Website and Resources to make personalizing instruction a reality
A great part of differentiated instruction is project based learning- things that help kids integrate knowledge and think creatively. The folks at Common Craft have a great way of making complex subjects easier to understand, and this video on project based learning is a great example:
Every year since it started, I have attended Educon. Educon, the only education conference held in an actual school, grew out of EduBloggerCon as a way to continue the conversations started there, and to make sure the conversations between educators about teaching and education had another place to be voiced and heard. It’s a place where teachers, administrators, parents and others in the education world can get together and have conversations about how to change and evolve education, how to improve the craft of teaching, and brainstorm solutions for some of the stickier problems everyone in these worlds face.
The Science Leadership Academy (SLA), a Philadelphia special admission public school, is an example of what every school can be- student centered, inquiry-driven, and an amazing environment where learning and community come together. On the Friday the conference was supposed to start, Philadelphia schools were closed due to snow. Yet the students, who are an integral part of running and planning the conference, took it upon themselves to start sending messages via Facebook and Twitter, and over a hundred students still came to school on a snow day, to make sure the visitors and guests would be able to see THEIR school in action, even under somewhat unusual circumstances. You know a school is a special place for kids if they come there even on a snow day, where the hurdles of even getting to school are more challenging than normal.
But I’m not surprised by this. Because at the first Educon, I was speaking to one of the teachers, Mr. Rochester, who spoke about the kids regularly coming to school early, and that the faculty would have to chase them out of school at 6pm when the building was being locked for the evening. He said they couldn’t figure out why the kids wouldn’t leave. I knew why from the moment I got there- the people who cared about the students, the students who cared about their learning, and the electricity in the air of “How can we change the world today?” was palpable. Of course kids would do this- school is the most exciting place to be- better than video games, better than just about anything. School has become their place, their home, their club. And while the fact every student has a laptop is nice, it’s the fact that this enhances their communication and collaboration that really makes a difference. The tech is secondary to the people- the teachers and students who have a sense of school and community that transcends anything I had ever seen before.
SLA is a special school that totally changed my perspective on what school can be, and I’d give my right arm to get to be there as a student. But it also sets a shining example of what schools can be, and makes me want to do whatever is necessary to help my school district emulate some of what SLA has. I want to help inspire our teachers to want more, to care more, and to realize it’s not all about the external things, but it’s as much about who you are as a teacher and whether or not you are personally invested in your students and their success.
The teachers at SLA are excellent not only because of what they know, but moreover, because they care so much about their students. They care about their own learning. The faculty meets and works as a team, and they don;t leave a meeting until their is consensus. Not everyone wins, but there’s a sense of setting a common agenda that everyone can live with and try, and knowing that if Plan A doesn’t work, they’ll go to Plan B just as willingly, without a sense of defeat, but just a sense of there may be a new and better way to tweek what’s happening.
It all starts with Inquiry.
I look at Differentiated Instruction as having many parts- Inquiry, project-based learning, personalized learning for students, and more- all of it together creating a learning atmosphere where students are valued and known as individuals, and are challenged to know themselves and push themselves, as much as be guided and mentored by the teachers. SLA embodies this every day, so I know it’s not a myth, a silver unicorn, but it can be done. Moreover, the change is not about tech (although it helps) or location- it’s largely one of attitude and a willingness to do things differently. And that is free- all it takes is a belief that change is truly possible.
Places like SLA where the kids have a sense of place and ownership in their school don’t have to be rare gems- but it does take leadership, culture and support- a willingness to be different and do different. And all of that starts inside each individual. Places like SLA just set an example and let you know it’s not a utopian dream.
A great way for many children to learn is through audio. One of my son’s really got excited about the prospect of reading after we started listening to audio books in the car. It helped him bridge that gap between his current reading level and his interest and comprehension level. With the development of podcasting, there are many great (and free) opportunities to listen to great material on the go- from stories through sites like StoryNory, fairytales, classic stories and fables read by Natasha, a former BBC producer , to information and writing tips from Grammar Girl, to the fun science podcasts put out by the NSTA called Lab Out Loud. Here’s a great example (available in video and audio)
Ben Goldacre Talks Bad Science from PopTech on Vimeo.
Here’s a link to a great list of over 80 podcasts that would be great for education, the classroom, or just to help enrich your own children or yourself during your commute.
