Growing Teachers to Grow Students: Part I October 9, 2015

 Regardless of differences students are expected to master the same concepts, principles and skills.

Helping every student be successful in their learning is an enormous challenge.

1. Which groups of students are very well served in your school or district right now (engaged, excited, growing academically each day)? What’s your evidence? 2. Which groups of students are not so well served? What’s your evidence? 3. What would you hope to improve for students by helping teachers become more competent and confident in addressing student variance?

1. Jot down your current best understanding of what differentiation is. Assume you’re explaining it to a new teacher who has little acquaintance with differentiation. 2. Share your definition with a group of about 4 at your table. Please ask one another questions that will help “unpack” a fuller sense of a person’s ideas. 3. Use the laminated “mats” at your table to talk about shared understandings and common misunderstandings you encounter about differentiation in your work.

Differentiation of instruction results in successful teaching and successful teaching brings about effective learning. The ultimate criterion for success in teaching is RESULTS (Learning)!

The right moves in teaching are made in light of what learning is required. What we do as teachers is based upon what we want students to learn and what we know about how they learn.

Differentiation is not a set of strategies, but rather a way of thinking about teaching & learning.

Differentiation is a sequence of common sense decisions made by teachers with a student-first orientation.

Differentiation is a teacher’s proactive response to individual student needs. Analyze teaching situations and consider a variety of appropriate teaching strategies for those situations.

 Differentiation is a design of instruction to meet the needs of students.  Before you can differentiate or design a lesson there are a couple of things you will need to know. ACTIVITY (Make a list of what you think you will need to know.)

 Ensuring an environment that actively supports students in the work of learning (mindset, connections, community),  Absolute clarity about a powerful learning destination (KUDs, engagement, understanding),  Persistently knowing where students are in relation to the destination all along the way (formative assessment for and as instruction),  Adjusting teaching to make sure each student arrives at the destination and, when possible, moves beyond it (addressing readiness, interest, learning profile), and Effective leadership & management of flexible classroom routines.

First: Clearly identifying results or learning you want the students to have. Having a clear goal helps to focus planning and guide purposeful action toward the intended learning. Second: Determine what will be accepted as appropriate evidence of understanding/ learning.

 What enabling knowledge and skills will students need in order to perform effectively and achieve desired results? Where do you get this information? How do you go about finding out current knowledge level?

Designers must begin to think about assessment before deciding what and how they will teach.

 The purpose of a statement of objectives is to indicate the kinds of changes in the student to be brought about so that instructional activities can be planned and developed in a way likely to attain these objectives.

 Plan lessons in grade-level teams  Use students’ work to compare expectations of the standards to student learning.

Differentiation is a set of strategies. DI is an entire teaching philosophy grounded in knowing students and responding to their needs. Differentiation is group work. Differentiation employs thoughtful, purposeful flexible grouping. Sometimes students work alone, sometimes in pairs, sometimes as a whole class, and sometimes in small groups– depending upon demonstrated student need.

“I already differentiate.” While many of us may use a strategy associated with differentiation or may differentiate reactively, few have fully, proactively differentiated classrooms– these classrooms develop and grow over time in response to student need. Differentiated lessons have to be creative, “cute,” and fun. While engaging students is an important part of differentiation, it is more important that the lesson be grounded rich curriculum.

Differentiation is just the next educational fad. Because differentiation is a philosophy of meeting a broad range of students’ needs, only when students cease being different will the need for differentiation disappear. Providing choice= differentiation. Different activities have to be held together by clear learning goals.

Differentiation isn’t fair. Fair does not always mean “the same.” In order for students to reach the same goals, they may need to take different paths to get there. Differentiation means “dumbing down” the curriculum for less advanced learners. Differentiation means providing appropriate scaffolding to help all learners reach common learning goals.

Differentiation only works when kids are well- behaved. Creating a responsive classroom can be a great way to improve student behavior, as students’ needs are being met. Preparing a differentiated lesson takes a huge amount of time. Creating any high-quality lesson takes time. As we get our heads wrapped around the process, we become more efficient and develop storehouses of differentiated lessons to adapt.

 Video

 Would it make any difference in practice in your schools if the majority of teachers operated from this perspective on differentiation? Please talk with a “fence partner” or two. 1  How will you go back and start to grow teachers so that they can begin to grow students?

 Teachers  Students  Administrators Individuals have to change before a school can change.

1. Understanding by Design (McTighe & Wiggins) 2. Integrating/Differentiated Instruction Plus Understanding by Design (Tomlinson & McTighe)