Creating Lifelong Learners

I’ve had some time now to reflect on my blog’s discussion about differentiation that brought about some pretty exciting comments, particularly on this post about classroom management which now has 40 comments, most of them about differentiation even though that wasn’t what the post was about.

Tracking vs. Differentiation is the Wrong Argument

I think the discussion was framed incorrectly by people who viewed the conversation as one about tracking vs. differentiation. I understand that the argument was framed as such if you followed certain links in but I reject the idea that tracking means you won’t have to differentiate because even then the students have different talents and skills. I’m also not about discussing whether heterogenous groupings of students is better or not better. The fact is that most classes are put together with mixed ability groupings and I’m about how to make that work. Arguments for or against differentiation have their place but this isn’t it.

We Have to Accept Mediocrity/Every Teacher Can’t Be a Superstar

No we don’t/not every teacher has to be.

These were a couple of the comments I received. If you haven’t heard me when I say that differentiation through methods like writer’s workshop and student research are not more work for a teacher than traditional worksheets then I haven’t done what I set out to do.

I do not consider myself a superstar and I’m not one of those teachers who stays at school until six o’clock at night every day cleaning my closets. Many teachers put in a lot of time and it doesn’t necessarily translate into better teaching. I like teaching methods that require little preparation but involve small tweaks that make huge differences in student learning…like having students pair share information, employing visuals for presentation, allowing students to choose topics of interest to them. None of these things take more of my personal time and they each have paid big dividends for me. Try them out.

English Language Learners Don’t Read My Blog

I sympathize with the gifted parents who read and commented on my blog posts. In the interest of full-disclosure I was identified as gifted in the second grade and although I was placed in regular classrooms I participated in a pull-out GATE program. Those who commented that gifted students need to be challenged and engaged are preaching to the choir if they’re talking to me.

However, the voices of parents of English Language Learners I teach are apparently not represented in the comments. I reject the idea that gifted students are the only ones who are bored in class. I think everyone needs better (read more engaging and relevant teaching that promotes higher level thinking). The idea that your lowest students can’t participate in writing and research on their current academic level is hogwash.

Teacher Used to Do It All the Time

My favorite comment received is from Carolyn who said:

Teachers used to differentiate instruction all the time–this was what happened in one room school houses, with eight grades. All kids learned to work independently and all kids’ needs could be addressed since there were eight levels of material at any given moment.

While one-room schoolhouses had a lot of problems, I do get tired of whining about how hard it is to have students of different talents in the same room.

I don’t see engaging students of different levels as an option, I think that’s what teaching is.

Also see Part One: Why? and Part Two: How?

If all this has seemed good to you, you may still be wondering how we fit this in when teachers are already pressed to the limit in terms of time management.

Direct Instruction

There will be times in every classroom when the teacher needs to address the whole class to demonstrate a skill, raise a question, or present new information. By employing technology, realia, and visuals, teachers can make their content comprehensible to more students than if they simply use their voice. Nevertheless, even the best direct instruction will likely leave out some students who still don’t get it and others who  already know it.   Classrooms that employ direct instruction for the majority of the day probably aren’t as effective as they could be in terms of making content comprehensible for all or as far as engaging students.

Fitting It All In

The way I have managed to fit it all in is to move as quickly as possible through direct instruction as possible so that I have time to move on to activities like I’ve written about in part two as well as a special time of day we call independent work time in which all students are working on their own while the teacher calls small groups to work on needed skills.

Teachers need to be getting to this dedicated differentiation time of day (IWT, Workshop, Universal Access Time, etc) as a bare minimum. However, differentiation is not just about a special time of day. In order to differentiate instruction, teachers need to value each student for the unique talents that each brings to the classroom and plan activities that allow them to demonstrate their learning in different ways.

While we await part 3 about when to “fit in” differentiation, I wanted to share some of the great info I’ve received in comments or e-mail from web site visitors.

Ken Pendergrass, elementary music teacher from Seattle, shares a differentiated lesson with impressive use of enhanced Garageband podcasting.

Alice Mercer, Sacramento computer lab teacher and founder of the superblog In Practice, shares the Pyramid Plan which is a good visual for a differentiated lesson with multiple objectives for students at different levels. (All students will learn X, some students will learn Y, a few students will learn Z).

