He wasn't the best in the classroom, and he wasn't the worst. I remember that he did struggle with rolling his rs. One day, he didn't come to class, and we got word that he had committed suicide. Not that I could have done anything to prevent this, but you always have the nagging doubt that perhaps you could have made a difference.
In that moment, I vowed to never assume the quiet ones were OK. Yet even with that, we are pressured to give the students with more needs more attention than those students who have less needs. The largest conflict about differentiated instruction boils up inside of us when we try to assign a grade to that differentiated instruction. How can we justifiably give the students the same grade when the quality, quantity, or content of the performance is different?
I have yet to read a truly compelling argument to answer that question. Most people mumble something about grades being a relative measure of student performance and designed for communication of progress only. So, this is my attempt to make sense of this dilemma and perhaps calm a few nervous hearts in the process.
In my prior post , I discussed the idea of intrinsic differentiation and the role of active learning and active teaching. Now, I want to discuss designed differentiation a bit. Designed differentiation is the deliberate act of modifying instruction or an assignment in order to customize the effect to match the particular developmental level and skills of a student or group of students.
The ideal is to provide equivalent learning activities that cater to the students' strengths but bring all of the students to the same learning objective. On one end of the spectrum is the one-size-fits-all learning activity, while on the other end is the completely individualized learning plan for each student.
Although I believe it is time for the latter, realism demands that teachers deal with something that hovers around the middle of the continuum. Educators, learn more about how to use flexible grouping with small groups. A teacher uses differentiated instruction to give every student multiple paths to learning.
Instead, the teacher personalizes teaching to help kids meet those goals. Learn more about setting annual IEP goals. Differentiated instruction is not the same as individualized instruction. That type of teaching changes the pace of how students learn.
Differentiated instruction is also different from personalized learning. With personalized learning, students have their own learning profiles and paths to follow.
Find out more about personalized learning and the difference between individualized instruction and differentiated instruction.
It can also be time-consuming for teachers. Discover more about Universal Design for Learning. At first, he would just sit there quietly, taking things in. But by middle school, he began to be more vocal about his needs. Share What is differentiated instruction? In a differentiated classroom, teaching is evolutionary. Students and teachers are learners together. While teachers may know more about the subject matter at hand, they are continuously learning about how their students learn.
Teachers monitor the match between learner and learning and make adjustments as warranted. All rights reserved. Carol Ann Tomlinson works with educators to create classrooms that are more responsive to a broad range of learners. She is William Clay Parrish, Jr. Tomlinson teaches post-graduate students mainly in the areas of curriculum design and differentiated instruction.
As an educator for more than 21 years, Tomlinson has also worked as an elementary and secondary public school teacher. She was named one of the two most influential higher education voices in the United States in Psychology and the 16th most influential in all education-related fields in 's EducationNext Edu-Scholar Public Presence rankings.
She has written more than books, book chapters, articles, and other materials for educators. Carol Ann Tomlinson. Instructional Strategies. Learn More. Want to save this article for later?
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