Hallmarks of Differentiation (Volume One)

1. A strong link between assessment and instruction.
In order to know what the students need, they need to be assessed, but the teacher needs to take it beyond that. Once they have been assessed, the teacher should use that to create the next lesson. Use what the students know and still need to know to plan the next lesson. I have implemented this in the classroom while I was at field. Even just small assessments, like observing them while they work and asking them questions about their thinking helped me to plan what I needed to teach the next day.

2. Absolute clarity about what the teacher wants the students to know, understand, and be able to do --about what is truly important to learn in this unit.
As a teacher, you need to know exactly what you want your students to get out of your lessons. Being specific and clear about what they will be doing and learning will help you know what is important to keep in your lessons and what does not fit the objectives. I honestly hate writing lesson plans, but I see their value in the objectives and when I stick to my objectives, it is much easier to plan out the lesson.

3. Shared responsibility for the classroom is between teacher and students, in the goal of making it work for everyone.
The students need to feel comfortable in their own classroom, and feel like it is their own. The best way to do this, is to create a community of shared responsibilities. As the year goes on, the teacher will learn who likes what jobs, but is fair in everyone getting a chance to do each of the jobs. Even in older grades (which is where I am hoping to teach) you can assign students responsibilities and certain jobs, without making it sound childish. You just may need to be sneakier about it and give out different jobs than you would to a first grade class.

4. Individual growth is emphasized as central to classroom success.
It is the teacher's responsibility to support their students to progress and strive to reach goals. Involving the students in their own goal making helps them to have responsibility and accountability for their progress. It is important that you give the students what they need to grow, without comparing them to other students. I had a student who needed lots of extra attention to stay on task. We set a goal that he would get so much done in two minutes and I would come back over to check and see if he completed it. He hadn't quite gotten all of it done, but it was more progress than I had seen him make before.

Why Not Teach To The Middle?

"You cannot possibly teach everything to every student, so you might as well get the majority of your students and teach to the middle."

I have always thought of this as a sound theory and it made sense to me. Now that I am more educated about what students are really like and how they learn, I am surprised that any teacher could believe that they are teaching to the middle.

There is no such thing!

All students have different ways of learning, different interests, and many different levels of where they are at with many different subjects. Getting input from your students about what they like, what interests them and how they would like to be taught is detrimental to creating a successful and differentiated classroom. Getting to know your students not only grants you the love and respect from them, but also allows you to discover how to teach to their needs and interests.