest and best practice for teaching students how to throw a javelin. Whereas, a guided discovery approach may be more advantageous if the learning objective is to develop social skills [2]. It has been suggested that pupil-centered approaches are more beneficial as they require students to be more independent and involved in the decision making process. 5 Edtech Trends That are Influencing Student Engagement In the not-so-distant past, student apathy seemed to be at an all-time high. Children would fill classroom seats but their minds weren’t engaged in the material, even during the lesson itself. When they left their desk at the end of the hour, they hardly ever considered the material again in their daily life. The paradigm is shifting as student engagement rises alongside the introduction of edtech into the modern, blended classroom setting. Are you curious which attributes have led to this significant shift to engaged learning? You’ll want to see these top five trends that influence student engagement. Games are teaching lessons. This is perhaps the most noticeable difference for students who find that technology holds their interest in the classroom. Adaptive learning changes with the child. Some educational programs are now using adaptive learning to shape how students receive their materials. Virtual reality makes learning real. Teachers can spend more time interacting with students.

Teaching a Class With Big Ability Differences How do you teach the same concepts and skills to students with diverse abilities and interests? Different learning profiles? And how do you do that in real classrooms, with limited time to plan? Differentiated instruction is one answer that has been extensively documented (see “Recommended Resources” at the end of this post). I want to share two fundamental tenets of DI before describing specific tactics: Differentiation is a method of instruction designed to meet the needs of all students by changing what students learn (content), how they accumulate information (process), how they demonstrate knowledge or skills (product), and with whom and where learning happens (learning environment). With that in mind, here are specific techniques you can use to meet the needs of students with a range of abilities. Start of newsletter promotion. Subscribe to the Edutopia Weekly newsletter—full of innovative teaching and learning strategies that will work with your students. Subscribe now 1. 2. 3. 4.

What Is Universal Design for Learning? | Understood - For learning and thinking differences UDL is a framework for how to develop lesson plans and assessments. It’s based on three main principles: 1. Engagement Look for ways to motivate learners and sustain their interest. Let people make choices Give assignments that feel relevant to their lives Make skillbuilding feel like a game Create opportunities for learners to get up and move around 2. Offer information in more than one format. Audio, which could be as simple as saying the written directions out loudVideo showing how to solve one of the problemsHands-on learning 3. Give learners more than one way to interact with the material and to show what they know. Taking a pencil-and-paper testGiving an oral report Making a video or a comic stripDoing a group project See a side-by-side comparison of UDL and traditional education .

Exploring the Gestalt Principles of Design Listen to the audio version of this article Negative space has long been a staple of good design. Leaving white space around elements of a design is the first thing that usually comes to mind. The human brain is exceptionally good at filling in the blanks in an image and creating a whole that is greater than the sum of its parts. This principle is one of the most important underlying ideas behind the gestalt principles of visual perception. Regardless of who first proposed the ideas (there have been essays dating back as far as 1890), gestalt principles are an important set of ideas for any designer to learn, and their implementation can greatly improve not just the aesthetics of a design, but also its functionality and user-friendliness. There are six individual principles commonly associated with gestalt theory: similarity, continuation, closure, proximity, figure/ground, and symmetry & order (also called prägnanz). Similarity It’s human nature to group like things together. Closure

TEXT: Planning for Fair Group Work Group work has a lot going for it. It incorporates the social-cognitive and social-emotional aspects of learning and can lead to memorable, engaging lessons and increased learning for students (Forsell, Forslund Frykedal, & Hammar Chiriac, 2020; Fung, Hung, & Lui, 2018). But group work can also fall flat—and cause student disengagement—if not carefully designed and assessed. The original cooperative learning movement, energized in the 1970s, emphasized that group work must be designed to feature positive interdependence (each student's work depends on the others' work) and individual accountability (individual learning is measured and reported)—methods found to increase student achievement. Since then, group work has grown in popularity, under various names (cooperative learning, collaborative learning, and group work, to name a few). So How Do We Do Group Work Right? 1. Individual learning: Did an individual student achieve a standard or learning goal? 2. 3. 4. Putting It All Together

edutopia As educators we all recognize the importance of sparking a student’s curiosity and motivation to learn. We know that when students are provided with opportunities to undertake meaningful tasks to solve real-world problems, engagement soars. But teachers today are under a great deal of pressure to cover standards so that students pass a test that measures proficiency. In many cases, curriculum and instruction have been stifled by strict pacing guides and a focus on discrete learning. I collaborate with educators weekly who share the deeper learning that can be achieved when they are empowered to design meaningful learning experiences for the students they serve. Teachers share lessons that are authentic, hands-on, challenging, and purposeful. There are actions we can take now to empower teachers to achieve these deeper levels of learning. 8 Steps to Deeper Learning 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. A Deeper Learning Lesson This plan for instruction makes the learning a memorable experience.

Targeted Instruction The other day I was asked about my opinion about something called entrance slips. Curious about their thoughts first, I asked a few question that helped me understand what they meant by entrance slips, what they would be used for, and how they might believe they would be helpful. The response made me a little worried. Basically, the idea was to give something to students at the beginning of class to determine gaps, then place students into groups based on student “needs”. Issues with Individualized / Targeted Instruction Individualized or targeted instruction makes sense in a lot of ways. When we aim to find specific tasks for specific students, we assume that students are not capable of learning things others are learning. Determining how to place students in groups is an important decision. Targeted instruction might make sense on paper, but there are several potential flaws: Students enter into tracks that do not actually reflect their ability. I’d love to continue the conversation.

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