What is differentiating instruction?

Differentiating instruction is a way of thinking that involves making flexible teaching decisions based on students' diverse needs.

Is differentiating instruction about creating different lessons for each student?

No, it's more about a mindset of recognizing students' individual strengths and challenges rather than creating separate lessons for each student.

What areas can teachers differentiate in according to Carol Tomlinson?

Teachers can differentiate in three areas: content, process, and product.

How can content be differentiated in a classroom?

Content can be differentiated by allowing student choice, such as choosing their topics for research or essay writing.

How can process be differentiated in a classroom?

Process can be differentiated by varying student groupings, like mixed or same ability groups or pairing proficient students with language learners.

What did the speaker do to help a student interested in football?

The speaker let the student write an argumentative essay about why his favorite football team was the best, aligning with his interests.

How can product differentiation look in a classroom?

Product differentiation can involve allowing students to create different types of projects, like a doodle project instead of a written essay.

What is the significance of relationships in differentiating instruction?

Having relationships with students helps teachers understand their strengths, challenges, and interests, making differentiation more effective.

What is the key to making differentiated strategies successful?

Success requires building strong class culture and demonstrating flexibility in thinking.

Differentiating Instruction: It’s Not as Hard as You Think

00:04:27

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h7-D3gi2lL8

Résumé

TLDRLarry Ferlazzo explains that differentiating instruction is not about creating separate lessons for each student but is a mindset that involves making flexible decisions based on students' individual strengths and challenges. This approach involves differentiating content (e.g., allowing student choice in research topics), process (e.g., varying student groupings), and product (e.g., different types of projects). Examples include allowing a student interested in football to write an argumentative essay about his favorite team, or using doodles as a learning product. Successful differentiation involves knowing students well, being flexible, and fostering a class culture where all understand the fairness in being treated differently based on needs.

A retenir

🎯 Differentiated instruction is a mindset, not a strict method.
📚 Teachers should focus on students' different talents and challenges.
🔄 Differentiation can involve content, process, and product.
📝 Examples include letting students choose their essay topics.
👥 Grouping strategies can vary to support learning.
🎨 Allow varied types of student projects.
🤝 Relationships with students aid effective differentiation.
🧠 Flexibility and class culture are key to successful differentiation.
🙌 Fairness doesn't mean treating everyone equally.
🌟 Acknowledge and support students' unique gifts and challenges.

Chronologie

00:00:00 - 00:04:27
Larry Ferlazzo discusses the concept of differentiating instruction, emphasizing it as a mindset over a rigid set of strategies. It involves making flexible decisions in teaching based on students' unique needs, recognizing that fairness doesn't mean equal treatment. Carol Tomlinson highlights differentiation in content, process, and product, allowing choices in topics and altering student groupings or forms of assessment to align with learning objectives. Effective differentiation requires knowing students' strengths and flexibility, fostering an inclusive class culture. These strategies support personalized education without adding extra workload.

Carte mentale

Questions fréquemment posées

What is differentiating instruction?
Differentiating instruction is a way of thinking that involves making flexible teaching decisions based on students' diverse needs.
Is differentiating instruction about creating different lessons for each student?
No, it's more about a mindset of recognizing students' individual strengths and challenges rather than creating separate lessons for each student.
What areas can teachers differentiate in according to Carol Tomlinson?
Teachers can differentiate in three areas: content, process, and product.
How can content be differentiated in a classroom?
Content can be differentiated by allowing student choice, such as choosing their topics for research or essay writing.
How can process be differentiated in a classroom?
Process can be differentiated by varying student groupings, like mixed or same ability groups or pairing proficient students with language learners.
What did the speaker do to help a student interested in football?
The speaker let the student write an argumentative essay about why his favorite football team was the best, aligning with his interests.
How can product differentiation look in a classroom?
Product differentiation can involve allowing students to create different types of projects, like a doodle project instead of a written essay.
What is the significance of relationships in differentiating instruction?
Having relationships with students helps teachers understand their strengths, challenges, and interests, making differentiation more effective.
What is the key to making differentiated strategies successful?
Success requires building strong class culture and demonstrating flexibility in thinking.

