Dare to Differentiate - 50 Terrific Teacher Tips! One Size Doesn’t Fit All – Differentiation in the Classroom | Education By Jenelle As teachers we can differentiate four things. The first is content because a teacher has the ability to alter content so that it is not going to frustrate a student but challenge their abilities so they can learn. The second thing that teachers are bale to differentiate is a formative assessment tool. I believe that assessment should be as student based as it can be because every student learns and understands differently then the next and making sure that you show that in your assessment of that student gives them a better chance of success. The third thing a teacher should do for differentiation in a classroom is how they instruct their lesson plans. By having visuals, handouts, videos, group work and one on one with the teacher you are giving every student a chance to succeed and understand the content. Like this: Like Loading...
Centers: Effective Structures for Differentiation Photo by Woodley Wonder Works This article is written by Katie Haydon, founder of Ignite Creative Learning Studio. Learn more about Ignite at IgniteCreativeLearning.com or the Ignite Facebook page. Do you use centers in your primary classroom? Centers are an excellent tool for differentiation that will free you up to work with small groups of students, whether gifted, high-achievers, or those needing extra help. Centers, in my opinion, go beyond mundane and standard worksheet tasks. Though centers can be used at any time in the year, some teachers like to wait at least a week or two, and sometimes six weeks into the school year to implement them so that they can gain a greater understanding of their students and be confident that they are ready to follow protocol. One issue with large numbers of students in small rooms may be space. Katie Haydon, founder of Ignite Creative Learning Studio, is a teacher, nationally-known writer and speaker, and a mentor to students of all ages.
Teaching the Gifted and Talented: 33 Websites Where You Can Find Good Resources I wish the Internet was available to me as a kid in elementary school. In New York City, where I attended kindergarten through sixth grade, they called the gifted and talented class "SP". I remember being put into a class to learn French, but very little else. SITES 26 Livebinders for Gifted Teachers- by Teach a Gifted Kid bloggerADHD and Children Who Are Gifted Byrdseed Gifted Classroom Ideas- blog followed by 4,000 peopleCharacters of Intellectually Advanced Young PeopleThe Center for Gifted Studies- The Center for Talented Youth- for pre-collegiate students; through Johns Hopkins UniversityCommon Myths About Gifted Students Council for Exceptional ChildrenCrossover Children: LD and Gifted Gifted But Learning Disabled: A Puzzling Paradox Gifted Exchange-"blog about gifted children, schooling, parenting, education news and changing American education for the better."
Five Tips for Getting Started With Differentiation in a Secondary Classroom By Jessica Hockett Differentiation in middle and high school doesn’t need to involve designing eight different assignments, orchestrating complex group work, or turning the physical space into a kindergarten room. At its core, differentiation simply moves all students toward and beyond common and important learning goals. Sometimes, students share a route toward those goals. Teachers have many “entry points” to planning and implementing lessons and tasks that anticipate and respond to students’ needs. Experiment with various groupings. Tweak an existing task or question. Pre-assess. Imagine that you are designing an experiment to test [the effect of certain variables on plant growth]. Such prompts can help the teacher spot significant misconceptions and skill gaps, as well as identify advanced thinking. For additional guidance in designing useful pre-assessments, see Hockett and Doubet’s (2012/2013) Educational Leadership article “Turning on the Lights: What Pre-Assessments Can Do.”
The Best Resources On Differentiating Instruction My colleague Katie Hull-Sypnieski is leading a February 1st Education Week Webinar on differentiating instruction, and I would strongly encourage people to participate. Katie’s the best teacher I’ve ever seen…. In addition, Katie and I have co-authored a piece for Education Week Teacher on the topic that will be appearing there soon (it’s appeared: The Five By Five Approach To Differentiation Success), and an upcoming post in my blog there will be talking about it, too (that two part series has also appeared). I also did a second two-part series in Ed Week on differentiation. Also, check out The Best “Fair Isn’t Equal” Visualizations. Given all that, a “The Best…” post was inevitable, and here it is. Here are my choices for The Best Resources On Differentiating Instruction: The Best Places To Get The “Same” Text Written For Different “Levels” Busting Myths about Differentiated Instruction is by Rick Wormeli. Reconcilable Differences? Deciding to Teach Them All is by Carol Ann Tomlinson.
