Download - Guiding Differentiation
Guiding Differentiation
Suggestions for gifted support teachersCarolyn Hoy, M. Ed
Warwick School DistrictMillersville University
Agenda
Defense of differentiation
The gifted support teacher’s role
Suggested strategies to assist your teachers
More resources to explore
Questions to ponder
Has gifted education exacerbated social, economic, and racial divisions in society?
Does the term ‘gifted’ engender feelings of elitism?
Do the teachers that work with the identified gifted in your building have an understanding of their needs?
What is the role of the gifted support teacher in light of new regs?
Gifted children should not have ‘mysteriously defined attributes and learning needs.’ By presenting data, we can help general education teachers come to an understanding that some children have exceptionally advanced learning needs that require flexibly responsive educational attention.
• http://porbital.deviantart.com/art/A-
Changing paradigms of gifted education
Mysterious-Man-136173061
“Giftedness isexceptionally advanced subject-specific ability at a particular point in time such that a student’s learning needs cannot be well met without significant adaptationsto the curriculum.”
(Matthews & Foster, 2005b, p. 26).
How can gifted students’ learning needs be best supported?
Which one describes your faculty?
Parallel play: “We all live in our separate caves.” “We’re all in this -- alone.”
Adversarial relationships: withholding craft knowledge, competing for materials, recognition
Congenial relationships: personal, friendly relationships with colleagues
Collegial relationships...
Collegial relationships
• Educators talking with one another about practice.
• Educators sharing their craft knowledge.
• Educators observing one another while they are engaged in practice.
• Educators rooting for one another's success.
When we ‘play together’ it looks like...
And students win!
Creating a culture of collegiality
Talk about practice
Share craft knowledge
Observe one another
Root for one another
Get leadership involved
Roland Barth, Improving Relationships in the Schoolhouse
11 Ways to Guide Teachers to Differentiation
1. Know the standards
2. Vary instructional strategies and activities
3. Create a learning climate
4. Exhibit ‘with-it-ness’
5. Provide a wide variety of materials and resources
6. Know the students
11 Ways to Guide Teachers to Differentiation
7. Assess before, during, and after the learning
8. Adjust assignments
9. Plan student-focused opportunities
10. Use flexible grouping designs
11. Know change is gradual
Creating the Classroom Climate
Respect diversity
Maintain high expectations
Generate openness
Consider introductory activity/interest inventories, other ways to learn about your students
Activity!
Go to the paper that describes your knowledge of the subject announced
BELOW BASIC
BASIC
PROFICIENT
ADVANCED
DI basics
Vary content: What do you want students to learn?
Vary process: What do you want the students to do cognitively?
Vary product:How do you want students to demonstrate what they have learned?
Questions Leading to Differentiation
Planning Question
What do I want students to know, understand and be able to do?
Pre-assessing Question
Who already knows, understands and/or can use the content or demonstrate the skill?
Differentiation Question
What can I do for them so that they can make continuous progress and extend their learning?
Roberts, 9
Here’s one place to start...
Curriculum compacting:
Creates a challenging learning environment: assesses what a student knows and what is still needed
Guarantees proficiency in curriculum: eliminates content that is already known
Buys time for enrichment/acceleration
GIEP goals: Acceleration and/or enrichment
Student may need compaction if he..
Consistently finishes tasks quickly
Finishes reading assignments first
Appears bored during instructional time
Consistently daydreams
Creates own puzzles, diversions in class
Brings in outside reading material
Student may need compaction if he..
Performs well in one or more academic areas
Test scores excellent despite average/below average classwork
Asks questions which indicate familiarity with material
Is sought after by other students for assistance
Uses vocabulary and verbal expression in advance of grade level
Expresses interest in pursuing alternate or advanced topics
Suggestions for Pre-assessment
Pre-assess by
End of the previous unit assessment
End of unit assessment
K-W-L charts
Mind maps
Five most difficult questions
Open ended questions
Considerations
Communicate with parents about the compacting
Document, document, document
Allow student choice but never the choice to do nothing
How do I do it?1. Identify the objectives in a given subject area.
2. Pre-test
3. Eliminate instructional time for students who show mastery of the objectives.
4. Offer challenging alternatives for time provided by compacting
5. Set criteria for mastery of alternatives
6. Keep records of process.
Suggestions for compacting
Learning contracts
Study guide extension menu
SCAMPER
Bloom’s taxonomy
Think-tac-toe
Independent project
Learning contracts
Structure in taking responsibility for own learning
Chance to try new way of learning
Students involved in decision making: increased intrinsic motivation
Student interest driven
Learning contracts
Benefits
Can be useful in closing achievement gaps
Can be useful in providing student support for lack of motivation
When to use it
Useful when students are identified as needing additional teacher and parental support
To encourage student to investigate learning in depth and with fidelity of topics of interest for personal growth
Study guide extension menu
1. Determine and list the key concepts for the unit of study.
2. Describe related concepts that will not be included in the unit of study - concepts to study in depth if time permitted.
3. Create a study guide for the key concepts only. Student completes at own pace whileyou provide direct instruction for the rest of the class.
