Algozzine, B., & Anderson, K. M. (2007). Tips for teaching: Differentiating instruction to include all students. Preventing School Failure: Alternative Education for Children and Youth, 51(3), 49-54

• The authors suggest that differentiation in teaching is to define how the students come to understand and assimilate the knowledge and the skills. This article connects the idea of differentiating instruction with social constructivist theory and points out the importance of inclusivity for all types of student diversity. No student should feel excluded from differentiated learning. Elements of choice, flexibility, ongoing assessment, and creativity are the important parts of differentiated instructions that teachers should consider when they plan a lesson. In addition, these elements influence how the students can demonstrate their learning. It reveals me the importance of planning a lesson that is creative and the students have certain degree of freedom to choose from. It resonates with the big ideas in the B.C. New Curriculum: starting with an important but open-ended question, and the students can decide how they would like to approach the question based on their backgrounds and past experience.

 

Brownlie, F., & Schnellert, L. (2009). It’s all about thinking: Collaborating to support all learners in social studies, English, & humanities. Portage and Main. Chapter One. Retrieved from https://blogsomemoore.files.wordpress.com/2016/07/brownlie-schnellert-2009-frameowrks.pdf

• This article points out that effective instruction, not just for differentiated instructions but all instructions, follows a pattern called “gradual release of responsibility”. It means that the teacher will model, lead guided practice, allow some independent practice, and lastly the independent application. This article also touches upon open-ended question and the benefits of using it. Open-ended questions allow room for personal connections, to process information, and apply knowledge in various ways. This idea resonates with me because it indicates the starting point of an effective class using differentiated instructions. As educators, we need to model it first, and the students learn how to guide their own learnings through repeated guided practices. This also reminds me that it is important to discuss the curricular competencies and  learning expectations with the students. The students need to understand the expectations in order to take full responsibility of their own learnings.

 

Blogsomemoore. (2017, Oct. 6). Teaching and Empower ALL Students. Retrieved from https://blogsomemoore.com/

• Shelley Moore is award-winning SSHRC research storyteller and a TEDx speaker, who devotes her work to presuming competence. Her blog records many inspiring thinking about inclusion and differentiation. This resource resonates with me especially because of the bowling metaphor that she uses to show that “the supports that we design for the students on the outside of the lane, are actually the supports that all of the students need” (Blogsomemoore, 2017). In her metaphor, the ball is a lesson, and the pins are the students. We are taught to aim for the middle, but the pins standing on both ends, which usually get left standing in the end, are the students who need the most support and challenge. On her website, there are templates that are available for teachers to use, which include strategies to get to know our learner, strategies to design curriculum for our learners, strategies to teach the curriculum to our learners, and strategies to assess our learner’s progress etc.  

 

Gear, A., 2015. Reading Power, Revised and Expanded. Markham, ON.: Pembroke Publishers Limited.

• Gear points out the importance of teaching the students how to become a better thinker focusing on the student’s metacognitive development. One way to achieve this goal is to ask open-ended questions and make learning relevant to the students’ life. By doing that, it makes the learning personal, and everyone can have some connections. Open-ended questions allow the students to decide what approach and how far they would like to approach their learning. It means that the students are leading their own learning, so as long as they are motivated to learn, no student should ever feel excluded from the learning process. This book provides samples of different worksheets for reflections on the same lesson. Each version of the worksheet aims to assess students at different levels. Therefore, students’ learning progress can be assessed more accurately.

 

Paterson, K., 2005. Differentiated Learning: language and literacy projects that address diverse backgrounds and culture. Markham, Ont. : Pembroke Publishers, c2005.

• This book provides 28 language and literacy-related projects that could be modified and used in kindergarten to grade 9 classrooms. Paterson emphasizes the importance of knowing that all children use the same cognitive and linguistic processes to learn no matter their backgrounds. Project-based literacy learning should be promoted in differentiated classrooms because all children’s language development only takes place when learners can use the language in meaningful ways. It occurs to me that project-based learning opens doors for all types of students. These projects are open-ended and are usually cross curriculum. Students have the authority of deciding on which approach that they might want to take or how far they would like to go for each topic. These advanced students can choose to delve more deeply into concepts or branch off on their own while the struggling students can spend more time on the challenging part.

 

Roberts, J. L. & Inman, T. F., 2013. Teacher’s Survival Guide: differentiating instruction in the elementary classroom. Waco, Tex. : Prufrock Press, c2013

• The authors encourage educators to not be afraid of being the decisive element in their classrooms, but rather educators should take the opportunities to create a classroom culture of differentiation to make all students’ life joyous by supporting diversity, challenges, high expectations, and risk taking. This book provides a numerous of resources on various topics around differentiation. The authors also recommend a differentiation rubric for self-reflection, which includes interest, readiness, strength, content, process, and product. The idea of using a differentiation rubric in class for self assessment sounds interesting. Having the students to reflect back on their own work would help them to take some time to consider the learning expectations. This can be used to self assess the student’s writing and their classroom managements (ex. Self check in the end of each day “Are you being respectful to others”, “Did I learn something from others today”, or “Did I contribute something to everyone’s learning today”?).  

 

Small, I., Gardner, H., & Beech, H. (n.d.). @TeacherToolkit. Retrieved February 03, 2018, from https://www.teachertoolkit.co.uk/

• This website share classroom ideas, teacher training, and school resources etc. There are many short (about 5 minutes each) but informative articles that cover a great variety of topics. In One article called the “10 ‘Teach to the Top’ differentiation ideas”, it reminds the teacher that we should not be stressed out over differentiating for every child in every lesson because it is almost impossible. I think that this is extremely important for the new teachers to remember because differentiation should be a tool, not a burden, and neither should it be the ultimate goal of working with differentiation. In other reading, it points out that differentiation does not limit to different tasks; differentiation could also take various forms: questioning, resources provided, and adult deployment etc.

 

Tomlinson, C. A. (2001). How to differentiate instruction in mixed-ability classrooms (2nd ed.). Alexandria, Va: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.

• This book aims to help teachers create a learning environment that addresses the academically diversity in the classrooms. The author explains what is and is not differentiated instructions to eliminate misunderstandings. The goal of differentiated instruction is to help individuals grow as much as possible. Thus, there need to be a pervasive expectation of growth, and the students need to witness their own growth as well. This book also talks about how to differentiate by readiness, interest, and learning profile. It provides me with ideas on various ways of applying differentiated instructions base on the course content. The author suggests 17 basic rules to manage a differentiated classroom and demonstrates how to work with under-challenged advanced students, struggling students, and the “average” students. I observed very different literacy levels in my classroom, and I would like to make sure all the students are learning progressively through self-challenging and self-assessing.