Great Lessons 3: Challenge Who is up for a challenge? Number 3 in the Great Lessons series:Great Lessons 1: Probing Great Lessons 2: Rigour These posts focus on the habits of great teaching; not one-off strategies but the things we do every day. 3. Challenge: Subtitle 1: The thrill of the chase.Subtitle 2: No struggle; no learningSubtitle 3: Beware the Buzz that drowns the Fuzz. How do you know that a lesson is a great lesson? But that isn’t it. The point is that Great Lessons, with or without the buzz factor, have something in common: Challenge. Perhaps the Holy Grail of challenge are lessons that lead to Flow, where the challenge levels are continually just ahead of the level of skills: Flow: Where challenge and skill levels are high. A brilliant example of this is skateboarding as I describe in this post: In practice, routine, habitual challenge manifests itself in myriad ways. LOW CHALLENGE: In my experience, the most common reason for lessons to be sub-standard is that there isn’t enough challenge: Like this:
Making a Difference Published Online: September 10, 2008 Published in Print: September 10, 2008, as Making a Difference Interview Differentiated instruction—the theory that teachers should work to accomodate and build on students' diverse learning needs—is not new. A former elementary school teacher of 21 years (and Virginia Teacher of the Year in 1974), Carol Ann Tomlinson has written more than 200 articles, chapters, and books, including The Differentiated Classroom: Responding to the Needs of All Learners and Fulfilling the Promise of the Differentiated Classroom: Strategies and Tools for Responsive Teaching. Anthony Rebora, editorial director of the Sourcebook, recently talked to Tomlinson about the theory of differentiated instruction and its use in schools today. —Photo by Jay Paul Differentiated instruction is a term that is interpreted in a lot of different ways. As I see it, there are three ways to deal with students’ differences. What are the hallmarks of a well-run differentiated classroom?
Six Thinking Hats® Six Hats® ... A Critical and Creative Thinking Process that improves listening, speaking, reading and writing and is fun for ALL! Penn Hills PAGE Presentation " A special thank you to Franny for introducing me to the thinking hats and opening me up to becoming a better teacher by teaching my students to think about thinking." Jena Brodhead, Easton Area School District Improve academic performance in reading and writing with SIX THINKING HATS®. think using six strategies problem solve make clear decisions design quality questions self assess collaborate more effectively The Research -- "Develop Critical and Creative Thinking Skills: Put on Six Thinking Hats®," PA Educational Leadership During the workshop the teachers will collaborate to learn the Six Hats® process and apply it to their content areas and standards. Six Thinking Hats® Cards: Key Words, Applications, Standards, and Examples How to Differentiate Instruction Using Six Hats® and 6 Product Choices- PowerPoint Web Resources:
Deliberately difficult – why it’s better to make learning harder The most fundamental goals of education are long-term goals. As teachers and educators, we want targeted knowledge and skills to be acquired in a way that makes them durable and flexible. More specifically, we want a student’s educational experience to produce a mental representation of the knowledge or skill in question that fosters long-term access to that knowledge and the ability to generalize—that is, to draw on that knowledge in situations that may differ on some dimensions from the exact educational context in which that knowledge was acquired.Robert A Bjork, 2002 Who could argue with this? This is, after all, what teaching is fundamentally about. But then they go and spoil it all by boldly stating that outstanding teaching and learning will result in “almost all pupils … making rapid and sustained progress.” This statement inevitably begs two questions: If Ofsted judge T&L by observing lessons, what does progress in lessons look like? The one word answers to these questions are:
Background information on differentiation Skip to main content Try Wikispaces Classroom now. Brand new from Wikispaces. guest Join | Help | Sign In daretodifferentiate Home guest| Join | Help | Sign In Turn off "Getting Started" Loading... Ten Takeaway Tips for Teaching Critical Thinking Suggestions from educators at KIPP King Collegiate High School on how to help develop and assess critical-thinking skills in your students. Ideally, teaching kids how to think critically becomes an integral part of your approach, no matter what subject you teach. But if you're just getting started, here are some concrete ways you can begin leveraging your students' critical-thinking skills in the classroom and beyond. 1. Questioning is at the heart of critical thinking, so you want to create an environment where intellectual curiosity is fostered and questions are encouraged. In the beginning stages, you may be doing most of the asking to show your students the types of questions that will lead to higher-level thinking and understanding. 2. Pose a provocative question to build an argument around and help your students break it down. 3. 4. "It all comes back to modeling," says Kellan McNulty, who teaches AP world history and AP U.S. history at KIPP King Collegiate. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10.
How to Use Choice Boards to Differentiate Learning - The Art of Ed Magazine / How to Use Choice Boards to Differentiate Learning A choice board is a graphic organizer that allows students to choose how they will learn a concept. The choice board below has nine squares. (There is no minimum or maximum, however nine seems to be a good number.) The activities on the choice board below have a similar level of difficulty. This art history choice board was created for students to use if they finish an art project before the class is ready to start the next project. Each choice board should revolve around a single concept or learning expectation that you want them to focus on. The choice board is attached to a bulletin board in the back of the classroom. Have you ever used a choice board in your art classroom? If you created a choice board for your classroom, what concept or topic would you choose?