Think about the use of audio to help students who may struggle with reading, for students who have an auditory learning style preference, or just to change up lessons or give students another choice. There are tons of resources- free resources, available both for download on ipods and other mp3 players, or streaming over the web, for learners of all ages.
Please add your favorite resources in our comments!
Seth Godin has a great blog post about ways we’ve classically looked at trying to help others do things, big and small. The key part I think all educators and parents should pay attention to is this:
The third method, the one that I prefer, is to open the door. Give people a platform, not a ceiling. Set expectations, not to manipulate but to encourage. And then get out of the way, helping when asked but not yelling from the back of the bus.
When people learn to embrace achievement, they get hooked on it. Take a look at the incredible achievements the alumni of some organizations achieve after they move on. When adults (and kids) see the power of self-direction and realize the benefits of mutual support, they tend to seek it out over and over again.
With differentiated instruction and personal learning, part of what’s asked is for teachers to set expectations, encourage, and get out of the way. Parents need to take this same attitude with grades and homework. Set expectations, guide and assist when needed, but basically get out of the way and let the child do it. Too often we fall into the trap that goading or nagging will work. Too often we take for granted that if giving the opportunity, the student just might make a good and reasoned decision. While I’ll be the first to admit kids don’t always have the experience or the frontal lobes to make the best judgments about what’s good for them now or in the future, if you lay out the case for them and provide all the facts and context, they can make surprisingly good decisions.
We need to develop a greater sense of trust in our students, in our colleagues, and in ourselves to do the right thing, most of the time. Too often I see people making plans, rules, policies and the like for the fringe operators, the people who will go out of their way to test limits or circumvent the system. Those people are never going to go away. They will always be there. The parameters need to be set for the bulk of people trying to do the right thing, and then deal with the outliers as outliers, as one-offs, as making human mistakes or bad decisions like we all do. Because some folks can’t be trusted, doesn’t mean we should all live in a police state. Instead, we have to set the expectation of trust and community, and if we do, the vast majority will follow.
Asserting authority should only have to be used when necessary. If you have a true learning community, it should be a trusting community as well, and you earn the respect and authority you have, as a teacher, parent or student. And this means not having to use your power or assert it very often, because it’s taken as a given, as a parameter of the interaction and group. This requires confidence in your position within the community as well, and that it will not be constantly challenged.
And I think this is really where many of us, including myself, fall short from time to time. You need to be confident and secure in your knowledge, your contributions and your place in a group in order to thrive. If you find yourself needing to assert your power and authority frequently, maybe you need to look at how secure you feel in your position, and whether or not the challenge you feel is internal or external. Sometimes it may be your lack of confidence that exacerbates the challenges to your authority, not a need for more and stricter rules.
Just something to think about.
ASCD, formerly known as the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development, has published a series of blog posts on what they see as the top educational trends for 2011. They have named Differentiated Instruction as the Number 2 trend, which is both cause for concern and rejoicing.
The concern is that anything labelled as a trend in education is viewed with suspicion and caution. There always seems to be some new gimmick or gadget to “fix” education, but we all know that it’s not so easy. Just as there is no miracle cure for weight loss except the hard, day to day work of diet and exercise, there’s no simple “cure” for any problems in education besides good teaching. Anything with a new label promising better results tomorrow should be viewed with skepticism and caution. But Differentiated Instruction is not really anything new. It’s not a fad. It’s not “new and improved” repackaging of old instructional methods. It’s a way of viewing education as child-centered, rather than adult-centered.
Differentiated Instruction is just another term for great teaching that seeks to reach each student at their instructional level. The strategies collected under the term Differentiated Instruction are all about helping teachers figure out where students are, and how to plan lessons that reach all learners. It’s not a gimmick, or magic- it’s great teaching. It’s about reaching students and helping them stretch and show themselves what they are capable of. It’s about good communication, and making learning exciting. It’s about putting kids first, and not treating them like widgets or jars to be filled with knowledge that is just poured back into the bowl we call testing and assessment.
DI, as a trend, is also a cause for rejoicing. It means more teachers and more administrators will start to look into DI and think about how teachers can better meet student needs. It means more training and professional development sessions will help teachers use things like backwards design and quick, in class knowledge checks to make sure kids are following what’s going on and not getting lost during class. It means students may be able to see more of the big picture of why the lesson and education matter, and fewer will feel like school is boring or wasting their time.