4. Develop formative assessments to check for understanding of the key concepts in the study guide.
5. Create an extension menu using the related concepts from step #2 above.
6. Have students determine the method they would like to use to present the information investigated in the extension menu. You can use the Product Choices Chart.
7. Discuss parameters of completing this work using the independent study agreement for both the study guide and independent study.
8. Determine and discuss the grading policy for both the study guide and extension menu project.
Study guide extension menu
Important to remember about this method:
Students do not need to do the actual daily work of the other students.
Students are expected to share what they have learned with their classmates.
You should plan some time each week to meet with students working more independently to assess their progress and assist them in research.
Students are required to keep a folder of their independent work in the classroom, so they always have something to work on.
S C A M P E R
SCAMPER is a mnemonic that stands for:
•Substitute •Combine •Adapt •Modify/minify/magnify •Put to another use •Eliminate •Reverse
Using Bloom’s Taxonomy
Develop respectful, engaging tasks for each level
Distribute rubrics/scoring guides for each
Cognitive Process Dimension
Remember: retrieve knowledge from LT memory
Understand: Construct meaning from instructional messages, oral, written, graphic
Apply: Carry out or use a procedure
Analyze: Break material into parts and determine structure and purpose
Evaluate: Make judgements based on criteria/standards
Create: Put elements together to form a coherent or functional whole, reorganize elements into a new pattern/structure
Think-Tac-Toe/Choice boards
So many resources already exist! Don’t re-invent the wheel. Show your teachers this website:
http://daretodifferentiate.wikispaces.com/Choice+Boards
Independent projects
Should be guided
Proposal/timeline/goals
Student & teacher generated assessment
Try Understanding by Design (McTighe/Wiggins) framework
Based on student strengths
Renzulli’s 5 Dimensions
Differentiate the content
Differentiate instructional styles
Differentiate the classroom
Differentiate the products
Differentiate YOU!
How to differentiate YOU?
Sage on the stage Guide on the side
Athletic or drama coach
Stage manager/production manager
Promotional agent
Academic advisor
Artistic modification: painting yourself into the curriculum (Renzulli)
Video:I have differentiated my lessons
What a child doesn’t learn
Work ethic
Responsibility
Coping with disappointment
Self worth stemming from the accomplishment of a challenging task
Time management skills/study skills
Goal setting/ decision making
Sacrifice Tracy Inman, What a Child Doesn’t Learn
Trends in Education
Democratized EntrepreneurshipTo take advantage of this trend: Begin to cultivate an edupreneurial mindset of experimentation, risk-taking, learning from failure, creative problem-solving, and market awareness in your classroom, and expand it to your school and district.
Personalization StrategiesTo take advantage of this trend: Find ways to enrich your students' cognitive environment through social-emotional skills and brain-based insights
Diversification of School FormatsTo take advantage of this trend: Identify ways that your district can diversify its school formats to serve the multiple and changing needs of the community and its learners.
Changing Certification Methods To take advantage of this trend: Help
students of all ages communicate their meta-learning -- their insights about their skills, the application of their skills, and evidence of their learning.
Transforming Urban Learning LandscapesTo take advantage
of this trend: Identify community partners with whom you can develop relationships that support purposeful curriculum based on solving real problems.
Barth, R. (2006). Improving relationships within the schoolhouse. Educational Leadership, 63(6), 8-13. Retrieved from http://www.ascd.org/publications/educational-leadership/mar06/vol63/num06/Improving-Relationships-Within-the-Schoolhouse.aspx
Dare to differentiate. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://daretodifferentiate.wikispaces.com/Home
Differentiation using curriculum compacting. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.gifted.uconn.edu/nrcgt/nrconlin.html
Inman, T. (2007). What a child doesn’t learn. The Challenge, Winter 2007, 17-19.
Matthews, D., & Foster, J. (2006). Mystery to mastery: shifting paradigms in gifted education. Roeper Review, 28(6), 64-69. Retrieved from http://www.raisingsmarterkids.net/mystery to mastery.pdf
Post, G. (2013, June 04). [Web log message]. Retrieved from http://www.blogher.com/lets-not-call-them-gifted
Resources
Reis, S., & Renzulli, J. (n.d.). Differentiation. Compass Learning, Retrieved from https://www.compasslearning.com/white-papers
Roberts, J., & Inman, T. (2009). Differentiating instruction: best practices for the classroom. Waco, TX: Prufrock Press.
Rotherman, A. (2013, April 25). The illusion of the 'gifted' child. Time, Retrieved from http://ideas.time.com/2013/04/25/the-illusion-of-the-gifted-child/
Renzulli, J. (n.d.). Painting yourself into the professional growth picture- artistic modification. Neag Center for Gifted Education and Talent Development, Retrieved from http://www.gifted.uconn.edu/sem/paintyou.html
Starko, A. (1986). It's about time: inservice strategies for curriculum compacting. Mansfield Center, Conn: Creative Learning Press.
Thompson, M. (1998). A response to 'all children are gifted'. Indiana Association for the Gifted Annual Conference, Retrieved from http://www.rfwp.com/samples/mct-gifted-