Differentiating Instruction in the Regular Classroom by Diane Heacox

1. Differentiating Instruction in the Regular Classroom by Diane Heacox • Defining Differentiated Instruction • Differentiated Instruction Practices • Grading in a Differentiated Classroom “Today's teachers still contend with the essential challenge of the one-room schoolhouse: how to reach out effectively to students who span the spectrum of learning readiness, personal interests, culturally shaped ways of seeing and speaking of the world, and experiences in that world.” -Carol Ann Tomlinson

2. What is Differentiated Instruction? • Challenging and engaging • tasks for each learner • Flexible approaches to content, • instruction, and products • Providing opportunities for students • to work in varied instructional formats • Responding to students' readiness, instructional needs, interests, and learning preferences Developing instructional activities based on essential topics and concepts, significant processes and skills, and multiple ways to display learning Meeting curriculum standards and requirements for each learner Establishing learner-responsive, teacher-facilitated classrooms “Differentiating instruction means changing the pace, level, or kind of instruction you provide in response to individual learners' needs, styles or interests.” -Diane Heacox

3. How to Differentiate Instruction The Learning Experience = Content + Process + Product Article Artifact Artwork Chart Diagram Display Excerpt Exhibit Field Trip Novel Poetry PowerPoint Scenario Speech Story Interview Music Movie Website Advertisement Advice Column Animation Book Jacket Campaign Comic Costume Demonstration Experiment Fairy Tale Formula Guidebook Mask Photo Essay Play Radio Program Riddle Slide Show Website Adapt Analyze Calculate Classify Convert Critique Deduce Dramatize Estimate Forecast Implement Invent Justify Practice Prioritize Reformat Research Translate Verify

4. How to Differentiate Instruction Planning for Challenge and Variety • Challenge: Bloom's Levels of Thinking: • Higher-level thinking that motivates all students to achieve • Substantive instruction that is clearly related to the essential curriculum • Content that has both depth and breadth • Variety: Gardner's 8 Ways of Thinking & Learning: • Every student has strengths in thinking and learning • Students learn and produce with greater ease when • they're using an area of strength • Asking students to work in ways in which they're less • able helps them strengthen those intelligences and • widen their learning repertoire • The more variety you offer students, the greater the • likelihood of reaching more students

5. How to Differentiate Instruction • Dozens of Helpful Forms, Worksheets and Checklists: • Questions to Spark Dialogue • Student Learning Profile • Interest Inventory • Projects, Presentations and Performances • Multiple Intelligences Checklists • Bloom's Taxonomy Matrix • Content, Process and Product Toolkit • Observer's Checklist • Sample Letters • Work log • All reproducible forms are on accompanying CD

6. Differentiated Instruction and Grading • Grades are Cumulative Differentiated tasks are only one consideration when grading • Don't Grade Everything • Teach students to assess their own work • Grades = Rigor • For a C: Knowledge/Comprehension/Application • For a B: Application/Analysis • For an A: Analysis/Evaluation/Synthesis • Totally 10 Students select from assessments valued at 2, 4, 6, 8, or 10 points apiece. Students must complete assignments that sum to a minimum of 10. • The primary purpose of grading is to give students (and their • parents) feedback about their learning progress and the quality • of their work