June 19, 2009
Supported by PIMSER and Kentucky Department of Education

• Stay on schedule; be on time
• Put cell phones on silent
• Be respectful of all comments
• Participate actively
• Exercise the rule of
“two feet”
• Come prepared for the meeting
• It’s OK to have FUN!

Differentiate
What
How
Task Rotation
Management

• I can develop a working definition of DI.
• I can apply the what to and the how to differentiate to science standards using various strategies.
• I can select sound management strategies to support DI.

Think about your comfort level with differentiation in terms of a fuel gauge .
1/4 tank: in need of more “fuel”
1/2 tank: enough to take short trips
3/4 tank: ready for a long journey full tank: enough fuel to share with others

• Select one of the roles from the handout to portray.
• Write to the audience specified, in the format provided, and on the topic in that row.
• Be prepared to share.

Differentiation
Is a teacher’s response to learner’s needs
Guided by general principles of differentiation
Teachers Can Differentiate Through:
Content Process Product
According to Students’
Environment
Readiness Interest Learning Profile
Through a range of strategies such as:
Multiple intelligences…Jigsaw…4MAT…Graphic Organizers…RAFTS
Compacting…Tiered assignments…Leveled texts…Complex Instruction… Learning
Centers

• Respectful tasks recognize student learning differences. The teacher continually tries to understand what individual students need to learn most effectively. A respectful task honors both the commonalities and differences of students, but not by treating them all alike.
• A respectful task offers all students the opportunity to explore essential understandings and skills at degrees of difficulty that escalate consistently as they develop their understanding and skill.

• Teacher uses many different group configurations over time, and students experience many different working groups and arrangements.
• “ Fluid ” describes the assignment of students to groups.
• Plan for flexible grouping at the outset of a unit.
– When should the class work as a whole?
– When should I use small groups? How should students be grouped?
– When should students work individually?

Should be purposeful:
 may be based on student interest, learning profile and/or readiness
 may be based on needs observed during learning times
 geared to accomplish curricular goals (K-U-D)
Implementation:
 purposefully plan using information collected – interest surveys, learning profile inventories, exit cards, quick writes, observations, etc.
 list groups on an overhead; place in folders or mailboxes
 “on the fly” as invitational groups
Cautions:
 avoid turning groups into tracking situations
 provide opportunities for students to work within a variety of groups
 practice moving into group situations and assuming roles within the group

• You must know your students – their interests, their strengths and weaknesses, their learning profile.
• The goal is to design instructional experiences in ways that help each student make the most of his/her potential and talents.
• Throughout the unit, a teacher assesses students’ developing readiness, interests, and modes of learning, in a variety of ways.

• Assessment drives instruction . (Assessment information helps the teacher map next steps for varied learners and the class as a whole.)
• Assessment occurs consistently as the unit begins, throughout the unit and as the unit ends. (Pre-assessment, formative and summative assessment are regular parts of the teaching/learning cycle.)
•
Teachers assess student readiness, interest and learning profile .
• Assessments are part of “teaching for success”.
• Assessment information helps students chart and contribute to their own growth.
• Assessment MAY be differentiated .
• Assessment information is more useful to the teacher than grades .
• Assessment is more focused on personal growth than on peer competition.

KNOW (facts, vocabulary, dates, rules, people, etc.) ecosystem elements of culture (housing/shelter, customs, values, geography)
UNDERSTAND (complete sentence, statement of truth or insight – want students to understand that . . . )
All parts of an ecosystem affect all others parts. Culture shapes people and people shape culture.
DO (Basic skills, thinking skills, social skills, skills of the discipline, planning skills --verbs)
Write a unified paragraph
Compare and contrast
Draw conclusions
Examine varied perspectives
Work collaboratively
Develop a timeline
Use maps as data
Tomlinson * 02