I hope DI becoming a trend will help make the classroom a more exciting place for teachers and students. I hope differentiation will help students know themselves better as learners, and teachers will become better versed at reaching a variety of students, and know when to ask for more help. DI won’t cure learning disabilities, for example, but it may help kids with learning disabilities have more access to the lessons and learn the best way for them to master the material. As we look more at how individuals learn, we can help broaden access to lessons and learning experiences to make sure everyone succeeds.
This is going to be an exciting year for us here on the DI blog, and I hope we’ll be able to help you find the tips, strategies and tools you need to make DI a reality in your classroom. Please ask questions, post comments, and consider joining us over in the forums on personalized learning at Edutopia. You can sign up for a free account, and come participate in the forums. The forums include everything from the one we moderate on personalized learning, to others on project-based learning, technology, planning, assessment, special education, classroom management, education reform and more.
We hope to hear from you, and how we can best help you make DI a reality, not just another buzz word, in your classroom.
There was an interesting article in the New York Times about the results of a recent study funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. The study, costing $45 million and around two years to perform reported what I hope most teachers know in their bones- and I quote the NY Times article here:
“Teachers whose students described them as skillful at maintaining classroom order, at focusing their instruction and at helping their charges learn from their mistakes are often the same teachers whose students learn the most in the course of a year, as measured by gains on standardized test scores, according to a progress report on the research.”
So what we’ve shown in a formal study is good and compassionate teaching works well.
Teachers were ranked as thy study began based on value-added modeling, ranking teachers based on how much their students learned each year as evaluated on tests; the students were separately confidentially surveyed on what they thought of the teacher and classroom. As it turns out, ” Classrooms where a majority of students said they agreed with the statement, “Our class stays busy and doesn’t waste time,” tended to be led by teachers with high value-added scores, the report said ” confirming that students are as interested in getting to work and getting things done as most adults assume they would prefer to socialize or do anything other than work.
And significantly, the article also states:
“One notable early finding, Ms. Phillips said, is that teachers who incessantly drill their students to prepare for standardized tests tend to have lower value-added learning gains than those who simply work their way methodically through the key concepts of literacy and mathematics.
Teachers whose students agreed with the statement, “We spend a lot of time in this class practicing for the state test,” tended to make smaller gains on those exams than other teachers.
“Teaching to the test makes your students do worse on the tests,” Ms. Phillips said. “It turns out all that ‘drill and kill’ isn’t helpful.”
Education of students is important. Surprising to most adults, but not surprising to me, is that every study I’ve ever read where people ask students what they think of their teacher and how hard they’re asked to work yields results where kids are, on the whole, honest and accurate in their assessments when compared to external measures of effectiveness and observations. Not only that, but when given choices between challenge assignments and the easy stuff, kids choose to challenge themselves, because no one likes things that seem to easy and not of value.
To me, this is further evidence that education works best when it’s an interactive process between teachers and students, which is what differentiated instruction and personalized learning are all about. Students, regardless of their level or talents, need teachers who are invested in their learning. They deserve teachers who help them push a bit, make mistakes, learn from them, and help them master skills.
Everything we know from developmental psychology tells us this- from Vygotsky’s scaffolding model, to Piaget’s Assimilation and Accommodation models, to Dr. Bob Brooks, who writes frequently with Dr. Sam Goldstein about resiliency in children and has written the textbook on Understanding and Managing Children’s Classroom Behavior.
Dr. Bob Brooks even asks parents to ask their own children for a performance review from time to time.
When I first heard Dr. Brooks speak and he asked us all to go home and ask our kids how we were doing as parents, a large, audible gasp went up in the room. He asked us all to ask ourselves why this made us so uncomfortable. Almost every parent feels comfortable given our kids critique and review of their behavior all the time, but we are scared of the same thing? Are we afraid that the “power” we hold will evaporate? Are we afraid our kids will see us as human? Are we really all as insecure in how we’re doing as the man behind the curtain in the Wizard of Oz?
