Differentiated room

. each child is approached as an individual
. teacher teaches the whole child
. teacher continues to develop expertise
. teacher links students and ideas
. teachers strives for joyful learning
. teacher offers high expectations and lots of ladders
. teacher helps students make their own sense of ideas
. teacher shares teaching with students
. teacher strives for student independence
. teacher uses positive energy and humor
. "discipline" is more covert than overt

Helthy Classroom - content

. is relevant to students; it seems personal, familiar, connected to the world they know.

. helps students understand themselves and their lives more fully now, and will continue to do so as they grow up.

. is authentic, offering "real" history of math or art, not just exercises about the subject.

. can be used immediately for something that matters to the students.

. makes students more powerful in the present and in the future.

Kids in a healthy classroom

Each kid likes all others and different from all others.
Kids need unconditional acceptance as human beings.
Kids need to believe that they can become better than they are.
Kids need help in living up to their dreams.
Kids have to make their own sense of things.
Kids often make their own sense of things more effectively and coherently when adults colaborate with them.
Kids need action, joy, and peace.
Kids need power over their lives and learning.
Kids need help developing that power and use it wicely.
Kids need to be secure in a larger world.

Students vary in experience, readiness, interest, intellegences, language, culture, gender and mode of learning.

To maximize the potential of each student, a teacher needs to meet each student at hi starting point.

Teachers need to make modifications for students rather than assuming that students will modify themselves to fit the teachers.

Teaching efforts should be based on what "keeps students wanting to learn".

Differentiated classroom, instructions

Assessment is on-going and diagnostic. Teachers need a day-to-day understanding of where students are.

Teacher modifies content, process, and product.
. make up gaps
. change pace
. skip learned stuff

Differentiated Classroom Basics

A teacher begins where the students are, not the front of a curriculum guide. They accept and build upon the premise that the learners differ in many ways.

Different modalities.
Appealing to different interests.
varied rates of instruction.
varied degrees of complexity.
a student competes against himself only.

Needs of Struggling Learners

Everyone does some things really well. It is important to find those things.

1. People overlook the strength of these learners.
2. Spend too much time remediating what they do not do well. (Not working on what they do well)
3. Just learn enough of the "big picture" without all the details.
4. Use many avenues of learning.
5. See with eyes of love. Tolerate

Needs of Advanced Learners

1. Become mentally lazy.
2. Grades are important. Being praised is important.
3. Perfectionist. Do not want to risk getting things wrong. Avoid trying to avoid failure. Worry too much. Eating disorder.
4. Never developed learning skills or coping skills.

Differentiated Classroom - Why

1. If a lesson is good for "standard issue" students, it is not good for other students.

2. There is no substitute for high-quality curriculum and instructions.

3. Build a bridge between "learner" and "learning" for each individual learner for life.

Differentiated classroom is

1. Proactive - Teacher needs to know the kids and tailor instructions.

2. Qualititive but not just a lot of work for all. (A student who knows this math does not need to practice with 50 problems of this kind)

3. Evaluating all the time. Is it working? What can be modified?(not just a unit test after everything)

4. Multiple Approaches to content, process, and product.

5. Student centered. Interesting. Relevant. Teacher will eventually make students responsible for learning.

6. Instruction is whole class, groups, individual. (Keeps changing amongst those three)

7. Organic Classroom is dynamic. Teacher and students collaborate, make course-corrections, re-grouping, re-evaluating all the time.

Differentiated classroom is NOT

1. It is not the individualized plan for each student done in the 70s. It is not assuming students are at different levels so they are taught at different levels.

2. Not a chaotic classroom. (Develop ground rules with students)

3. Not fixed grouping. (Do flexible grouping so low groups are not always the same people)

4. Not teaching students at their levels. (Teach high to all)

Differentiated Instruction

Went to see Ms. Caroline Tomlinson at UVA. She is the expert in "teaching in a differentiated way". Her words on her school web:

Major research interests include differentiation of instruction for academically diverse learners including teacher and administrator attitudes and practices related to academic diversity, impacts of initial teacher preparation on novice teacher readiness to teach in academically diverse settings, impacts of varied school and teaching practices on low income and minority learners, and the change process in schools moving toward more academically responsive classrooms.

Tracking is out. Students of all levels and all backgrounds will be in one room. A teacher needs to figure out where the students are, how they learn and tailor instructions to them.

Few major points:

Teach Up.
Spend time planning.
On-going assessments.
Start with one school and make sure principal and teachers buy in.
On-going efforts to support teachers. Can't be done with a mandate or few hours of staff training.
Build a teamwork or a sense of community in class.
Flexible grouping.