Differentiated Instruction

A Guide for World Language Teachers

Deborah Blaz

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2016
• ISBN:
  9781317443568
• Edition: 2
• Topic: Sprachen & Linguistik
• Subtopic: Sprachen

In this new edition of a bestseller, author Deborah Blaz helps you differentiate lessons for your world language students based on their learning styles, interests, prior knowledge, and comfort zones. This practical book uses brain-based teaching strategies to help students of all ability levels thrive in a rigorous differentiated learning environment. Each chapter provides classroom-tested activities and tiered lesson plans to help you teach vocabulary, speaking, listening, reading, and writing in world language classes in ways that are interactive, engaging, and effective for all learners.

Features new to this edition include:

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• Sample thematic units to make your lessons more authentic and immersive

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• New strategies for using technology to differentiate world language instruction

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• Additional checklists, rubrics, and feedback forms to help you organize your lesson plans and track students' progress

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• New connections to the Common Core State Standards, the ACTFL Standards, Webb's Depth of Knowledge, and Bloom's Taxonomy

You'll also learn how to differentiate assessment effectively to help all students show their full potential. Classroom-ready tools and templates can be downloaded as free eResources from our website (www.routledge.com/9781138906181) for immediate use.

1
Differentiated Instruction

What It Is/What It Isn’t

If someone were to ask you what’s new in education, what would you say?

Here are my observations:

• Technology use has exploded. Students are increasingly using online platforms to learn and to make and submit their work. 1:1 laptops, tablet computers, and smartphones are now regularly used in the classroom, and are changing the face of differentiation.
• Collaboration is now routine in language classrooms. Student group performance/work is now a twenty-first century skill often prized and encouraged over individual performance. Teachers, too, are collaborating, sharing generously of their experiences and successes as well as asking for help with the wave of technology advances in online professional learning networks (PLN).
• Administrators and state and national legislation place an immense emphasis on standards and record-keeping. Teachers are now expected to keep (and are evaluated for competence in using) records of student progress and achievement on the basis of national standards such as the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) now in use in many states. Teachers today must validate, align, verify, and support curriculum choices. For this reason, in this new edition, when suggesting strategies I am including the CCSS points, the ACTFL standards, DOK, and Bloom’s Taxonomy information for each, in a text box format.
• In tandem with all the record-keeping, feedback formats are of greatly increased importance. Rubrics are the first things teachers ask other teachers for when sharing ideas and successes in their PLN, as those are the most common tools.
• Use of thematic units has caught fire, moving away from textbooks and into the realm of #authres (authentic resources). A thematic approach endeavors to make learning more active, interesting, and meaningful to students by concentrating on key objectives (such as “can-do” statements) as well as differentiation, hands-on tasks, and models.
• An “alphabet soup” of new teaching methods are available and/or required or adopted by state or local boards of education: PBL, IPA, DOK, SMART, CATs, SAMR, JiTT, GAFE, BYOD, AIM, CLIL, AAPPL, Inquiry Process, and many more (see Appendix B for definitions). This list does not include all the new options online that use technology to deliver information. Since these method focuses vary from state to state, and district to district, changing schools may require a major change in teaching methods.

These are all forms of differentiated instruction, or require knowledge and mastery of differentiation in order to be successful!

This new edition of my book will address all these changes, as well as keeping discussion of items from my list (still very applicable) from the first edition:

• Brain-based teaching strategies
• The emphasis/explosion of variety in learning styles and how to appeal to them
• The paradigm shift in curriculum from what topics should be taught to what students will be able to demonstrate (emphasis on performance)
• An emphasis on increased rigor in instruction
• Movement away from tracking and toward mixed-ability classrooms, including mainstreamed students with ISP/IEPs as well as students with ADHD/ADD

What Is Differentiated Instruction?

Basically this is a term that encompasses a wide range of teaching strategies and attitudes that all focus on the two concerns of any good educator: students and learning. The standards and curriculum tell us what students need to know, and differentiated instruction techniques help us get them there.

Is It Something New?

No. Differentiated instruction has been around for at least two decades, for gifted and talented students (those working above grade level). About eight or ten years ago, teachers began using it for special education students as well (those working below grade level). Then came the realization that it would be good for ELL (English-language learner) students, and at last, the notion that it can work for all students.

Differentiated instruction is somewhat hard to define. Let’s start with the dictionary’s definition. The Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary gives us this:

Differentiate

Transitive Senses

• 1: to mark or show a difference
• 2: to develop differential characteristics
• 3: to cause differentiation of in the course of development

Intransitive Senses

• 1: to recognize or give expression to a difference
• 2: to become distinct or different in character
• 3: to undergo differentiation

Related Words comprehend, understand

Contrasted Words confound, mistake

Antonyms confuse

(By permission from Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate® Dictionary, 11th Edition and Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate® Thesaurus ©2005 by Merriam-Webster Inc., www.merriam-webstercollegiate.com.)

In differentiated instruction, the teacher is the transitive, and the student is the intransitive!

