Differentiated+Instruction+Article+page

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Task: Collaborate with others who attended the MLC 2006 to design one issue of the NFLRC newsletter that will provide foreign language educators that did not have the opportunity to attend the institute with thoughtful, online professional development regarding your focus area topic.

Roles: The group facilitator should coordinate these efforts, but the group members should contribute to the structure, organization, and content of the newsletter.

Audience: Your primary target audience consists of people who are currently working in K-12 schools.

Goal: Remember, your goal is NOT to provide a comprehensive course on your focus topic, but rather, to provide a concise and compelling reading experience that will give readers opportunities to explore clear examples of your key concepts and guiding principles in action in ways that help them to consider the meaning of the topic for their own personal contexts.

Format: Apply principles of design to help busy readers think about your topic in new ways that make them want to seek additional information. Short paragraphs written in a conversational style that contains representative examples of your key ideas will be most appropriate.

Content: Rephrase the guiding principles from your Thinking Template as questions. These will become the essential guiding questions for the newsletter. Offer several potential "answers" to each question in the form of links: Perspectives: One "conceptual" link that will help readers to understand key ideas more thoroughly. Practices: One "contextual" link that provides at least one good model of what these concepts look like in action, and one "student based" link that shows them how this topic applies to their work with the students in K-12 classrooms. Products: One "student based" link that will help readers to envision how students might become involved with this topic area and how doing so will help them to use their language skills more productively.

Submission: Send an electric copy of the finished newsletter as a Microsoft Word document to Cherice and Cindy by November 10. We will edit your work and prepare it to be posted on the NFLRC website. Use this template to outline the sections that you will include in your newsletter.

“If a child can't learn the way we teach, maybe we should teach the way they learn.” Ignacio Estrada Title (toni) Introductory Paragraph (toni)

Guiding Question#1: How does differentiated instruction honors multiple pathways to learning?

Effective critical and creative thinking can be more effectively developed with a foundation in basic knowledge of a content area. Differentiation provides the scaffolding that students in different readiness levels need in order to put this foundation knowledge in place. Only when a student works at a level that is both challenging and attainable does learning take place**.** By diagnosing **student readiness** within a class the appropriate complexity of work can be provided for each readiness level. By varying how students //encounter// information that is essential in a unit or series of units, they are more apt to have meaningful access to the required content. Teachers use what they learn about **readiness**, **learning profile**, and **interests** to modify **content**, **process**, **product**, and **learning environment** to ensure maximum learning for each member of the class. Differentiated Instruction has an affective benefit: building confidence and security in students as they respond to grouping and tasks that are respectful to their learning profiles and readiness levels. The mood or tone of a differentiated classroom should balance seriousness about work with celebration of successes.

Link1 http://www.ldpride.net/learningstyles.MI.htm Learning styles and Multiple intelligences Link 2 http://www.wi-rsn.org/pd/files/Differentiated%20Instruction%20intro.ppt#1 awesome Powerpoint from Nanci Smith Cave Creek, Az. Link 3 http://www.ndlead.org/information/programs/NDCLP/Downloads/DI%20Overview.pdf Tomlinson's organizational chart Link 4 http://www.educationworld.com/a_issues/chat/chat107.shtml (interview/overview with Tomlinson)

Guiding Question #2: Learning occurs when a teacher effectively responds to individual needs.

Fairness is not giving everyone the same thing. Fairness is giving everyone what they need to grow. In the world of learning, **one size does not fit all.** Differentiation does not change WHAT we teach, it refers to HOW we teach. The goal of a differentiated classroom is plan actively and consistently to help each learner move as far and as fast as possible along a learning plan. What each learner needs in order for this to happen will be different. It is fair to provide each student or each set of grouped students the instructional support they need in order to achieve to their optimal level. Differentiation must always be an extension of, not a substitute for, high quality curriculum. Any high quality curriculum will be focused, engaging, standards-based, demanding, authentic, and scaffolded. Differentiated Instruction expects every lesson plan to be, at its heart, a motivational plan. By reflecting on **student interest**, **readiness**, and **learning profile**, all learners in the classroom can be motivated and engaged to cause substantive understanding to occur.

Link 1 http://www.internet4classrooms.com/di.htm (general info) Link 2 http://www.gifted.uconn.edu/nrcgt/newsletter/summer04/sumer043.html Link 3 http://www.southlakecarroll.edu/DI%20Brochure.pdf

Guiding Question #3: ) How do individual students' readiness levels, interests and learning profiles guide teachers to plan effective lessons?

Effective critical and creative thinking can be more effectively developed with a foundation in basic knowledge of a content area. Differentiation provides the scaffolding that students in different readiness levels need in order to put this foundation knowledge in place. Only when a student works at a level that is both challenging and attainable does learning take place**.** By diagnosing **student readiness** within a class the appropriate complexity of work can be provided for each readiness level. By varying how students //encounter// information that is essential in a unit or series of units, they are more apt to have meaningful access to the required content. Teachers use what they learn about **readiness**, **learning profile**, and **interests** to modify **content**, **process**, **product**, and **learning environment** to ensure maximum learning for each member of the class. Differentiated Instruction has an affective benefit: building confidence and security in students as they respond to grouping and tasks that are respectful to their learning profiles and readiness levels. The mood or tone of a differentiated classroom should balance seriousness about work with celebration of successes.