Nancy Bosch, who has nearly three decades experience teaching gifted students offers these tips:

I think one of the things people miss about differentiation is they think it’s like the old days where every kid had a different plan. In a differentiated classroom the same material is taught, what the kid does with the material and how he makes sense of it is what is different. So the process and product is differentiated by ability, interest and learning preference.

Be sure to mention the work of Carol Tomlinson–she is the differentiation guru. Susan Winebrenner’s book, Teaching Gifted Kids in the Regular Classroom is also helpful to some.

And I thank Steven Kimmi for helping me to clarify my thinking on differentiated instruction. While this conversation started from comments by a gifted parent, let’s not forget that it’s not only the gifted students who are bored in typical classrooms. Let’s make sure that everyone has access to technology, research and inquiry, and independent thinking. Otherwise the academically rich only get richer and the poor get much poorer.

Please keep the ideas coming.

Also see: Part One: Differentiate This! Why?

(Cross-posted in In Practice)

OK, we agree (or most of us do anyway) that we need to tailor our instruction to the students in our classroom.

We cannot teach effectively by planning lessons in isolation without considering the interaction between what we’ve planned and the students in our room, without being truly present in the classroom to assess students’ reactions and understanding, and to appeal to diverse learning styles as we begin to observe them in our students.

How Do We Differentiate?

One misconception about differentiation is that a teacher must come up with an entirely different curriculum for each student or type of student in a classroom. That would be great but it’s not possible. In fact the very thought of it is overwhelming and it’s the reason that many teachers do not attempt to differentiate because they think it’s too much work.

The number one way we can begin to differentiate our lessons is to stop relying on worksheets for so much of our instruction. Not everything that involves a photocopy is necessarily bad but it is a lot harder to differentiate instruction by giving every student the same paper and having everyone fill in the same blanks. (And giving different levels of students different levels of worksheets isn’t much better).

Let’s replace some of our worksheets with activities that all students can participate in at whatever level they’re at. Some examples:

• Writer’s Workshop
  A time of day in which all students write on topics of their own choosing while the teacher conferences with students and guides them in their writing, discussing individual student needs.
• Discussion and persuasion
  Rather than having students answer yes or no questions, have students formulate ideas, communicate those ideas, and justify them by talking to peers.
• Inquiry and research
  Every student is curious if we allow them to be. Let them form their own questions and research their own answers. We guide them on this journey but they choose the journey.
• Project based learning
  Let’s have students brainstorm and concentrate on problem solving of real world issues and hands on learning.
• Create
  The highest level of Bloom’s revised taxonomy. Have students create a play, a movie, a song, a poem, a painting, anything to demonstrate content knowledge or to communicate their own dreams and wishes.

See:  Part Three: Differentiate This! When?

A post about classroom management here on the blog recently evolved into a conversation about differentiation, a subject which I’ve written about before…on this blog and as part of my graduate studies but it’s time to revisit the subject.

Why Heterogenously Group Students?

This is an unintentionally misleading question that presumes that there are groups of students who exist in this world who are exactly the same. Even if you had a group of students who were identified as gifted or identified as english language development (ELD) level 2, for example, and grouped them together in one classroom you would find that those students each have different talents, different learning styles, and unique strengths and weaknesses.

Whether classes are intentionally designed or chosen randomly there will never be a classroom in which a teacher doesn’t have to differentiate to the individual needs of those students.

Teachers who complain about having students of different levels haven’t realized this yet. Your students will always be of different levels; that’s teaching. You will always have to reteach to some or all and present lessons in different ways to appeal to different learners.

The reason for including students who are identified as gifted as well as those who are identified for special education in the same classroom is that in the world, those same people will not be separated but will have to work together.

Universities and the workplace themselves are set up heterogenously. It’s presumptuous to assume that it is only the gifted student who has something to offer a classroom full of students. If a team is built in a classroom then all students support each other in their learning, both academic and social. In a classroom where there is discussion and collaboration, learning is no longer a solitary activity but one which involves problem solving, collaboration, and communication. Students identified as gifted can be challenged in such an environment at the same time that students of lower levels can be included in class activities on their own level.

While parents have the option of sending students to magnet schools, charter schools, public schools, private schools, or homeschooling and can make their own decisions for their children, there are great advantages for students and schools in heterogenous classrooms.

As for teachers, let’s agree that we will always have to differentiate our instruction for the diverse learners we have in our classrooms. It’s not an option.

Please post your ideas and concerns below. Why isn’t differentiation happening?  How can we ensure that it does?

continue with Differentiate This! Part Two: How?