A Notion About Differentiation

Last summer, I was asked to prepare and conduct a teacher workshop on differentiated instruction. Before saying, “yes”–I was inclined to reflect on my own teaching practices, seeking personal anecdotes that would give life and support to the approaches of unknown though successful educators, theorists and the like. To be convincing, I needed to convince through real life experiences: trials and success. I didn’t have to think long.  My teaching career is well documented with differentiated instruction–just cloaked in another name or maybe, laying naked and out in the open as good teaching.

For current published resources, I drew on the work of  Carol Ann Tomlinson and Jay McTighe, both well-known in the field of curriculum and instruction. Their collaborative work brought to my mind my own teaching experiences of the early 90’s.  Beginning in 1992 and continuing for about seven years, I worked with a team of teachers in building a cross-curricular course that spanned two years of high school and incorporated studies of literature, history and science. Within that course, we integrated Howard Gardner’s multiple intelligences and focused not on pen and paper assessments, but on  project based assessments that engaged students in a more real world focus than typical high school assignments. We wove technology into all the projects and drew on our students’ skills in vocational and professional fields as well. You may remember the “Tech Prep” movement of the decade past. That was it.

Our efforts were met by praise and actually, pretty good results. Students enjoyed the class structure which also included field trips to sites that supported the project and the content being studied. Through our shared experiences, teachers and students came to know and understand one another, forming bonds that influenced student persistence and teacher empathy. Those were good days. I miss them.

I look forward to helping other teachers come to know the joy of engaging kids in real world problems that can be solved or at least mediated by the understandings we all gain in school–teachers and students. One of the keys to differentiated instruction is to provide students with the tools for learning and the opportunity to put those tools to work in a timely and effective way. The tools and the opportunities are not the same for everyone…how can they be? Our society is growing more diverse by the minute–and even we, as individuals and teachers are changing our ways of thinking about the learning process and the content of learning.

I have presented my workshop now…. and I must admit, it has become my favorite. The focus of differentiated design is on setting the goal and developing the assessment, a product based assessment that allows individuation and demonstration of proficiencies rather than determinations of weakness. In my first opening, I posed this as the essential question: What are the differences between doing to learn and learning to do? Which of these approaches is the focus of your instruction?

Initially, I saw the two as separate and different. I believed and still believe that we too often have our students practicing tasks that make “doing” automatic and without thought, but doesn’t that engender an absence of questioning and curiosity? What we should be doing, is making them “uncover” , as Grant Wiggins calls the labor of seeking understanding, and therefore make students become the “doers of learning” rather than the “learners of doing.”  Ohh…I like that. They must develop their own learning awareness so that they can replicate or call on previous experience to solve problems and complete tasks when we are not there to coach them.

Teaching is truly a gift to self. After developing and delivering my workshop, I evidenced further changes in my views of teaching. I can honestly say my own perception of doing and learning has changed. I believe it is in doing to learn that we truly learn to do.

I’m Back!!

 Yes, I’ve been out of touch for awhile. For the first time in about two years, I coerced

my “other” half to take the vacation I have been wanting rather than the annual fishing trip or the family wedding trip that too often replaces what otherwise would have been a relaxing week away from work. As you can see, we traveled to France! Preparing to leave work and the country for two plus weeks was a job in itself…and upon return…more catching up and moving forward than I had planned. I am just beginning to come up for air.

Got a great email today with this link to a website that maps the future of education.  Actually, the email came from a discussion thread I am still sharing from the Future of Education virtual Conference last summer. The map has a futuristic feel and some provacative portents about the direction of society and as a result, the emerging trends and eventual needs of our education system.

Oh, what else? So much that I don’t have time to address it all. Busy with developing UbD lessons and presentations. I have been reading the collaborative work of Carol Ann Tomlinson and Jay McTighe and taking a class on the Wiggins’ model. As an Illinois teacher, I had a great deal of in-servicing in the SAC model which is credited to Rick Stiggens but reads like Wiggins. The SAC initiative that was recently left out of our Governor’s budget, but lesson plans  found on the state website can still be accessed, which is really a boon for teachers. And although they don’t necessarily fully follow Wiggins’ theory, (I still see too many that mention accomodations for gifted students being “reading the more difficult passages” or “having opportunities for assignments that require high level thinking”), the lessons all establish goals and assessments prior to diving into daily activities.