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1 | Preparing for the Journey of a Differentiated Classroom |
āComputer LEGO Roboticsā
Worlds of Wisdom and Wonder, The Center for Gifted
There are only two lasting bequests we can hope to give our children. One of these is roots, the other, wings.
āHodding Carter
Jimmy brought an armful of books to his first day of first grade. During a free activity period, he sidled over to a couple of children constructing a bridge and asked if they wanted him to read a Frog and Toad book. One of them agreed and sat quietly by his side as Jimmy read and dramatized one of his favorite stories.
In the same class sat Saha, whose family moved to the United States a month before she started school. She knew English but could not understand American accents very well. She shrank into her seat and scribbled the sounds of English words in Arabic script. When flipping through the books on a nearby table, she instinctively opened one from the back.
Russell had so much energy that he zoomed wherever he went. Some people in the school thought he had an attention deficit problem, but his teacher did not agree. His family had moved six times in the past three years seeking work, and Russell needed time to get used to the rhythms of school life. At the moment, all he seemed ready for was running around the edges of the classroom.
Desiree entered first grade with the idea of becoming a potter. She brought her own clay to class every day and asked the teacher when she would learn how to make pots and also statues of her favorite animals. She had no interest in reading or math and spent most of her time making the other children laugh.
During the primary years, children express a wider range of differences than older learners. As a general rule, the younger the age group, the more dramatic the variations within the group and the more likely that differences in tests or in the performance of any task reflect differences in developmental level. Significant changes take place within each year of the primary grades. One month you may find a child struggling with the most basic math concept; the next month, he suddenly masters it. Add to this the influence of culture, special ability, and language, and you have a classroom, such as the one described earlier, where the range of knowledge and understanding in any given subject can span at least several years.
So how do we begin to teach such children? What does a teacher do in a grade where every child is supposed to finish the year reading at a certain level and yet at least a third of the class is bilingual, four children have special problems, and two are already reading? Is it possible to teach essential reading strategies to Russell, who can hardly sit still and barely knows his alphabet; Saha, who painstakingly sounds out words in an Arabic script; Desiree, who would rather do pottery; and Jimmy, who is already reading books at third-grade level?
The first response must be to think through what the children and we as teachers are bringing to the table. As just shown, students in kindergarten through third grade come to class with their own special abilities, interests, difficulties, languages, cultures, and cognitive and creative development. We teachers also come to school with our own instructional styles, strengths, interests, and experiences. Differentiation is the daily interplay of these individual elements, practices, choices, and adjustments in both teachers and students.
THE METAPHOR OF A āJOURNEYā
As mentioned in the introduction, this book uses the metaphor of a journey to describe the unique process of teaching and learning that differentiation offers to the primary classroom. Learning is, after all, a ādoingā phenomenon, unique to each person, and therefore the ājourneyā of young children in a differentiated environment is one that adapts to their stepsātheir readiness for a new adventure, their curiosity and interests, their imaginative response. This metaphor can be a helpful way to think about the planning and preparation that goes into differentiation. For example, there may be one destination for all the travelers to reach, but each traveler brings different strengths, experiences, and skills from prior journeys to the new experience. The trip leader plans, organizes supplies, adjusts travel routes, anticipates needs, and so forth in the same way that a teacher does in a differentiated classroom.
Let us say that you have decided to organize a journey for 20 young children. Two of them show up without shoes; five have shoes and boots but no sweaters for the cold nights. Three feel nervous about traveling by car and want to know if they can get out now and then to walk around. Two want to get there as quickly as possible. Questions immediately arise in your mind as you plan:
- How prepared are my children, and what do they need to complete this journey?
- What sights and experiences do I want all of them to have no matter which route they take?
- What routes would best serve their needs (a direct route or a longer itinerary that covers more ground)?
- What should be the means of traveling (car, bike, foot, etc.)?
- How will I know if the journey accomplished what I intended?
As a guide to this process, Differentiating for the Young Child provides a five-step sequence to assist teachers in responding to student needs while also staying focused on the fundamental learning goals and objectives for the whole class. In brief, these are the steps:
THE LEARNING JOURNEY
Step 1: Know the travelers (children and teachers).
- Are they prepared for the journey? What skills, abilities and equipment do they have?
- What special problems or challenges do they bring to the journey?
- What differences from cultural background, life experience, and home life influence their ability to embark on this journey (i.e., learn)?
- What do you as teachers bring to this journey (knowledge, skills, experience, interests, resources) and what do you need (what accommodations to your style and preferences, what adjustments due to time constraints and other demands)?