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Sous-titres

Défilement automatique:

00:00:00
(light music)
00:00:01
- [Larry] I'm Larry Ferlazzo.
00:00:03
Differentiating instruction.
00:00:06
To some educators it conjures visions
00:00:08
of having to create a different lesson
00:00:09
for every student in the room
00:00:11
and long nights of planning and grading.
00:00:14
That insanity is not what differentiation is all about.
00:00:18
Differentiating instruction is really a way of thinking,
00:00:21
not a preplanned list of strategies.
00:00:24
Oftentimes, it is making decisions
00:00:26
in the moment based on this mindset.
00:00:28
It's recognizing that, to paraphrase Rick Wormeli,
00:00:32
fair doesn't always mean treating everyone equally.
00:00:35
It's recognizing that all
00:00:36
of our students bring different gifts and challenges
00:00:39
and that as educators we need to recognize those differences
00:00:42
and use our professional judgment
00:00:44
to flexibly respond to them in our teaching.
00:00:47
Carol Tomlinson talks about the ability
00:00:49
to differentiate in three areas,
00:00:51
content, process and product.
00:00:55
For content, student choice is one way
00:00:57
we might differentiate,
00:00:58
like allowing students to choose
00:00:59
their research topics or essay prompts.
00:01:02
As teachers, we need to keep our eyes on the prize.
00:01:06
In other words, we have to keep asking ourselves
00:01:08
what are the main learning objectives?
00:01:12
One day, my students were writing an argument essay
00:01:14
about what would be
00:01:15
the worse natural disaster to experience.
00:01:17
John's head was down on the desk.
00:01:19
He was not doing anything.
00:01:22
I knew that he was interested in football,
00:01:24
so I told him that he could write an essay
00:01:27
on why his favorite team was the best.
00:01:29
He would still have to make an argument,
00:01:31
just about football instead of hurricanes or earthquakes.
00:01:34
His eyes lit up.
00:01:36
He got to work and wrote what his mother later told me
00:01:38
was the first essay he had ever written in school.
00:01:41
He had followed all the guidelines
00:01:43
of a good argument essay.
00:01:45
The prize in this case was learning
00:01:47
to write an argument essay,
00:01:48
not learning to write about natural disasters.
00:01:52
To differentiate by process,
00:01:53
teachers can change up how they group students.
00:01:56
Sometimes a mixed ability group might work best,
00:01:59
while sometimes it might be appropriate
00:02:01
to have same ability groups.
00:02:03
We might have an English proficient buddy work
00:02:06
with an English language learner to help them out.
00:02:10
During independent reading time
00:02:11
in my early morning class several years ago,
00:02:15
one student tended to fall asleep.
00:02:18
I told him that if he wanted,
00:02:20
he could go to the back and sit on a desk and read.
00:02:22
Soon, several others joined him.
00:02:25
A few days later I saw another student dozing off.
00:02:28
Before I could say anything,
00:02:30
one of his classmates whispered to him,
00:02:32
just go sit on a desk.
00:02:35
Again, it's a matter of keeping our eyes on the prize.
00:02:39
What are the learning objectives?
00:02:40
And what are the best roads
00:02:41
to get there for different students?
00:02:43
Teachers can also differentiate
00:02:45
by the type of product students create.
00:02:48
The major demonstration of learning doesn't always have
00:02:50
to be an essay or a multiple choice test.
00:02:54
One year, I had a student who liked to doodle
00:02:57
when other students or I were talking.
00:03:01
I told her it was okay as long as she was doodling
00:03:04
about the information we were discussing.
00:03:06
She built on those doodles to create a final project
00:03:09
that brilliantly and visually represented
00:03:11
all the key points we had covered.
00:03:14
When I give tests, I often gives students
00:03:16
an extra blank page where they can write anything else
00:03:19
they remember about the topic being tested
00:03:21
that they think is important.
00:03:23
I often find the quality of thinking
00:03:24
and writing better there
00:03:25
than in response to my test questions.
00:03:29
None of the differentiating strategies I've mentioned
00:03:33
have created any extra work for me.
00:03:37
They did require that I had relationships with my students
00:03:41
to know their strengths, challenges and interests.
00:03:44
And I needed to demonstrate flexibility in my thinking.
00:03:49
Making these strategies successful also required building
00:03:53
a strong class culture so that some of the students
00:03:57
were being treated differently
00:03:59
and they understood why and they understood that
00:04:02
that was the only way to be truly fair.
00:04:06
The ideas mentioned here are just a drop in the bucket.
00:04:09
There are a zillion other ways
00:04:10
we can support our students' gifts and challenges,
00:04:13
we just need to keep our minds and ears open.
00:04:16
(upbeat music)