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Chapter 1
Setting the Stage for Change Toward Differentiation
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Students in today's schools are becoming more academically diverse. There are more students identified for more exceptionalities in special education, more students for whom English is not their first language, and more students struggling to read. There is a need to ensure challenge for advanced learners when accountability pressures focus on basic competencies, and a growing economic gap exists between segments of the student population.
It seems unrealistic to think that all those students will thrive in classrooms that disregard their learning differences. In fact, a look at indicators such as grades, student discipline, attendance, college acceptance, dropout rates, and standardized test scores confirms that school is not working well for too many students.
Differentiated instruction seems promising as a response to the variety of learning needs students bring to school every day. It makes sense to encourage teachers to be mindful of and responsive to their students' diverse learning needs. But what would the school leaders be asking teachers to do by encouraging them to differentiate instruction? What does differentiation look like? And would benefits to students and teachers be worth the tension and effort such a change would require? Are there avoidable errors that leaders should keep in mind?
What does it mean to lead for schoolwide change for differentiation?
Fostering Enduring, Deep Change
We often hear fellow educators say, "We're doing differentiation in our school this year. Could you come help us?" Not surprisingly then, we also hear, "Our teachers know about differentiation, but nobody seems to do much with it in their classrooms." We also visit classrooms where "differentiation is happening," go to conference sessions, and even read books that revisit the truth that a little knowledge is a dangerous thing.
On the one hand, it's positive that educators are having a conversation about how to teach with an eye to individual learner needs. As we'll discuss later, there is more than ample evidence of a need for that conversation. Further, it speaks well of us as educators that we see and acknowledge the varying needs of our students. On the other hand, shallow approaches to differentiating instruction for academically diverse learners will serve neither the students nor the profession well.
Mandates for classroom change and drive-through approaches to staff development likely will do more harm than good. They may result in some modifications for some people over some period of time, but they are seldom catalysts for broad, widespread, and enduring change. In addition, surface approaches to deep issues trivialize problems and convince teachers that shortly the wind will shift and the gnats that are pestering them will go away until a new breeze blows through.
In this book, we hope to provide a more substantial way to think about substantial change on behalf of a substantial need in our schools. It is our intent to (a) clarify the tenets of "defensible differentiation," (b) specify key principles and practices of leadership for meaningful change in classrooms and schools, and (c) illustrate how it looks when educators commit to making durable changes in teachingāin this case, to implement differentiated instruction in classrooms throughout a school.
To set the stage for the rest of the book, this chapter will first highlight some key elements of defensible differentiation. Next, it will take a look at the complexity of educational change. Finally, it will introduce two schools that made differentiated classrooms a schoolwide reality and whose change journey will provide practical and concrete illustrations through the rest of the book.
Defensible Differentiation: What It Is and Is Not
There is a great deal already written about what we call "differentiated instruction." This section of the chapter will not try to repeat or even summarize that writing. What it will do is address some misconceptions by outlining what differentiation is and is not, and it will highlight essential elements of defensible differentiation. The point is to remind educational leaders (a term we use to include teachers and administrators who are wise and informed pace setters for their colleagues) that solutions to educational problems do not lie in names or in labels but in quality practice. Calling something "differentiation" provides no guarantee of its efficacy for students. Leaders must continually be attuned to fidelity of practice and continually ask themselves and others, "How does what's happening here make sense for learners?"
Differentiation that's likely to make a positive difference for students will have some attributes andāmore to the pointāwill not have others. Figure 1.1 suggests some misconceptions about differentiation that, turned into practice, can dilute or damage student outcomes. It also points to some indicators of defensible differentiation.
Figure 1.1. What Differentiated Instruction Is and Is Not
What Differentiation Is Not: Just for students with labels
What Differentiation Is: For every student
Explanation: Every student has particular interests and learning preferences as well as a readiness level that varies over time and context. Each learner needs appropriate support.
