Supporting Diverse Learners Within the Classroom

1. Supporting Diverse Learners Within the Classroom Programming using Differentiated Instruction: Getting to Know Your Students Chinook’s Edge School Division Presenter: Dawn Normoyle

2. Reaching Students Who Learn in Different Ways Animal School

3. Today’s Outcomes: • Understand some key elements of differentiated instruction • Improve understanding of mild/moderate disabilities • Appreciate the importance of knowing your students when programming • Learn some strategies to get a deeper understanding of your students • Discover inclusionary strategies to support the programming of all students • Reflection on your own practice

4. Graffiti Activity • With the others at your table create your “graffiti” using words, phrases, and graphics that represent your tables thinking • Leave your sheet behind, and rotate to the other tables to add your comments/visuals • Discuss added comments and summarize • Share as a group

5. Differentiated instruction is a philosophy and an approach to teaching in which teachers and school communities actively work to support the learning of all students through strategic assessment, thoughtful planning and targeted, flexible instruction. Making a Difference: Meeting Diverse Learning Needs with Differentiated Instruction

6. Fairness is not everyone getting the same thing. It is when everyone gets what they need!

7. Why Differentiate?Benefits • Effective for all students including those with disabilities • Offers multiple pathways to learning • Starts where students are at • Provides meaningful choice • Creates opportunities to demonstrate their interests and skills • Helps students understand what they’re expected to learn, evaluate their own progress, and express their learning strengths, challenges and interests • Increases engagement, motivation, self-confidence and willingness to assume responsibility • Gives them strategies to figure out and cope within the world when things are not differentiated

8. Programming for All Learners:Key Elements • Collaboration- learning team involvement; parents, teachers, students… • Purposeful Planning- knowing your students (needs, strengths, learning styles), understanding the curriculum, multiple pathways of learning, tasks respectful of each learner, flexible and reflective teaching… • Ongoing assessment- wide range of approaches, pre-assessment, profiles, FOR/OF, grade for growth, “Assessment informs practice, and we take action.” (Rick Wormelli) • Transition planning- between grades, leaving high school… • Self advocacy- sharing responsibility, creating independence…

9. Classroom Elements to Differentiate • Affect/ Learning Environment • Content • Process- how students make sense of learning • Product- how students demonstrate learning

10. Various Disabilities • Cognitive Disabilities • Emotional/Behavioural Disabilities • Learning Disabilities • Hearing/ Visual/ Communication Disabilities • Communication Disability • Physical/ Medical Disability (i.e. cerebral palsy, fetal alcohol, autism)

11. Programming:Diverse Learning Needs • Diagnosis may have implications for educational programming, social and emotional learning and overall well-being • Knowledge can help teachers align supports and strategies with student’s needs and strengths • Knowledge helps teachers know what to look for in ongoing assessments (what the student can do and potential barriers) * Critical to get to know your students

12. 3 Minute uzzzz… Use the sheet to reflect on your learning so far…

13. Start with Assessment • Rich ongoing source of information • Helps teachers identify and begin to address student strengths and needs • Helps plan meaningful learning activities • Establishes organizational and grouping structures • Mold the classroom environment • Ongoing • Requires a “photo album” approach to assessment, as opposed to a “snapshot” (Wiggins and McTighe,2005)

14. Assessment:Ongoing • Differentiated assessment informs differentiated instruction • provides information about readiness, strengths and needs in relation to particular outcomes or activities. This shapes your planning. • Differentiated instruction leads to differentiated assessment • students work toward learning outcomes at different paces and in different ways so you will need assessment tools and strategies that accommodate diversity while still usefully measuring learning outcomes. “Teaching in the dark is a questionable business!”

15. Knowing Your Students:Student Learner Profiles • Describes ways a student learns best • Reveals student’s unique knowledge, prior experience, abilities, learning strengths and needs, interests, learning preferences and styles, attitudes, gender, culture, personality… • Helps teachers choose responsive and meaningful supports, planning • Dynamic, as individual learners constantly grow and change • For students with disabilities it is an opportunity to get to know that student and to see beyond the student’s disabilities

16. Learner Profiles:Goals • Find out as much as possible about how a student learns • Not to label students as certain kinds of learners • Help them develop multiple pathways for learning • Create more confidence and motivation when working on unfamiliar and/or challenging tasks

17. Learning preferences and styles:Environment • Typically refers general environment where studentlearns best • Examples: • quiet vs. noisy • busy with lots to look at/ interact with vs. bare with few distractions • movement friendly vs. sitting still • flexible schedule vs. fixed schedule • warm vs. cool

18. Types of intelligence • Brain-based predisposition to excel in particular area • Howard Gardner (1994): • identified eight intelligences • individuals possess varying combinations • Thomas Armstrong (1994): • student-friendly terms for each intelligence • verbal-linguistic intelligence (or word smarts) • logical-mathematical intelligence (or number smarts) • interpersonal intelligence (or people smarts) • intrapersonal intelligence (or self smarts) • spatial intelligence (or picture smarts) • musical-rhythmic intelligence (or music smarts) • bodily-kinesthetic intelligence (or body smarts) • naturalistic intelligence (or nature smarts)

19. Gender, Culture & Personality • Can influence learning • Examples: • expressive or reserved in class interactions • competition or collaboration • work individually or in a group • creative or practical way of thinking • part-to-whole or whole-to-part learning • contextual and personal learning or learning that is discrete and impersonal • time as fixed and rigid or fluid and flexible • impulsive or reflective in one’s thinking and actions • valuing creativity or conformity

20. Interests • Creates motivation and engagement • Identifying interests in learner profileshelps in planning when varying projects, themes and examples

21. Gathering information • Inventories, surveys, conferencing, interviews • Learner preference inventories • Reading inventories • Social inventories • Interest inventories • Assessment information • Classroom assessments (interviews, observation, assignments, etc.) • Cumulative records • Individualized program plans (IPP) • Standardized assessments • Parents • Previous teachers and other school staff involved with the student

22. Learner Profile Examples

23. Using the Learning Profile to…

24. Flexible Grouping: Appointment Clock This is a tool that can be used to differentiate groups in your classroom!

25. My Appointment Clock Rationale: This is an activity that will create partners within the classroom. There partnerships are based on student choice, readiness, interest, and learning profiles (which are assessed at the beginning of the year). If students are all doing the same activity use choice partners, if ability is needed use readiness, if want to promote interest use interest, and if want to focus on how they learn best use learning profile. Use this in building your lesson plans.  Example of Partners 1:00 Interest based 2:00 Readiness based 3:00 Learner profile 4:00 Student’s choice 5:00 Interest based 6:00 Readiness based 7:00 Learner profile 8:00 Student’s choice 9:00 Interest based 10:00 Readiness based 11:00 Learner profile 12:00 Student’s choice Have students find choice partners for 4:00, 8:00, and 12:00. Collect them and fill in the rest of the partnerships based on the assessment material that you have gathered. Copy and keep in keep in a duo or binder. Hand back the originals to the students and have them put in the front of their binders for quick access.

26. Here’s What, So What, Now What??

27. Differentiation of today’s Presentation • Learning Profiles OR • Instructional Strategies

28. RESOURCES