Collaborative Inquiry “Teachers possess tremendous knowledge, skill, and experience. Collaborative inquiry creates a structure for them to share that expertise with each other. When teachers engage in ongoing collaborative inquiry focused on teaching and learning and making effective use of data, they improve results for students” (Love, 2008).

Differentiated Instruction Early Literacy Project

Our job is to teach the kids we have! Our job is to teach the kids we have. Not the kids we used to have, Not the kids we would like to have, Not the kids we dream about, Not the kids who were like us when we were students, Our job is to teach the kids we have – each and every one.

What is Differentiated Instruction?  Differentiated instruction is matching instruction to meet the different needs of learners in the classroom.  Teachers will make modifications in how students obtain access to important ideas and skills and/or to the learning environment.  The goal of differentiated instruction is to support maximum success for each learner.

What Differentiated Instruction is Not  Individualized programs for every student.  Different assignments for every lesson or subject.  Assigning struggling students less work and advanced students a lot of the same work.

How Do We Begin to Differentiate? 1.Establish relationships with students. 2.Select learning outcomes. 3.Use pre-assessment data to determine what supports and challenges need to be created to help all students achieve the learning outcomes or further develop their expertise.

Maintain High Expectations For All  Low performing students fare better with a rich, significant curriculum.  Learn to teach to the high end. Students do not necessarily have to master the basic facts before addressing the more abstract concepts of the subject.  Monitor student understanding with ongoing informal assessment.

How Can We Differentiate?  Time  Materials  Student groupings  Teacher-guided instruction  Space  Tasks

Differentiated Instruction With Small Groups Teachers can use assessment data to create small groups that meet the specific needs of the group members. Teachers can vary the:  Size of the group  Number of meetings per week  Number of minutes per day  Content and level of the lesson

An Example of a Group With Intensive Needs:  Has only three members.  Meets daily.  Teacher-Led Small Group Lesson may include intensive work in phonemic awareness and phonics (segmenting, blending, letter- sound correspondences).

An Example of a Group Meeting Their Grade Level Benchmarks:  Has six members.  Meets at least twice a week.  Teacher-Led Small Group Lesson may include guided reading lessons, advanced phonics and word study (multisyllabic words) and vocabulary study.

Anchor Activities  Writing journals  Creative writing prompts  Independent reading  Content-related reading  Reading games or activities  Computer activities  Centres

Tiered Lessons  Tiering is a differentiated instructional planning strategy that enables educators to teach one concept at multiple levels of complexity based on students’ readiness levels.  All students work toward the same content goals and essential understandings.