As the definition indicates, (1) teachers must mark/identify the differences in both students and in possible teaching strategies, and make adjustments according to what will benefit students most and best facilitate learning in the classroom. (2) They then develop and implement, bit by bit, the characteristics of a differentiated classroom. (3) The key word is development. Any good educational program is always under construction: assessment, evaluation, and reflection are the keys to finding what works and what doesn’t work, and trying to fix the latter.

Continuing the definition, with students as the intransitive aspect, students must learn to recognize their differences, strengths and weaknesses, their learning styles, interests and intelligences, and how to deal with those and find the best way to express them. They must develop the confidence and self-esteem that is so necessary to be able to learn.

What Differentiated Instruction Is

Differentiated instruction is complex and flexible, with many ways to accommodate different teaching styles as well as student differences in:

• learning styles
• interests
• prior knowledge
• socialization needs
• comfort zones
• level of engagement/readiness
• technology they have access to and know how to use well

Differentiated instruction is

• rigorous, providing challenging instruction that motivates students
• relevant—not more of the same, or extra “fluff, ” but essential learning
• proactive, using methods like hands-on projects

The best, differentiated classrooms are based on certain beliefs and practices. Here is a list of those, organized alphabetically rather than by importance, as the items are equally important.

Choice. Students in a differentiated classroom have a choice in what they learn, how they learn it, and how they show the knowledge they have. They are less likely to learn well if the teacher makes all the decisions. “The best learning environment offers a large variety of choices to satisfy individual abilities and talents” (Jensen, 1998).

Collaboration. Most teachers would agree that students listen best and learn best from other students, that lower-functioning students improve when working with more academically capable ones, and that many future jobs will require an ability to be a contributing member of a team (twenty-first century skill). In a differentiated classroom, students collaborate with the teacher and with each other.

Communication. Any classroom should be communicative and interactive in nature, but clear communication of expectations between students and teacher or student groups to produce and present in the target language (TL), as well as precise rubrics or checklists is especially necessary in a differentiated learning situation.

Connections. New learning gets stored in the long-term memory when a connection is made between it and a student’s previous experience, knowledge, or interests. This is why one of the five C’s in the ACTFL standards is Connections: connections to their native language, to other students and the teacher, to things learned in other classes, or to the community and the world. Any connectedness has a positive effect on learning and is a major goal for any differentiated instruction lesson.

Learning how to learn. The teacher should take time to make the students aware of how they learn best (metacognition), and teach them strategies that will benefit them inside and outside the classroom.

Multiple learning modes. Brain research tells us that there are many different learning methods: inquiry, memorization, technology, socialization, and many more. Both the students and the teacher learn new learning methods, in a differentiated classroom, from each other. Learning is not just a one-way street—my students love to help me learn new things as much as I love helping them.

Teaching is an art, and every teacher is different. We all know the value of humor and enthusiasm, communication and intuition, as well as a love of our subject matter and our students, whether we teach using thematic units, a text, or Total Physical Response Storytelling (TPRS). Differentiating does not mean you need to change what works for you; it asks that you consider expanding your repertoire to see if you can reach a few more students.

Open-endedness. Assume that learning never ends and that thinking about a topic should continue. Sometimes thinking comes up with more questions (curiosity is a great stimulant of knowledge) instead of just a single answer. Strategies like Socratic seminar and many upper-level Bloom’s or DOK activities (see Chapter Three) are open-ended.

Routine. Routine, besides making students feel secure and establishing classroom expectations and therefore teacher control of that environment, also can trigger memories of facts learned. Structure is important. Without clear expectations for classroom management, communicated well to students, differentiation will be very difficult to implement.

Variety in instruction and assessment. Variety can bring excitement and even joy to the learning environment. The more variety you use in assessing students (summative or formative, written or oral, daily or at the end of a chapter, announced or unannounced), the more feedback both you and the student will have on whether success is taking place. Also, using a variety of assessments will help students unsuited to pencil-and-paper tests feel successful.

Finally, here is another vital element that is not part of a classroom, but is essential to good implementation of differentiated instruction in any classroom:

Collegiality. Communication with other teachers and/or consultants helps everyone involved. Years ago at my school, those of us interested in differentiation took turns presenting strategies we’d tried to each other. Now, I belong to many PLNs (professional learning networks) on Facebook (French Teachers in the US; there is also a great one for Spanish), on Twitter (#langchat and many others), and via blogs and wikis as well as Google Hangouts and Pinterest, among others. Teachers all over the globe and I have shared materials (maps, manipulatives, even bulletin boards) and critiqued each other’s ideas, looking for ways to implement or improve learning. Teachers, too, need connections, talk, open-endedness, etc., as well as the feeling that we don’t exist in a vacuum. I’ve often heard foreign language teachers say they feel this way. With modern technology (and enough time to read all the postings) there is much help to be found.

What Differentiation Is Not

Since graphics often help comprehension, here’s a compare/contrast table.

Table 1.1

What Differentiated Instruction Is	What Differentiated Instruction Is Not
• Student-centered	• Class-centered
• For all students	• Mainly for students with learning problems
• For heterogeneous groups	• A tracking system by abilities
• A change in philosophy about how learning should take place	• A recipe for learning: it is how to teach, not what to teach
• Multiple approaches/options for Content, Process, and Produc...