Differentiation of Instruction Supports Common Core Instruction With Ease:)

For all students to have equal access to academic content and build language skills, differentiation must be an integral part of class instruction for every content class.  "Read the chapter and answer the questions at the end" will happily no longer be part of a student's average school day.  Not every student learns the exact same way.  Taking this into account when planning lessons turns the seemingly unmotivated student into an excited learner. 

Through differentiation of instruction, active classroom engagement will be the norm. Teachers will be employing a wide variety of instructional "mixers" that will involve a wide range of students including  on grade level students, those with special needs, and the English language learners at all levels of language acquisition.  Designing instruction around different learning modalities (visual, kinesthetic, and auditory), for example, draws everyone into the assignment.  Teachers providing quick multiple intelligences assessments will open up a plethora of possibilities in reaching and involving all students in their learning.   Incorporating activities that tap into several different types of intelligences will provide many opportunities for each student to shine as s/he attacks a problem using her/his strengths to solve it.

If common core based lessons are to be successful ventures in reforming instructional practices in the United States, differentiation must be an integral part of the lesson plan.

Denise

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Differentiation Ensures Student Success at All Levels of English

With the new semester, teachers plan on offering students a chance to begin anew.  It is a fresh start for all and this carries weight with ELLs who believe that they may be able to earn higher grades this time.  Though this may be a realistic for some, for others it may be an unrealistic dream without some changes in instructional delivery and additional support from the school. 

How can such students pass this semester?  Teachers try their best, but with class sizes over 35, it is often a challenge.  That being said, the ACLU is suing California for denying educational equity to 20,000 English language learners.  These students are not receiving any services to academically survive in public schools.  Basically, they are being denied high school diplomas due to lack of language support among other things.

So what is one approach that might dramatically lower such a number?  Differentiation of instruction with lots of follow up for the strugglers.  DIFFERENTIATION AS TOOL TO LEAVE NO STUDENT BEHIND  --  offers one approach with a high success rate.  Though it is done at the elementary school level, it would work equally well at the middle or high school level as well.  The difference for me that leads to success here is that the staff has a plan to catch the strugglers early on.  After their weekly formal assessments (untimed so that those who don't finish can complete it after school), the tests are scored and those that did poorly are assigned to their best teacher to RETEACH the material.  This approach leads to more students moving on to increasingly more complex work with success. 

English language learners need that extra time with a gifted teacher to help them keep up with their English speaking peers.  It is not a matter of IQ, but rather an issue of accessing academic content, and language demands.  Content departments may wish to look at creating "catch-up" classes based on student performance so that every student has a realistic chance of doing well in class.

Denise

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