Differentiation:

1. Differentiation: A perfect fit for each student Presented by Cindy Blevins www.blevinsenterprises.comblevins@blevinsenterprises.com

2. WORKSHOP GOALS: • In “Differentiation: A Perfect Fit for Each Student,” we will. . . • Define Differentiated Instruction (DI) • Determine classroom success in DI • Discuss the needs of your students and • how to plan for variety and challenge • Explore a variety of approaches to DI • Look at sample DI lessons • Create custom DI lessons • Discuss learning centers

3. DIFFERENTIATION IS: • doing whatever it takes to maximize students’ learning instead of relying on a one-size-fits-all, whole-class method of instruction –differentiation is different, not more. • the way to teach smarter, not harder; to feel liberated, not burdened! • preparing students to handle anything in their current and future lives that is not differentiated, i.e., to become their own learning advocates

4. SELF-DIFFERENTIATION: • In the world beyond school, we gravitate toward work and hobbies in which we excel; we self-differentiate. If we can’t find success in our job, we look for another one. • In schools, however, we require students to learn and be good at everything regardless of their natural tendencies, readiness levels, cultural barriers, learning deficiencies, or learning styles.

5. ASSESSMENT: • If we want an accurate portrayal of a student’s mastery of a particular concept, the assessment format we use must enable us to determine that. • If a student understands a concept very well but is not yet a proficient writer, we don’t require her to do the same essay we’re requiring the rest of the class to do. If we do, we’re testing her writing skills not her knowledge of the content.

6. INFORMAL DIFFERENTIATION: • moving around the room and answering individual questions; guiding students as they practice • giving ample time for students to absorb new information • asking a student to explain his thinking so the class has a model to use or adapt • allowing a student to sit up front so she can see the board

7. 10 QUESTIONS to Determine Success in Differentiating Instruction: • Are we willing to teach in whatever way is necessary for students to learn best, even if the approach doesn’t match our own preferences? • Do we have the courage to do what works, not just what’s easiest? • Do we actively seek to understand our students’ knowledge, skills, and talents so we can provide an appropriate match for their learning needs? And once we discover their individual strengths and weaknesses, do we actually adapt our instruction to respond to their needs?

8. 10 QUESTIONS to Determine Success in Differentiating Instruction: • Do we continually build a large and diverse repertoire of instructional strategies so we have more than one way to teach? • Do we organize our classrooms for students’ learning or for our teaching? • Do we keep up to date on the latest research about learning, students’ developmental growth, and our content specialty areas?

9. 10 QUESTIONS to Determine Success in Differentiating Instruction: • Do we ceaselessly self-analyze and reflect on our lessons—including our assessments—searching for ways to improve? • Are we open to critique? • Do we push students to become their own education advocates and give them the tools to do so? • Do we regularly close the gap between knowing what to do and actually doing it?

10. DIFFERENTIATED LESSON-PLANNING SEQUENCE • 5 STEPS TO TAKE BEFORE DESIGNING THE LEARNING EXPERIENCES • Identify your essential understandings, questions, benchmarks, objectives, skills, standards, and/or learner outcomes. • Identify those students who have special needs, and start thinking about how to will adapt your instruction to ensure they can learn and achieve. • Design formative and summative assessments. • Design and deliver pre-assessments based on summative assessments and identified objectives. • Adjust assessments and objectives based on further thinking while designing the assessments.

11. DIFFERENTIATED LESSON-PLANNING SEQUENCE • 5 STEPS TO TAKE BEFORE DESIGNING THE LEARNING EXPERIENCES • Identify your essential understandings, questions, benchmarks, objectives, skills, standards, and/or learner outcomes. • * figure out what is accurate and important to teach—what you will accept as evidence of mastery • * it is our duty to teach so all students can learn, and students can’t learn without hope. Adjust what you teach, so all students can learn • * teachers who do not adjust instructional pacing for struggling or advanced students will cause them to flounder

12. DIFFERENTIATED LESSON-PLANNING SEQUENCE • 5 STEPS TO TAKE BEFORE DESIGNING THE LEARNING EXPERIENCES • Identify those students who have special needs, and start thinking about how to will adapt your instruction to ensure they can learn and achieve. • * Create a profile for each learner that lists every factor you discover about a student that could affect his/her learning, positively and negatively. Consider: learning styles, family poverty or mobility, multiple intelligences, SPED labels, musical talents, bipolar disorder, school leadership activities, fetal alcohol syndrome, learned helplessness, quirky sense of humor, parent serving overseas in military, academic giftedness, personal interests, nationality, or major events in their lives.