So, despite not knowing what I would hear, I went home and asked my kids what they thought. The boys were 7 and 10 at the time and I was nervous, to be honest, for reasons I couldn’t even articulate but could best be summed up as insecurity and lack of formal training other than trial and error at this job called parenting. I might have graduated from law school, but as my husband, an OB -GYN, will confirm, no one hands you a parenting manual when your baby is born- you are on your own, with only on the job training and the books at Barnes & Nobel as your guide.
I sat down with the oldest boy first, and then his younger brother. I was surprised at how accurate their observations were and how honest they were. I was surprised how well they thought I was doing. Even when I pointed out my own short comings- yelling, crabbiness, pushing them to do better- the kids said they understood and often knew that they needed to be refocused or told what to do, and understood why I got frustrated with them. This honest conversation was a turning point in our relationship. It’s now much more relaxed, open and honest. I know I can ask them what they think if things seem out of kilter, and they can help problem solve the situation. Instead of going straight to yelling, I can say “I’m frustrated that we keep having this same problem. Can we find a way to make this easier for both of us in the future?” We can work together to make a better parent-kid relationship, they trust me more, and trust that I probably have a reason behind even the most arbitrary-sounding rules.
This same honesty and openness works when I’m teaching classes to kids or adults. Being fallible doesn’t diminish your authority- it actually earns you respect, because it gives those in the room permission to be human as well. Asking students how they feel the class is going is another form of comprehension check- it lets teachers and students figure out where they stand with each other, and forms a relationship based on trust that’s important to have when you’re asking students to step outside of their comfort zone.
In almost any classroom, we regularly ask students to put themselves on the line in front of the teacher (authority figures) and their peers. This can be emotionally risky for kids, who worry that what they say may not only be “wrong” but could lead to teasing or ridicule later on. Unless teachers can establish a classroom where trust between teacher and student (and hopefully between students as well) is valued and important, how can we really expect students to stretch and take the emotional and intellectual risks necessary to learn and grow?
What all of this tells me is that we need to teach students, then subjects. The people are most important, and the connections you make between teacher and student are the most important thing that goes on in the classroom. And the data is now backing this up- when teachers are more concerned with creating a safe and supportive learning environment, and help students challenge themselves, make mistakes and learn from those mistakes, as is key with an inquiry-based approach, students do better. Teachers are rated as being more effective. Everyone wins.
What’s difficult, is this asks teachers to make an emotional investment in teaching and in their students. It can lead to disappointments, which no one likes. It’s not easy. It’s not scripted. It requires each teacher to be present and to teach with the student rather than try to fill their brains like filling bottles on an assembly line. But in the end, the more you invest, the more kids get out, and everyone wins.
If we know this is the right way to teach, if we know it’s the right thing to do for education, what is it so hard to change?
The change is not necessarily systematic. Most of it is attitudinal, and it starts at the individual teacher level. It needs to be supported and nurtured by the school and administration in order to thrive, for sure, but you can change your classroom tomorrow by just asking the students how you’re doing, what they like and what they don’t, and what would help improve things. Problem solve together. Remember when kids say “hard’ or “difficult” or “I can’t” ,they are often saying “I don’t understand” or “I need more help” or “Can you explain it in another way?”
What do you think?
Can you change your classroom by connecting with your students and helping them take a more “experimental” approach to assignments- allowing them to make mistakes and get another chance to try again afterwards, once they understand why they made the mistakes and how to tweek it for next time? What would it do for you if your supervisors treated you this way? Would it help you improve at your job as well?
Let us know what you think in the comments, and where you would find challenges trying this approach in your classroom.
I was at a meeting yesterday, and there was discussion of what a 21st Century classroom should look like. I remembered seeing some information about a “Node” chair that gave lots of flexible seating options in the classroom and seemed to be a better solution than most of the desks I see in classrooms today, which make chiropractors cry- both from the pain they cause and from the money the doctors make straightening out people afterwards!
This point was also highlighted when I read The Principal’s Page blog which spoke about how twitter may be changing education but not school desks, and that we could even have kids pay closer attention if we didn’t treat them like veal. It’s a good read- please check it out.
I’m excited enough about this Node chair to be interested in trying one at home for my own kids, but unfortunately, they are not yet available to the public as a “buy one” option- but they may be after January- I can’t wait!
Check out this Youtube video about the Node chair to better understand not only how design and classroom design helps inform instruction, but how a more flexible seating option might really change how your class interacts.
