Differentiated Instruction: An Introduction > Module 4 > Application Page | 1
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Differentiated Instruction: An IntroductionModule 4 > Application
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Key Elements of Differentiated Instruction
For this application, useone of the two classroom scenarios you’veworked with in Module 3—Ms. Largent’s U.S. history class (which is included below for your convenience) or Rick Wormeli’s unit on writer’s voice (from the “Nonnegotiables of DI in Action” video)—and identify examples of differentiation based on readiness, interest, or learning profile evident in the scenario.
Next, think about your classroom. Consider an upcoming lesson or unit and brainstorm ways you can differentiate some elements of the lesson or unit based on the needs of students in your classroom.
Scenario
Background
Ms. Largent has taught in a differentiated classroom for most of her 15-year teaching career. Differentiation has become a natural and relatively automatic way for her to think about teaching and learning. She and her U.S. history students have spent much of this school year exploring the concepts of stability, change, and revolution. They have related these key concepts to the ebb and flow of history, making parallels of the time period they are studying, current events, and other subjects such as literature and science to students’ own lives. This helps students make connections between what they study in history, other areas they study, and their own lives.
Most recently, students have been exploring revolution in the past by looking at the Industrial Revolution in the United States, and revolution in the present by looking at current trends in technology. Students are investigating two parallel generalizations: (1) revolution affects individuals as well as nations, and (2) people affect revolution. Key skills for the unit are appropriate use and interpretations of research materials, and support of ideas with appropriate evidence.
Getting Started
To ensure that all students have the necessary background, students have worked on several tasks this week. First, Ms. Largent gave them a preassessment on the chapter. Students who had considerable background knowledge began working with tasks designed to come after acquisition of background knowledge. Other students completed a K-W-L activity and then read the text chapter on the Industrial Revolution. By their own choice, some read with reading buddies and some alone.
During the course of two days, the teacher met with small reading and discussion groups of six to eight students. With struggling learners, she read key passages to them, had them read key passages aloud, and ensured their understanding of essential ideas and events. She also helped them think about their experiences and how those experiences might link with those of early adolescents during the Industrial Revolution.
With two other smaller groups, she probed their comprehension of the chapter and then posed questions about how changes in technology affected society then and now, for better or for worse. She had one group of advanced learners propose and discuss social, economic, and political costs and benefits of the Industrial Revolution. Later, in a whole-class discussion, she raised all of these ideas again.
To prepare for a chapter test, Ms. Largent assigned mixed-readiness review teams and gave them a teacher-prepared review protocol, clarifying what students needed to know and understand for the test. Students took part in a Teams-Games-Tournaments review, studying in mixed readiness teams, and participating in the games portion of the review at similar readiness tables. This allowed the teacher to adjust questions to an appropriate challenge level for individual students, but still enabled all students to earn points for right answers for their study team.
In the chapter test, there were several short-answer questions that all students were required to answer. One set of students, however, had an essay question closely related to their own experience and to the class discussions. Another set of students had a question requiring them to venture further into unexplored applications.
Expanding the Study
To move from specifics about the Industrial Revolution to a broader application of key understandings, students selected one of ten “modern revolutionary” figures to investigate as a way of seeing how people affect revolution. The students worked independently for a day and then formed a cluster with other students who selected the same revolutionary figure. They decided how their cluster should show what a revolutionary figure does. The cluster groups could decide to make a caricature, create a blueprint for a revolutionary, draft a reference book entry on what a revolutionary is and does, or act out their response.
In most classes, there were six or seven cluster groups. After preparing the product, each cluster group gave one presentation to two to three cluster groups. Finally, Ms. Largent led the class in making a list of generalizations about how revolutionaries affect change.
Next, some students used excerpts from either Katherine Paterson’s novel Lyddie or Harriette Arnow’s novel The Dollmaker (both set in the Industrial Revolution—the former written at a relatively basic reading level; the latter at a more advanced reading level) to investigate how revolution affects individuals and how individuals affect revolution. Ms. Largent assigned students to one of four groups based largely on her assessment of student readiness in reading, abstractness of thinking, and independence in research. In some instances, however, she placed students in groups on learning profile needs (e.g., students who might need to hear rather than read passages).
One group listened to a tape of key passages from Lyddie, distilling how and why the main character first became a factory worker, then an organizer for better working conditions. They then worked in pairs on the computer to create a timeline of data and events demonstrating how the character was initially affected by events in a revolution and then came to affect events in that revolution.
A second group read specified portions of Lyddie as well as articles on current factory conditions in developing countries. Their task was to work in groups of three to produce an authentic conversation between Lyddie and two fact-based fictional characters from contemporary sweat shops, in which the three shared problems, dreams, and a plan of action.
A third group listened to excerpts from The Dollmaker. They then selected a partner from their group and investigated benefits to contemporary society that can be traced to the Industrial Revolution. Working with their partners, they created a written or made-for-TV editorial on the proposition that the cost of the Industrial Revolution was (or was not) worth its benefits.
A fourth group read designated excerpts from both Lyddie and The Dollmaker. They then researched the current technological revolution and used what they learned to create one of three products: (1) a series of comparative editorial cartoons based on the Industrial Revolution and the computer revolution, (2) a technological revolution version of an episode paralleling Lyddie or The Dollmaker, (3) a TV news magazine style segment on how the technological revolution is affecting people and how people are affecting the technological revolution. Students in the TV news magazine group will need more time to complete their work, but will periodically work on this task, rather than doing homework and class work that focuses on skills and information they have already mastered.
Applying What Has Been Learned
At the end of the Industrial Revolution study, all students will select someone who revolutionized a field that is of interest to them (e.g., women’s rights, sports, medicine, aviation, civil rights, physics, music, their own community). Each student will complete a product called “Dangerous Minds: Understanding People Who Revolutionize the World.”
There are two versions of the product assignment. One is more transformational, abstract, open-ended, and complex that the other in content, process, production, and rubrics. Ms. Largent’s goal in assigning a given version of the product to a particular student is to push that student a bit further that he is comfortable going in knowledge, insight, thinking, planning, research, use of skills, and production. All students must demonstrate an understanding of the key concepts and generalizations for the unit, and appropriate application of the unit’s skills.
Workspace
Part I
In the table below, record how key elements of instruction are differentiated in this classroom.Begin with the learning goals. What does the teacher want students to know, understand, and be able to do as a result of this unit?
KnowUnderstand
Do
Next, capture examples of readiness, interest, and learning profile differentiation apparent in this unit.
Describe the example of differentiation / What data or approach was used to match the student to task? / Is this an example of differentiation of content, process, product, or affect/learning environment?Readiness
Interests
Learning Profiles
Part II
Now consider an upcoming lesson or unit and brainstorm ways you can differentiate one or two elements of the lesson or unit based on the needs of students in your classroom.
Begin with your learning goals. What do you want students to know, understand, and be able to do as a result of this unit?
KnowUnderstand
Do
Now brainstorm ways you could differentiate one or two elements of the lesson.
Questions / Your ResponsesWhat activity would you like to differentiate?
Why do you feel the need to differentiate this activity?
How will you differentiate this activity? What kind of differentiation to use (readiness, interest, learning profile)? Why?
How many versions of the activity will you have? Describe these versions.
How will you decide who will get which version? What data will you use to match students to the task?
Will you tell students that the activity is differentiated? Why or why not?
How will you handle the management issues—giving multiple directions, rearranging the room, distributing materials, dealing with early finishers, and so forth?
Try out this lesson in your classroom. How was it received by the students? What worked well? What would you like to modify next time you teach the lesson?