Step 2: Determine the destination (learning goal).
- Where do you want the children to be at the end of this journey (i.e., what do you want the students to understand or to be able to do)?
- What territory (content) will they cover in terms of knowledge gained and skills honed?
- What learning standards and curriculum goals will this journey address?
Step 3: Identify proof or evidence that they have reached the destination (i.e., understand what has been taught).
- What behaviors and comments would show you that the students have reached their destination (achieved their goals)?
- What products, performances, constructions, and experiments would express understanding of the concepts, skills, and information taught?
Step 4: Plan the journey.
- How should the journey begin (what catalysts should be introduced)?
- What teaching strategies should be applied?
- What learning activities should be used?
- What resources should be drawn upon?
- How will the environment be designed and managed?
Step 5: Reassess and adjust according to new needs and changes.
- What are the criteria for knowing that the children have reached the destination (understood the concepts and processes involved)?
- What behaviors and verbal and written responses will reveal that learning has taken place?
- What measures (e.g., observation, questioning, rubrics) will give you the information you need to know if the child is on track or if he or she needs further adjustment?
Like any journey, differentiation requires preparation. How much preparation depends on the experience and talents teachers bring to the process, the learning needs of their students, and the level of support in their schools. For this reason, the journey is unique for each teacher who undertakes it. In order for differentiation to become beneficial for learners and teachersāone that feeds the imagination and provides the elements of discovery and surprise that make journeys worthwhileārealistic decisions have to be made about when and where it will work best and what human and material resources are needed to support it. Here are two examples of how teachers varied instruction to match the needs, learning styles, and interests of their students.
Example: Use of Learning Stations
Because of the different kids mainstreamed into my room, I usually have quite a range of skill and abilityāanything between two years below grade level to at least two above. Differentiating helps me deliver the curriculum so that I can be sure everyone is getting the important stuff and getting it in a way that works for them. One of the strategies I use regularly in math is separate learning stations where the kids take new information and apply it at different levels of complexity and with different kinds of materials. At the beginning of the year, I familiarize the kids with the three stations. The first one has a lot of manipulatives, drawing paper, rulers, pencils, etc. This is where students prove the math facts and rules theyāve learned and show their partner why their solution to a problem works. I give them suggestions for how they might demonstrate their answers. Another station is for practicing computation where they need more help. Materials at this station could be worksheets, computer programs, and other supports that help the students become more confident. In the third station, children do math-related projects, which tend to be long term, and they have the option of working alone or in small groups. I work out their projects with them, depending on their individual interests and learning needs.
āThird-grade teacher
Example: Use of Creativity
A pattern I developed with my kids was to begin with direct instruction and then branch off into creative applications. For kindergarteners, this works really well. The class had been learning a number of different words from a series of stories weād read together. On index cards, I wrote a number of words from these stories (one on each card) and mixed them up in a basket. The children took five words each and also selected a picture from a large stack of prints I keep in a box. The print gave them a setting. I asked them to think up a story using the five words and the picture they had chosen. After some time, I had volunteers tell me their story while I wrote it down on the board. Other, more advanced kids wrote theirs; still others accompanied their story with sketches of their own. This experience gave everyone a chance to invent a story using words I wanted them to use and understanding more about what goes into a story. Creativity is a great differentiating source because of its flexibility. Everyone at every level can participate, and they can go as far as their ability and ideas allow.
āKindergarten teacher
Teachers in seminars on differentiated instruction sometimes feel so pressured to apply the new strategies theyāve learned that they donāt give themselves the time to carefully think through which ones will benefit them or how to integrate them in a manageable way. In beginning this process, the first question to consider is this: What elements of differentiation do you already have in place? What are you doing to adjust and adapt to the needs in your classroom right now? Some teachers become so intent on learning the new program that they lose sight of their own tried and true stock of teaching practices, discoveries, and innovations in the classroom. Yet these assets form the foundation for differentiating in the primary grades. If we pursue this metaphor of a journey a little further, what we do, logically, when embarking on a trip is to first look at what we have in the way of supplies and what we already know about the new terrain. In essence, we do an inventory.
The remainder of this chapter guides you through a similar process of taking stock. It is a time for you to gather your own resources (your knowledge and expertise, your material supplies, your hobbies and talents, your networks of support), and then assess your level of preparedness and make some initial decisions about how to proceed.
The following list is a way to begin this process. Think through the items as they apply to you with the aim of discov...
