Differentiated Instruction

1. Differentiated Instruction Cubing

2. Key Questions to Plan DI • What needs to learned? • What do students already know? • How will you reach all learners? • How will you assess students’ learning?

3. What is cubing? • Cubing is an instructional strategy that asks students to interact with a concept in a variety of ways • Six sided figures (a cube) that have a different activity on each side • Students roll the cube and do the activity

4. How is cubing differentiated? • Not all students receive the same cube • Cubes are differentiated for readiness, interest or learning profile

5. Cubing used to increase thinking skills • Originally used to have students use a variety of thinking skills to consider a topic. • When used like this each side of the cube has a different prompt: describe it, compare it, analyze it, apply it, evaluate it, argue for or against • Integrates Blooms Taxonomy

6. Example: Onomatopoeia

7. Why Cube? • Cubing gives students who like to use their hands and move around a chance to feel like they are “playing” while learning. • Cubing gives students a chance to look at a concept from a series of different perspectives. • Cubing allows the teacher to differentiate for readiness in a very un-obvious way. Since all students are working with cubes, students are not aware that their neighbors might be doing something a little different.

8. Concerns • Concerns? Here is one… you may have more: – Cubes can turn into glorified worksheets– but not if all activities are purposeful and focused on getting students to understand a concept in a multitude of ways.

9. Resources • http://daretodifferentiate.wikispaces.com/file/view/nagc_cubing__think_dots.pdf • http://k5di.pottsgrove.wikispaces.net/Cubing+and+Think+Dots • http://2differentiate.pbworks.com/w/page/860043/Cubing