13. DIFFERENTIATED LESSON-PLANNING SEQUENCE • 5 STEPS TO TAKE BEFORE DESIGNING THE LEARNING EXPERIENCES • Design formative and summative assessments. • * formative assessments—conducted throughout the lesson to monitor students’ progress and adjust activities as necessary to maximize learning. Formative assessments have the most impact on student learning • * summative assessments—used after the lesson or unit to document the skills and concepts students learned.

14. DIFFERENTIATED LESSON-PLANNING SEQUENCE • 5 STEPS TO TAKE BEFORE DESIGNING THE LEARNING EXPERIENCES • Design and deliver pre-assessments based on summative assessments and identified objectives. • * Pre-assessments are usually “cut-to-the-chase” versions of summative assessments, so we can’t create them until the we’ve designed the latter. • * Pre-assess students a week ahead of the first day of a new unit so you have sufficient time to analyze the data and create effective differentiated lessons, implementing them on the first day. • * After pre-assessing students, begin to group them according to their understanding of each standard or outcome—below/on/above grade level.

15. DIFFERENTIATED LESSON-PLANNING SEQUENCE • 5 STEPS TO TAKE BEFORE DESIGNING THE LEARNING EXPERIENCES • Adjust assessments and objectives based on further thinking while designing the assessments. • * You can use parts of the summative assessments to create the formative assessments—quick checks that show how students are learning and help us provide useful feedback about their progress. • * Once you revise objectives according to formative assessments, then go back and revise the summative assessment. • * This revision links our summative assessments to our goals.

16. DIFFERENTIATED LESSON-PLANNING SEQUENCE • 6 STEPS TO TAKE WHILE DESIGNING AND IMPLEMENTING THE LEARNING EXPERIENCES • Design the learning experiences for students based on the information gathered from those pre-assessments; your knowledge of your students; and your expertise with the curriculum, cognitive theory, and students at this stage of human development. • Run a mental tape of each step in the lesson sequence to make sure that the process makes sense for your diverse group of students and will help the lesson run smoothly. • Review your plans with a colleague. • Obtain/create materials needed for the lesson. • Conduct the lesson. • Adjust formative and summative assessments and objectives as necessary based on observations and data collected while teaching the lessons.

17. DIFFERENTIATED LESSON-PLANNING SEQUENCE • 6 STEPS TO TAKE WHILE DESIGNING AND IMPLEMENTING THE LEARNING EXPERIENCES • Design the learning experiences for students based on the information gathered from those pre-assessments; your knowledge of your students; and your expertise with the curriculum, cognitive theory, and students at this stage of human development. • * the goal is success for all students (if students don’t “get it,” it’s not the students’ fault )

18. DIFFERENTIATED LESSON-PLANNING SEQUENCE • 6 STEPS TO TAKE WHILE DESIGNING AND IMPLEMENTING THE LEARNING EXPERIENCES • Run a mental tape of each step in the lesson sequence to make sure that the process makes sense for your diverse group of students and will help the lesson run smoothly. • * lesson sequence • -- introductory “hook” • -- identifying the learning goal(s) and priming/gathering knowledge • -- applying knowledge • -- summary/closure • -- practice/homework (homework won’t compensate for ineffective instruction) • * students learn better/faster the first time around with DI

19. DIFFERENTIATED LESSON-PLANNING SEQUENCE • 6 STEPS TO TAKE WHILE DESIGNING AND IMPLEMENTING THE LEARNING EXPERIENCES • Review your plans with a colleague. • * Try this at least once a year. • * Publicly articulating your rationale makes the ideas real and will encourage you to think about them on a deeper level. • * You will be more likely to internalize the lessons and put your insights into action if you have to defend your positions with someone else.

