Many Different Needs, One Curriculum: Differentiating Instruction for Student Success

1. Many Different Needs, One Curriculum: Differentiating Instruction for Student Success NCSS November, 2009 Dr. Susan Santoli Dr. Susan Piper University of South Alabama

2. Not all students are alike! • Varying background knowledge • Readiness • Language • Preferences in learning • Interests • Motivation

3. Differentiated Instruction • Students have multiple options for taking in information and making sense of ideas. • Teachers adjust the curriculum, presentation of information and assessment to learners rather than asking learners to modify themselves for the curriculum. • Classroom teaching is a blend of whole- class and individual instruction.

4. Elements of Differentiation • The teacher focuses on the essentials • The teacher attends to student differences • Assessment and instruction are inseparable • The teacher adapts content, process and/or products • All students participate in respectful work • Collaboration between teacher and student

5. The teacher balances group and individual norms. • Teacher and students work together flexibly.

6. All differentiation begins with assessment!

7. Assessment • Assessment is today’s means of understanding how to modify tomorrow’s instruction • Think of assessment for learning vs. assessment of learning • Assessment should always have more to do with helping students grow, than cataloging their mistakes From Carol Ann Tomlinson

9. What Differentiated Instruction IS • Having a vision of success for students • Realizing that not all students learn the same way • Allowing students some choice in their routes to learning • Providing opportunities for students to demonstrate knowledge they know and move forward • Offering lessons of varying degrees of difficulty to meet the same standard • Combining whole class instruction with individual and/or group work

10. What Differentiated Instruction IS NOT • A different lesson plan for each student each day • Assuming that all students learn by listening and writing • Assigning more work to students who have demonstrated mastery • Only for students who need acceleration • Giving all students the same work/assignments all of the time

11. The What… • Content • Process • Product

12. The How… • Readiness • Interest • Learning Style

13. Teachers Can Differentiate Content Process Product According to Students’ Interest Learning Profile Readiness From the Access Center: Adapted from The Differentiated Classroom: Responding to the Needs of All Learners (Tomlinson, 1999).

14. A Sample of Instructional Strategies that Support Differentiation Entry Points Academic Contracts Compacting • Anchor Activities • Centers/Stations • Layered Curriculum • Tiered Lessons

15. Anchor Activity • Student activities that are designed to extend and review already learned skills • Self directed • Can free up classroom teacher to work with small groups or individual students

16. Journals or learning logs Supplementary readings Learning packets Learning/Interest Centers Investigations Research projects Think-tac-toe (example to follow) Learning Contracts (example to follow) Webquests or web activities Silent reading Examples of Anchor Activities

17. Using Anchor Activities to Create Groups 1 Teach the whole class to work independently and quietly on the anchor activity. 2 Flip-Flop Half the class works on anchor activity. Other half works on a different activity. 3 1/3 works with teacher---direct instruction. 1/3 works on anchor activity. 1/3 works on a different activity. www.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/curriculum/enriched/giftedprograms/docs/anchor.ppt

18. Geography Anchor 6th grade • Students create an imaginary continent-can include country names, borders, capitals • Can add how various governments work, different cultures, laws, etc. • Can work on for whatever length of time the teacher chooses

19. Agendas-personalized list of tasks that a student must complete in a specified time • Teacher creates an agenda that will last 2-3 weeks • A particular time is set aside as agenda time (each day, each week) • Students generally determine the order in which they’ll complete agenda items • This could also be a choice of projects or assignments

20. Examples of Think Tac Toe Projects • East Asia • 2008 Presidential Election

21. Centers/Stations • Spots for concentrated work on particular skills or assignments or or areas that students move through that contain different assignments • Holocaust Centers

22. Layered Curriculum • Students have a variety of activities from which to choose • Choices are presented in layers, where each represents a different type of thinking or depth of understanding • Generally correlated to grades of A,B,C,

23. Layered Examples • Economics • Egypt • Kathy Nunley site

24. Tiered Lessons • Strategy that addresses a specific standard, concept or generalization • Allows several pathways for students to arrive at understanding • Can be tiered by interest, learning style or readiness

25. Tiered Lessons-Summary • Things in common… • Same concept or skill • Whole class activity • Some activities in the lesson may be the same • Differences in… • Amount of structure • Number of facets • Complexity • Pace • Level of independence • All Tiers should… • Build understanding • Challenge Students • Be interesting and engaging • Be respectful http://curriculum.leeschools.net/Summer/Preschool/PowerPoints/DI/World%20Languages.pp

26. Tiered Activities-used when a teacher wants to make sure that students with different learning needs work with the same essential ideas and use the same study skills Examples from textbook resources

27. Great Depression Tiered Lesson Plan-Library of Congress http://www.primarysourcelearning.org/teach/best_practices/diff_instruct_bulletin_sec.pdf • Standard for lesson plan: The student will demonstrate knowledge of the social, economic, and technological changes of the early twentieth century by identifying the causes of the Great Depression, its impact on Americans, and the major features of Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal.