Link 1 http://members.shaw.ca/priscillatheroux/differentiatingstrategies.html Link 2 http://www.hoagiesgifted.org/curriculum.htm Link 3

Guiding Question #4: What is ongoing assessment? Ongoing assessment provides the teacher with data to design respectful tasks and to use flexible grouping. Although continual or ongoing assessment should happen daily, a **culminating activity or assessment** should evaluate the success of students in attaining the knowledge and skills, understanding the concepts and principles, and applying the learning of the teacher-established goals and objectives of the unit. In order for all students to have an opportunity to be successful with this culminating assessment, the learning experiences of the classroom must have been targeted at achieving and integrating this set of goals and objectives. Characteristics of a good culminating assessment include: a clear match between the expected outcomes of the classroom learning experiences and the task or tasks provided; tasks which sample the most important outcomes of the goals and objectives; and tasks which allow for student performance at the level of learning expected. How does an assessment like this look in the classroom? It is a learning experience that allows the students to demonstrate what they have learned using their preferred mode of learning with clearly specified criteria at each level of achievement.
 * Continual or Ongoing Assessment** requires the teacher to constantly monitor student interests, learning profiles, and readiness in order to adjust to the growing student. This does not mean continual pre-tests or pop quizzes. In the differentiated classroom, this means regular use of exit cards, journal prompts, student surveys, anticipation guides, thumbs up-thumbs down, fist of five, traffic light cards (green, yellow, red), student self assessments, KWL charts, Frayer diagrams, knowledge rating charts, class polls, Me graphs, exit questions, etc. All of these activities can give the teacher more accurate knowledge of what the students have actually acquired from learning experiences than she gets from just asking the question, “Does everyone understand?” or “Any questions?”

Link 1 **//All differentiation of learning begins with student assessment//** http://members.shaw.ca/priscillatheroux/assessing.html Link 2 http://jonathan.mueller.faculty.noctrl.edu/toolbox/ Authentic assessment toolbox Link 3 http://learnweb.harvard.edu/alps/modules/help.cfm?help_id=help504_1 (Explanation of ongoing assessment)

Guiding Question #5: How do respectful tasks and flexible grouping give students equitable access and support? Inside each one of these groups, the teacher has developed tasks that are at the proper level of difficulty for each group. **Respectful tasks** maintain high expectations for all students, expect all students to achieve at optimal levels, and are equally engaging for each readiness, interest, or learning profile group. Development of a range of tasks that have the same instructional goal or objective allows students with an advanced readiness level to skip practice on previously mastered skills and move to activities and products that are complex, open-ended, or multi-faceted, controlling their own pace through the instructional sequence. Students with less developed readiness may need more opportunities for direct instruction, practice, and verbal meta-cognitive scripting. Their activities or products are more structured or more concrete with fewer steps. Application activities are slower paced, closer to their own experiences, and require simpler reading skills.
 * Flexible grouping** can only take place when a teacher has diagnosed her class and determined the **Interests**, **Learning Profile**, and **Readiness** of the students in the class. The grouping is flexible, because the teacher groups differently according to the task she is asking her students to perform. If the task involves a skill and practicing that skill, she may group according to student readiness. If the task involves intake of content for knowledge, she may group according to learning profile. If the task involves application of a skill inside content, she may group according to student interest. Groups are also flexible in number. Whole-class activities can segue into pair or small group work. It is also important to remember to bring partner or small group work back into a whole-class level to reinforce big ideas and culmination activities.

Link 1 http://209.184.141.5/edtech/CMT-Help/Differentiation.htm Differentiation strategies Link 2 http://www.southlakecarroll.edu/differentiation.htm Link 3 http://www.newpaltz.edu/migrant/CEC%2004%20handout.html strategies

Guiding Question #6: Equitable access and support to standards-aligned content for all students are the goals of differentiated instruction (Need some text here.) Link 1 http://www.weac.org/kids/1998-99/march99/differ.htm Teaching in mixed-ability classrooms Teachers guide students down many paths to a common destination Mary Anne Hess Link 2 http://www.ascd.org/ed_topics/el200009_tomlinson.html Standards based teaching and differentiation Tomlinson Link 3 http://www.sedl.org/loteced/communique/n06.html (article-differentiation and foreign language)

Quotes to Ponder When planning a differentiated unit or lesson, reflect on the following questions: What are the key concepts that every student must know, understand, and be able to do? What is being differentiated? (the content, the process, the product) How is this lesson being differentiated? (readiness, interests, learning profile) Why is this lesson being differentiated? (motivation, access, efficiency) How will this lesson impact student learning?

Memories of Iowa References Littky, Dennis. The Big Picture: Education is Everyone's Business. ASCD: Alexandria, VA, 2004. Tomlinson, Carol Ann. The Differentiated Classroom: Responding to the Needs of All Learners. ASCD: Alexandria, VA, 1999.