D
C
• Concept-based teaching
• Curriculum compacting
• Varied texts and resources
• Learning contracts
• Minilessons
• Varied Support Systems
• Reading Partners / Reading
Buddies
• Choral Reading/Antiphonal
Reading
• Flip Books
• Split Journals (Double Entry –
Triple Entry)
• Books on Tape
• Highlights on Tape
• Digests/ “Cliff Notes”
• Note-taking Organizers
• Varied Supplementary Materials
• Highlighted Texts
• Think-Pair-Share/Preview-
Midview-Postview

• Process means sense making.
• Any effective activity is essentially a sensemaking process, designed to help a student progress from a current point of understanding to a more complex level of understanding.
• Processing activities should:
– Be interesting to students
– Cause them to think at higher levels
– Cause them to use a key skill(s) to understand the key idea(s)

D
Product
• Choices based on readiness, interest, and learning profile
• Clear expectations
• Timelines
• Agreements
• Product Guides
• Rubrics
• Evaluation

Map
Diagram
Sculpture
Discussion
Demonstration
Poem
Profile
Chart
Play
Dance
Campaign
Cassette
Quiz Show
Banner
Brochure
Debate
Flow Chart
Puppet Show
Tour
Lecture
Editorial
Painting
Costume
Placement
Blueprint
Catalogue
Dialogue
Newspaper
Scrapbook
Lecture
Questionnaire
Flag
Scrapbook
Graph
Debate
Museum
Learning Center
Advertisement
Book List
Calendar
Coloring Book
Game
Research Project
TV Show
Song
Dictionary
Film
Collection
Trial
Machine
Book
Mural
Award
Recipe
Test
Puzzle
Model
Timeline
Toy
Article
Diary
Poster
Magazine
Computer
Program
Photographs
Terrarium
Petition Drive
Teaching
Lesson
Prototype
Speech
Club
Cartoon
Biography
Review
Invention

• Involves both the operation and the tone of the environment
• Rules, furniture arrangement, guidelines, procedures – how this classroom operates
• Everyone a contributing member
• The weather or the mood of the classroom
• Seriousness and celebrations

Mrs. Mutner liked to go over a few of her rules on the first day of class

Varied texts by reading level
Varied supplementary materials
Varied scaffolding
• reading
• writing
• research
• technology
Tiered tasks and procedures
Flexible time use
Small group instruction
Homework options
Tiered or scaffolded assessment
Compacting
Mentorships
Negotiated criteria for quality
Varied graphic organizers

The Great Motivator!
• Requires children to be aware of their own readiness, interests, and learning profiles.
• Students have choices provided by the teacher. (YOU are still in charge of crafting challenging opportunities for all kiddos – NO taking the easy way out!)
• Use choice across the curriculum: writing topics, content writing prompts, self-selected reading, contract menus, math problems, spelling words, product and assessment options, seating, group arrangement, ETC . . .
• GUARANTEES BUY-IN AND ENTHUSIASM FOR LEARNING!

• However we conceive it, every lesson plan should be, at its heart, a motivational plan.
Young learners are motivated by a variety of conditions. Among those are:
– Novelty
– Cultural significance
– Personal relevance or passion
– Emotional connection
– Product focus
– Choice
– The potential to make a contribution or link with something greater than self.
• Tomlinson, 2003, Fulfilling the Promise of Differentiation

Characteristics of Classes That Engage
Students
• Each student has learning experiences at intermediate difficulty for that student.
• Expectations for the student are high but achievable for that student.
• Students make decisions about their learning that lead them to be autonomous learners.
• Students believe their teachers care about them.
• Students’ perspectives are valued.
• There is both a sense of community and individuality.
• Instruction is tied to student interests (and is culturally relevant).
learning. They learn because learning is satisfying rather than for “approval.” They persist even when learning is difficult.