28. Same content information, different LEARNING PROCESS

29. Everyone will answer these questions: • Describe what you see in the photograph. Include as much detail as possible. • Compare and contrast your home to the home you see in the photograph. What is similar and what is different? • In addition to the first two questions, student pairs will each receive one of the following questions based on academic readiness level.

30. Tier 1: If we could hear the people talking about their life, what would they be saying? • Tier 2: From what you see in the photograph, explain how you think this room might be used by the family and why. • Tier 3: Assess the Great Depression’s social and economic impact on this family from the evidence in the photo.

31. Same content information, same analysis process, different PRODUCTS

32. Tier 1: Create a timeline of the Dust Bowl and Great Depression era. Include the following 10 events with accompanying visuals and written description. • Tier 2: Create a scrapbook depicting the life of a child affected by the Dust Bowl and the Great Depression. Include information about where the child lives, his/her family’s economic and social situation, recreation, education, and prospects for the future. • Tier 3: In the role of a political candidate, create a persuasive speech proposing actions to address the concerns of the Dust Bowl farmers during the Great Depression. Incorporate information about the farmers’ economic, social and political problems and propose how the government can and cannot assist them. Support your plan with evidence from both primary and secondary sources.

33. Same task, 3 different SOURCES OF INFORMATION Choose one of the primary sources below. Examine both the information about the item and the item itself. Take notes of important details that will help you answer the following question: WHAT WERE SOME OF THE ECONOMIC, SOCIAL AND POLITICAL EFFECTS OF THE GREAT DEPRESSION ON PEOPLE?

34. Tier 1: Dorothea Lange Photograph of the Migrant Mother, 1936

35. Tier 2: Mrs. Mary Sullivan-August, 1940 A Traveler’s Line

36. Tier 3: American Life Histories, Manuscript from the Federal Writer’s Project, North Carolina, 1938 Nina Boone-North Carolina

37. Entry points-based on Gardner’s Theory of Multiple Intelligences • Begin topic with overview for whole class • Allow students to select entry points for investigation

38. Entry Points • Middle Ages example

39. Academic/Learning Contracts • Written agreements between students and teachers • What students will learn • How they will learn it • Time period for learning experience • How they will be evaluated • Usually opportunity for student choice Grapes of Wrath Environment

40. Compacting • Requires pre-assessment before beginning unit of study or development of a skill • Students who do well on the pre-assessment should not have to continue work on what they already know • A plan for meaningful and challenging use of student time will be developed • Can also be used in giving homework assignments

41. http://www.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/curriculum/enriched/giftedprograms/docs/ppts/compactingfixed.ppthttp://www.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/curriculum/enriched/giftedprograms/docs/ppts/compactingfixed.ppt

42. Compacting Examples General Compacting Example The Crusades Thinkquest-www.thinkquest.org Webquest-www.webquest.org

43. Additional points to consider: • What vocabulary will be difficult? • What connection can I make to prior knowledge? • What strategies does my ELL need to develop? • What assessment will realistically test the knowledge of my ELL without penalizing his level of learning? • Clearly defined and written objectives • Organizers, outlines, labels, pictures • Supplementary materials • Make it relevant. • Links to past experience and potential experience • Pacing & Student Engagement

44. There are 4 Language Domains • Listening- process, understand, interpret, and evaluate spoken language in a variety of situations • Speaking- engage in oral communication in a variety of situations for a variety of purposes and audiences • Reading-process, interpret, and evaluate written language, symbols, and text with understanding and fluency • Writing- engage in written communication in a variety of forms for a variety of purposes and audiences

45. Language Development & Lesson Planning • If you can differentiate instruction you can make accommodations for ELLs. In fact, many of the accommodations made for ELLs are helpful for other students in the classroom as well. • Out of the Dust accommodated and differentiated

46. Getting Started…. • Start small • Start with your favorite unit/lesson plan • Begin by teaching all students an anchor activity-meaningful work done individually and silently • Early on, you may want to ask some students to work with anchor activity and others to work on a different task which also requires no conversation or collaboration • Try a differentiated tasks for only a small block of time • Grow slowly, but grow

47. Assess students before you begin to teach a skill or topic • Try creating one differentiated lesson per unit • Differentiate one product per semester • Find multiple resources for a couple of key parts of your curriculum • Give students more choices about how to work, how to express learning or which homework assignments to do • Develop and use a two day learning contract, then a 4 day, etc.

48. You cannot differentiate everything for everyone every day! Differentiation is an organized yet flexible way of proactively adjusting teaching and learning to meet kids where they are and help them to achieve maximum growth as learners.

49. References and Resources • Our references and resources are listed on the handout and are also posted on our wiki: www.differentiated-curriculum.wikispaces.com

50. Contact Information • Dr. Susan Santoli ssantoli@usouthal.edu • Dr. Susan Piper susanpiper@usouthal.edu University of South Alabama Department of Leadership and Teacher Educ. UCOM 3107 Mobile, AL 36688-0002