20. DIFFERENTIATED LESSON-PLANNING SEQUENCE • 6 STEPS TO TAKE WHILE DESIGNING AND IMPLEMENTING THE LEARNING EXPERIENCES • Obtain/create materials needed for the lesson. • Conduct the lesson. • Adjust formative and summative assessments and objectives as necessary based on observations and data collected while teaching the lessons. • * Planning lessons in advance is wonderful! Sticking to the plan when it’s not working is reckless.

21. DIFFERENTIATED LESSON-PLANNING SEQUENCE • 2 STEPS TO TAKE AFTER PROVIDING THE LEARNING EXPERIENCES • With students, evaluate the lesson’s success. What evidence do you have that students grasped the important concepts and skills? What worked and what didn’t, and why? • Record advice about possible changes to make when you repeat this lesson in future years.

22. HELPFUL COGNITIVE APPROACHES

23. HELPFUL COGNITIVE APPROACHES • Building Background Knowledge • The human mind commits very little information to long-term memory unless it connects to something already stored there. • Teachers must consciously tap into students’ prior knowledge, and if there is no prior knowledge, create it. • EXAMPLE A: Student reads “How Microscopes Work” article, answers questions, investigates microscope • EXAMPLE B: Students explore microscope, read article, answer questions.

24. HELPFUL COGNITIVE APPROACHES • 2. Priming the Brain and Structuring Information • Our capacity to retrieve information down the road depends primarily on how we sort and structure concepts and skills in our minds in these early experiences. • The initial stages of learning should provide clear structures that students can grasp and use to create meaning. • Two things that must be communicated to students as we intentionally prime their minds for learning. • 1. tell or show them what they will get out of the experience (learning objectives) • 2. tell or show them what they will encounter as they move through the lesson or learning experience (itinerary)

25. HELPFUL COGNITIVE APPROACHES • 3. Primacy-Recency Effect • We remember best what we first experience, and we remember second best what we experience last. • The front end and the back end of our lessons are significant learning moments we can’t afford to subordinate with clerical or social matters. • Tell the students what you’re going to teach them, teach them, then tell them what you taught them. : ) • By creating two or more lesson cycles during one class, you can double or triple the primacy-recency moments.

26. HELPFUL COGNITIVE APPROACHES • 4. Hydration • When students are dehydrated, their conversation isn’t always clear or relevant, they aren’t fully engaged, they may slump from fatigue,and they are often cranky. • The myelin sheath that envelops each neuron in the brain must stay hydrated to continue to perform its two tasks: to provide support and protection for the neuron and to conduct the sodium- potassium ion pump that moves the impulse down the length of the axon. Hydrated neurons keep the myelin sheath functioning well, which opens more opportunities for learning. If we water them, they will grow. : )

27. HELPFUL COGNITIVE APPROACHES 5. Emotional Content * Most new information initially gets processed in the emotional response centers of the adolescent brain. Then the data moves to the cognitive centers, and only if a teacher provides developmentally appropriate learning experiences. * Attending to the affective connections is crucial to successful differentiation. * Cultivating a classroom environment that is safe and inviting reduces students’ anxiety and encourages them to learn.

28. HELPFUL COGNITIVE APPROACHES 5. Emotional Content Suggestions * Students need to know you care: maintain eye contact, smile, use their names, act interested when they talk, and ask about their families and activities. * Talk less and listen more. * Teach as if you were selling the subject to your students. * Affirm positive risk-taking. * Make sure students experience real competence in your classroom.

29. HELPFUL COGNITIVE APPROACHES 6. Movement * Standing up/moving around gets oxygen to the * Movement relieves the discomfort on the growth plates from lengthening bones. * Physical activities in the classroom create high-performance classrooms, improve student achievement, and reduce discipline problems.