Group Orientation independent/self orientation group/peer orientation adult orientation combination
Learning Profile Factors
Gender
&
Culture
Learning Environment quiet/noise warm/cool still/mobile flexible/fixed
“busy”/”spare”
Cognitive Style
Creative/conforming
Essence/facts
Expressive/controlled
Nonlinear/linear
Inductive/deductive
People-oriented/task or Object oriented
Concrete/abstract
Collaboration/competition
Interpersonal/introspective
Easily distracted/long Attention span
Group achievement/personal achievement
Oral/visual/kinesthetic
Reflective/action-oriented
Intelligence Preference analytic practical creative verbal/linguistic logical/mathematical spatial/visual bodily/kinesthetic musical/rhythmic interpersonal intrapersonal naturalist existential

Readiness
Interest
Learning
Profile
Growth Motivation
Efficiency

1. Teacher-kid connections
2. An environment that is a catalyst for learning
3. A sense of community in the classroom
4. Curriculum focused on student understanding for all students
5. Persistent assessment to inform teaching & learning
6. Respectful tasks for each student
7. Flexible grouping
8. Attention to student readiness, interest,
& learning profile
9. Modification of content, process, product, affect & learning environment
10.Teaching up!

OPTIONS FOR DIFFERENTIATION OF INSTRUCTION
To Differentiate
Instruction By
Readiness
To Differentiate
Instruction By
Interest
To Differentiate
Instruction by
Learning Profile
٭ equalizer adjustments (complexity, open-endedness, etc.
٭ add or remove scaffolding
٭ vary difficulty level of text & supplementary materials
٭ adjust task familiarity
٭ vary direct instruction by small group
٭ adjust proximity of ideas to student experience
٭ encourage application of broad concepts & principles to student interest areas
٭ give choice of mode of expressing learning
٭ use interest-based mentoring of adults or more expert-like peers
٭ give choice of tasks and products
(including student designed options)
٭ give broad access to varied materials & technologies
٭ create an environment with flexible learning spaces and options
٭ allow working alone or working with peers
٭ use part-to-whole and whole-to-part approaches
٭
Vary teacher mode of presentation
(visual, auditory, kinesthetic, concrete, abstract)
٭ adjust for gender, culture, language differences.
useful instructional strategies:
- tiered activities
- Tiered products
- compacting
- learning contracts
- tiered tasks/alternative forms of assessment useful instructional strategies:
- interest centers
- interest groups
- enrichment clusters
- group investigation
- choice boards
- MI options
- internet mentors useful instructional strategies:
- multi-ability cooperative tasks
- MI options
- Triarchic options
- 4-MAT
CA Tomlinson, UVa ‘97

• Let’s deepen our understanding of DI!
• Form groups based on the chapter (11,
12, or 13) that you read.
• Discuss your reading and any questions, concerns, or aha’s that you may have.

Let’s look at a 6 th grade standard as an example.

• ASSIGNMENTS
• ACTIVITIES
• CENTERS & STATIONS
• LEARNING CONTRACTS
• ASSESSMENTS
• MATERIALS
• EXPERIMENTS
• WRITING PROMPTS
• HOMEWORK

Teachers use tiered activities so that all students focus on essential understandings and skills but at different levels of complexity, abstractness, and openendedness.
By keeping the focus of the activity the same, but providing routes of access at varying degrees of difficulty, the teacher maximizes the likelihood that:
1) each student comes away with pivotal skills & understandings
2) each student is appropriately challenged.

Key Concept or
Understanding
Struggling
With The
Concept
Reaching Back
Some
Understanding
READINESS LEVELS
Understand
The
Concept
Reaching Ahead

IDENTIFY OUTCOMES
WHAT SHOULD THE STUDENTS KNOW, UNDERSTAND, OR BE ABLE
TO DO?
THINK ABOUT YOUR STUDENTS
PRE-ASSESS READINESS, INTEREST, OR LEARNING PROFILE
INITIATING ACTIVITIES
USE AS COMMON EXPERIENCE FOR WHOLE CLASS
GROUP 1
TASK
GROUP 2
TASK
GROUP 3
TASK