What Differentiation Is Not: Something extra in the curriculum
What Differentiation Is: At the core of effective planning
Explanation: Differentiation is not something you do when the real lesson is finished. It's integral to ensuring that each student has access to success with key content goals.
What Differentiation Is Not: An approach that mollycoddles studentsāmakes them dependent
What Differentiation Is: Teaching up; supporting students in achieving at a level higher than they thought possible
Explanation: Effective differentiation always enables a student to do more than would be possible without it, not less.
What Differentiation Is Not: Incompatible with standards
What Differentiation Is: A vehicle for ensuring student success with standards
Explanation: A goal of differentiation is ensuring that each student succeeds with whatever is important for him or her to know, understand, and do.
What Differentiation Is Not: Use of certain instructional strategies
What Differentiation Is: Use of flexible approaches to space, time, materials, groupings, and instruction
Explanation: Flexibility is a hallmark of differentiation, but no single instructional strategy is required to differentiate effectively.
What Differentiation Is Not: Tracking in the regular classroom
What Differentiation Is: The antithesis of tracking
Explanation: Effective differentiation requires use of flexible grouping patterns so that students consistently work in a variety of groups based on readiness, interest, learning preference, random assignment, teacher choice, and student choice.
What Differentiation Is Not: Assigning students to cross-class groups based on assessment data
What Differentiation Is: Within a classroom
Explanation: When students are removed from their classrooms and placed with students deemed similar in other classrooms, a kind of tracking is taking place. Real flexibility is lost.
What Differentiation Is Not: All or mostly based on a particular approach to multiple intelligences
What Differentiation Is: Systematic attention to readiness, interest, and learning profile
Explanation: Learning profile is one-third of the domain of differentiation and consists of learning style, intelligence preference (there are two strong models addressing intelligence preference), gender-related preferences, and culture-related preferences. A single approach to intelligence preferences in the classroom is a narrow segment of the big picture of differentiation.
What Differentiation Is Not: All or mostly based on learning style preferences
What Differentiation Is: Systematic attention to readiness, interest, and learning profile
Explanation: See note above. Attention to learning style is helpful for some students some of the time and helps teachers learn to be more flexible, but it leaves other needs unaddressed.
What Differentiation Is Not: Synonymous with student choice
What Differentiation Is: A balance of teacher choice and student choice
Explanation: There are times when it's important for teachers to assign particular work to students because it will move them forward in key ways. At other times, it makes good sense for students to call the shots and learn about making wise choices.
What Differentiation Is Not: Individualization
What Differentiation Is: Focused on individuals, small groups, and the class as a whole
Explanation: Although it is an aim of differentiation to focus on individuals, it is not a goal to make individual lesson plans for each student.
What Differentiation Is Not: More problems, books, or questions for some students and fewer for others
What Differentiation Is: Varied avenues to the same essential understandings
Explanation: Struggling students don't often benefit by doing less of what they don't understand, and it's not helpful for advanced learners to do more of what they already know. Differentiation asks students to work with essential understandings at varied degrees of complexity and with varied support systems. Information-based tasks and skills-based tasks should be congruent with students' current needs.
What Differentiation Is Not: Something a teacher does because it's the thing to do
What Differentiation Is: Something a teacher does in response to particular needs of particular human beings
Explanation: Differentiation should be responsive instruction, not mechanical instruction.
What Differentiation Is Not: Something that happens all day every day
What Differentiation Is: Something that happens when there is a need for it
Explanation: At times, whole-class instruction is important and effective. Teachers need to build community as well as attend to individual needs.
What Differentiation Is Not: Something a teacher does on the spot when it becomes evident that a lesson isn't working for some students (reactive or improvisational)
What Differentiation Is: Something a teacher plans prior to a lesson based on assessment evidence of student needs (proactive)
Explanation: The most powerful differentiation is based on pre-assessment and ongoing assessment of student progress toward key goals. The teacher uses the assessment information to make proactive plans to address student needs. Some improvisation is still needed, but it is not a dominant...