30. HELPFUL COGNITIVE APPROACHES 6. Movement: Sample Activities * Do fun, guided stretches/movements every thirty minutes. * Students catch ball to give oral response to review question. * Instead of matching items on paper, have students walk around the room trying to find a match to their card, or read as many cards as they can trying to locate specific information. * For multiple-choice review, have students stand on the wall that matches their answer (label walls A, B, C, or D). * Do “the wave” to applaud student’s efforts

31. HELPFUL COGNITIVE APPROACHES • 7. Novelty • Novelty excites the brain and stimulates learning, and young adolescent brains are hard-wired for action. • Like it, or not, there is a lot of competition for students’ attention. We live in an impatient world of sound-bite news, accelerating download speeds, and fast food to go. We have to invest some energy in shaking up the learning environment; we have to keep our lessons fresh. • Lessons that create curiosity, anticipation, and suspense activate their intellects and direct their physical and emotional energy toward productive goals.

32. HELPFUL COGNITIVE APPROACHES • 7. Novelty (con’t) • Instead of always lecturing, or writing problems on the overhead projector, you could . . .

33. HELPFUL COGNITIVE APPROACHES • 8. Meeting Survival Needs • The brain seeks self-preservation. Given a choice, it will always choose to conserve energy and maintain dignity. We are wasting our students’ time if we try to teach them without trying to meet their needs. • Pay attention to whether student get enough sleep, eat nutritious meals, manage stress, get regular exercise, practice good hygiene, and feel connected to their peers. Model these good habits for students. Assign daily homework in each of these areas (“Eat five servings of fruit/veggies tomorrow.” “Wash you hands before toughing food and after coughing.”). This makes a point even if students don’t do the assignments.

34. HELPFUL COGNITIVE APPROACHES • 9. Memory Ideas • Elements of memories are stored in different parts of the brain. If we give students a variety of ways to engage with the topic, we secure a wider network of the memory’s storage and make it easier for students to retrieve the memory later. • Every time a neuron fires, it increases the likelihood that it will ignite in the future, and if it doesn’t fire for a while, it takes more stimulation and sometimes relearning to restart it. Therefore, teachers must spiral the curriculum, visiting and revisiting information all year long.

35. HELPFUL COGNITIVE APPROACHES • 9. Memory Ideas (con’t) • Reflection and recoding are particularly important to learning. Reflection refers to time, structure, and inclination to pause in one’s learning to focus on what is going on. In response to something a student contributes to class discussion, the teacher could say, “Tell me more” and “What else?” You can also ask students to use learning logs, summarizations, journal prompts, and interactive notebooks. • Recoding refers to the way students put knowledge into their own constructs. These can be symbolic, abstract, or physical. Students recode when they categorize and structure information; associate visual images with knowledge; make inferences, comparisons, and contrasts, and explain ideas to others.

36. HELPFUL COGNITIVE APPROACHES • 9. Memory Ideas (con’t) • The human brain has a limited number of unrelated items that it can recall simultaneously, depending on the person’s age (5=2, MS=5, HS=7). Use this information to maximize student learning: “What are two things we learned about clouds today?” “Let’s list five differences between these two periods of history.” “What are the seven steps in this molecular evolution?” • We file information my similarity, but we retrieve by difference. If two factors are closely associated in our minds, we try to store them together—the brain loves connections. But when we try to pull the information from our minds, we search for it according to unique identifiers—the differences. If students are confused by two or more similar concepts, we should separate the lessons by a few days. If this is impossible, emphasize the differences and allow for lots of opportunity to practice discriminating between the two.

37. HELPFUL COGNITIVE APPROACHES • 10. Social Interaction • The brain is innately social. It requires interaction to remember things well. One of the best ways we can help students retain information is to engage them in substantive conversations about their learning. • Whoever is responding to students in the classroom is doing the majority of the learning. As often as possible, have students respond to students. Instead of declaring a student’s comment as right or wrong, ask another student to give evidence to support/refute the opinion, then ask a third student to critique the second student’s evidence. Call on the original student to offer a rebuttal. Step in only to prevent misconceptions.

38. HELPFUL COGNITIVE APPROACHES • 10. Social Interaction (con’t) • In a typical classroom, the teacher asks 80 questions for every two questions posed by a student, and 80 percent of the teacher questions are at the lowest levels of Bloom’s Taxonomy—recall and comprehension. If we learn by asking questions, who is doing most of the learning in a typical classroom? We must teach students to ask higher-level questions.

