Tomlinson - Differentiation Central Ways To Differentiate Instruction - Classroom Q&A With Larry Ferlazzo (This is the first post in a two-part series on differentiation) I posed this question last week: "What is the best advice you can give to a teacher about differentiating instruction?" I've shared my response in an Ed Week Teacher article that I've co-authored with my colleague, Katie Hull Sypnieski. I'll limit my contribution here to sharing a useful link to The Best Resources On Differentiating Instruction. Experts in the field, though, have agreed to share their responses here, so today I'm pleased to publish answers from Carol Tomlinson and Rick Wormeli. Response From Carol Tomlinson Carol Tomlinson is an internationally-recognized leader and author in the field of differentiated instruction. My journey with differentiation began in my middle school classroom when it was quite clear that my one-size-fits-all approach to teaching was, in fact, not fitting many of my students. So some colleagues and I began to ask ourselves some fairly straightforward, if daunting, questions.
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? If yes, you love them and can’t imagine life without them. 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.
Dare to Differentiate - 50 Terrific Teacher Tips! Guide to special needs apps Complete guide to educational and special needs apps With over 300,000 apps it's easy to become overwhelmed by the number of app choices. It's also easy to spend a small fortune on a lot of useless apps. As a special needs parent I wanted to get right to the "good stuff" and figured you did too. by Dawn Villarreal, One Place for Special Needs Android apps (all) Android does not have the nice interface of iTunes for viewing apps on the Internet as opposed to your device. Aphasia appsApps specific to those with aphasia Apraxia appsApps specific to those with Childhood Apraxia of Speech Articulation appsApps that focus on articulation. Assistive technology apps Here are a variety of assistive technology apps employing voice recognition, text to speech, easy to use technology for impaired motor abilities. Auditory memory apps Auditory memory is the ability to remember what you heard. Auditory procesing apps (all) This link takes you to all of the auditory processing related apps. Other resources
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.
Differentiating Instruction Differentiating Instruction ... One Size Doesn't Fit All Effective Strategies to Improve Student Performance ! We have students in our classrooms who struggle academically and others who learn at an advanced level and accelerated pace. Testimonials about the workshops -- Fran McAleer is a valuable contributor to our work, training to create a new and better workplace in our schools. More! Franny McAleer has been providing staff development for teachers in the Berwick Area School District for the last four years, including whole staff workshops with the Six Thinking Hats as well as focused workshops detailing best practices with instructional strategies for gifted and honors students. AWESOME! Franny did a tremendous job of inspiring and engaging participants in a one-day training session on differentiation. The presenter knew her topic and was open to all questions. Franny McAleer is a dynamic presenter. "This workshop got nothing but rave reviews." Teacher and parent links are blue.
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. 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: Nonsense Comprehension.
Differentiating the curriculum The Policy and implementation strategies for the education of gifted and talented students: Support package: Curriculum differentiation (2004) (pdf 1345kb) provides an introduction to curriculum differentiation for gifted and talented students and is suitable for all stages of schooling. It needs to be read in conjunction with the Policy and implementation strategies for the education of gifted and talented students (revised 2004) and its companion document (2004) (pdf 270kb). The purpose of differentiating the curriculum is to provide appropriate learning opportunities for gifted and talented students. Three important characteristics of gifted students that underscore the rationale for curriculum differentiation (Van Tassel–Baska, 1988) are the capacity to: learn at faster rates find, solve and act on problems more readily manipulate abstract ideas and make connections. The creation of a differentiated curriculum requires some pre-planning. Definitions Article (pdf 25kb) Acceleration Web page