• Interesting
• Engaging
• Challenging

Concept to be Understood
OR
Skill to be Mastered
Create on-level task first then adjust up and down.
Below-Level
Task
On-Level
Task
“Adjusting the
Task”
Above-Level
Task

• Level of Complexity
• Amount of
Structure
• Materials
• Time/Pace
• Number of Steps
• Form of Expression
• Level of
Dependence

1.
Foundational
5.
Smaller Leap Transformational Greater Leap
6.
More Structured More Open
2.
Concrete Abstract
3.
Simple Complex
7.
Clearly Defined Problems Fuzzy Problems
8.
Less Independence Greater Independence
4.
Fewer Facets Multi-facets
9.
Slower Quicker

• Now, it’s your turn:
– Using the 7 th grade standard provided, decide how DI might look in a classroom
– The group can choose to use readiness, interest, or learning profile
– Create an example using the template and be prepared to share out on the Avervision with the whole group

• What informs the decision to differentiate?
• What do we need to think about?
• Why might I not want to differentiate?

• Take a moment to complete the selfassessment on
Classroom
Management for
Differentiation.

• Use the organizer ‘Ideas for Future
Reference’ to record your notes about ideas that might aid with effective management.
• After viewing….
– Place a star by the strategies you plan to use to support differentiated instruction.

1.
Have a strong rationale for differentiating instruction based on student readiness, interest and learning profile.
2.
Begin differentiating at a pace that is comfortable for you.
3.
Time differentiated activities for student success.
4.
Use an “anchor activity” to free you up to focus your attention on your students.
5.
Create and deliver instructions carefully.

6.
Have a “home base” for students.
7.
Be sure students have a plan for getting help when you are busy with another student or group.
8.
Give your students as much responsibility for their learning as possible.
9.
Engage your students in talking about classroom procedures and group processes.
10. Use flexible grouping.

• I can use learning styles to design tasks that assess a specific standard(s).

• On the first day of class, your professor informs you that 50% of your grade will be based on your choice of two of the following four tasks:
• A 150-question, timed multiple choice final exam.
• An essay in which you identify a central thesis of the course and assemble evidence for and against the thesis.
• A project in which you use four major concepts from the course to create an application to your work as a classroom teacher.
• An extended letter in which you explore the personal meaning of the course to you.
Which two tasks would you choose? Which one would you do your best to avoid?

• Use the descriptions of each style to help you consider your motivational profile.
• Complete the self-assessment of your motivational profile.
• What’s your “dominant” style?

4 Corners
• Go to the corner with the picture representing your
“dominant” style.
• Discuss trait characteristics and instructional implications.
• Consider your students.
Can you picture each style?

• Designed to address manageability
• Based on learning styles
• Considers all styles equally important
• Can be used in a variety of ways
– Complete all 4 in a specific sequence
– Complete a certain number in any sequence
– Complete specified task(s) and choose a preferred task
– Choose the tasks they want to complete

Standards:
Students will use measurements to describe and compare attributes of objects to include length, width, height, perimeter, area, and volume, and compare attributes.
Students will identify, describe, and give examples of basic two-dimensional shapes, and will use these shapes to solve real-world and/or mathematical problems.
Identify purposes:
1.
Know – compute area and perimeter accurately
2.
Understand - explain the mathematical reasoning behind the computation process
3.
Do – create and solve sophisticated perimeter and area problems
4.
Attitude – use area and perimeter to describe and explain concepts from your own life

Mastery Task Interpersonal Task
If a rectangle that is 4 in. x 10 in. is placed next to a rectangle that is 5 in.
X 12 in., what is the perimeter of the combined figure? What is the area of
10”
12”
5”
Draw a picture of the floor plan of your home showing the dimensions of each room. Then, compute the perimeter and area for each room and order the rooms from largest to smallest according to their perimeter.
How much time do you spend in each room? Can you find a correlation between area, perimeter, and time spent in each room?
In the figure below, what are the fewest number of sides whose measures you must know to accurately calculate perimeter and area? Explain your answer.
Create a problem in which you must find the perimeter and area of two rectangles, a square, and an equilateral triangle. The problem must be solved using four measurements.
Can you create another problem only using 3 measurements? 2?
Understanding Task Self-expressive Task