39. HELPFUL COGNITIVE APPROACHES • 10. Social Interaction (con’t) • SUGGESTED ACTIVITIES: • Place a closed box with objects inside that are to be used later in the lesson in the center of the room and place warning and danger stickers all over it. What might be inside and why is it here? • Using VELCRO, attach props to your clothing that you will work into the lesson. • “Working with a partner, brainstorm as many questions as you can to which the answer is homeostasis.”

40. HELPFUL COGNITIVE APPROACHES • 10. Social Interaction (con’t) • SUGGESTED ACTIVITIES: • As you close your lesson, foreshadow the next day’s lesson: “Tomorrow we’ll see how scientists in ancient Egypt actually helped our modern astronauts do their jobs.” • Reveal portions of a new concept a little at a time, reminding students that more is to come. This heightens their sense of anticipation and primes their brains for questions.

41. HELPFUL DIFFERNTIATION APPROACHES

42. HELPFUL DIFFERNTIATION APPROACHES • Different, Not More or Less--strive to change the nature of the assignments, not the quantity. • Adjust Instruction Based on Assessment Results—formal and informal (through classroom observations, conversations, spur-of-the-moment products—these don’t have to be large and complex; they are often straightforward and directly related to what you’re teaching).

43. HELPFUL DIFFERNTIATION APPROACHES • Modify Options • Content—WHAT students learn • Process—HOW students learn • Product—how students PROVE what they’ve learned • Affect—the socio-emotional factors that INFLUENCE learning • Learning Environment--the classroom configurations that provide the best OPPORTUNITIES for students to learn

44. HELPFUL DIFFERNTIATION APPROACHES • Models of Instruction—Components of a great lesson include: • Inviting Thinking Activities • A Set Context and Objectives • Outlined Agenda/Itinerary • Learning Experiences • Sponges (short,, yet substantive activities related to the day’s learning) • Formative and Summative Assessments • Summarization/Closure Tasks • Advanced Look at the Next Lesson

45. HELPFUL DIFFERNTIATION APPROACHES • Models of Instruction—In all units of instruction, there should be time for whole-class, small group, and individual experiences with content and skills. • Back and forth over course of unit Whole Group Individual Individual Small Group Small Group

46. HELPFUL DIFFERNTIATION APPROACHES • Models of Instruction—Teachers who successfully meet the needs of diverse students become adept at mixing and matching multiple models of instruction. • Commit to learning one of these new models and others each year you teach: • Madeline Hunter’s Direct Instruction Model • Dimensions of Learning (Robert Marzano) • One-Third Model (Robert Lynn Canady and Michael Rettig) • Concept Attainment Model (Constructivist Approach) • 4MAT System (Dr. Bernice McCarthy– www.aboutlearning.com )

47. HELPFUL DIFFERNTIATION APPROACHES • Flexible Grouping—students are grouped according to their learning needs, strengths, and preferences. Grouping changes regularly to match student needs to the task at hand.

48. HELPFUL DIFFERNTIATION APPROACHES • Flexible Grouping—Exit Points • Exit Points are optimum times in your curriculum to use flexible grouping. Use when . . . • some students have not yet mastered skills or content and other are ready to move on, or • when some students would benefit from an advanced task and others from a more basic activity.

49. HELPFUL DIFFERNTIATION APPROACHES • Teacher-Student Collaboration—Students are our partners in education; they are not just the clients or the passive recipients of our knowledge. In DI classrooms, teachers are open to the fluid nature of learning. • Ask students to evaluate units of study through notebook reflections and informal report cards. • If you’re struggling with how to reach students, ask them for ideas.

50. HELPFUL DIFFERNTIATION APPROACHES • Personal Agendas—These are only for one or two students who become lost in the general lesson plan. The classroom experience is too distracting or the students are not organized enough to keep up with the group. Providing an individual agenda with specific steps to follow on a piece of paper that these students keep at their desks can serve as a checklist to keep them focused and show their progress.