MS – Phases of Water
Mastery Task
Draw a complete cooling curve for water with properly labeled axes.
Label each phase present. Explain the behavior of the water molecule during all portions of the curve.
Understanding Task
Compare and contrast the heating and cooling curves of water. Be as detailed and specific as possible.
Interpersonal Task
You are a molecule of water. Write a story describing yourself as you travel along the cooling curve from one end (200 °C) to the other (-32 °C). Include in your story what you look like and how you feel at each portion of the curve.
Self-expressive Task
Imagine if water froze at 50
°C and boiled at 87 °C. Create a cooing curve using the new data, and draw pictures showing how the water molecules change at each stage of the curve.

• Scenario and hook to arouse interest and create meaning:
• The PTSA wants to construct a new playground for the 4 th and 5 th graders at your school. You are on the student committee to help design the playground and must help decide which plot of land would be best for the playground. How will you decide?

• Criteria that unite all four tasks:
• Accurate computation of perimeter and area
• Efficiency in computing perimeter and area
• Exploring relationships between perimeter and area
• Considerations for using perimeter and area measurements

• Work plan:
• Students must complete all four tasks, but may work in any order they like.
• Students may refer back to their notes to monitor their understanding and to make sure they have the information they need to complete each task.
• Students may use calculators to assist with the computation.

• Identify the standards you will be assessing.
• Examine the different examples of task rotations in your packet to get ideas.
• Use the resources, the template, and the appendix to help you think of how you might set up your rotation.
• Design a task rotation to assess your students’ understanding of the specific standard(s) you have identified.

Think about your comfort level with differentiation in terms of a fuel gauge .
1/4 tank: in need of more “fuel”
1/2 tank: enough to take short trips
3/4 tank: ready for a long journey full tank: enough fuel to share with others

Begin Slowly – Just Begin!
Low-Prep Differentiation
Choices of books
Homework options
Use of reading buddies
Varied journal Prompts
Orbitals
Varied pacing with anchor options
Student-teaching goal setting
Work alone / together
Whole-to-part and part-to-whole explorations
Flexible seating
Varied computer programs
Design-A-Day
Varied Supplementary materials
Options for varied modes of expression
Varying scaffolding on same organizer
Let’s Make a Deal projects
Computer mentors
Think-Pair-Share by readiness, interest, learning profile
Use of collaboration, independence, and cooperation
Open-ended activities
Mini-workshops to reteach or extend skills
Jigsaw
Negotiated Criteria
Explorations by interests
Games to practice mastery of information
Multiple levels of questions
High-Prep Differentiation
Tiered activities and labs
Tiered products
Independent studies
Multiple texts
Alternative assessments
Learning contracts
4-MAT
Multiple-intelligence options
Compacting
Spelling by readiness
Entry Points
Varying organizers
Lectures coupled with graphic organizers
Community mentorships
Interest groups
Tiered centers
Interest centers
Personal agendas
Literature Circles
Stations
Complex Instruction
Group Investigation
Tape-recorded materials
Teams, Games, and Tournaments
Choice Boards
Think-Tac-Toe
Simulations
Problem-Based Learning
Graduated Rubrics
Flexible reading formats
Student-centered writing formats

What strategy do I plan to focus on?
What steps do I need to take?
Where Do I Begin?
Start small – but start!
What resources will I need?
Other in SLSN who are implementing the same strategy?
Other Notes:
___________________
___________________
___________________
___________________
___________________
___________________
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• We must consider when and why we would differentiate.
• Differentiation does not have to be all or nothing; we can work with different parts —content, process, product.
• We can differentiate different ways: interest, readiness, and learning profile.
• Differentiation is in the best interest of the student!

Differentiate
What
How
Task Rotation
Management