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Creating lesson plans to reach a classroom of 20-plus students can be a challenge for experienced teachers and rookies alike. Each classroom includes students at differentiated instruction levels and abilities, from different backgrounds and with different life experiences. The only way to reach all of these students is to create differentiated lesson plans. While some teachers believe differentiation means creating lessons that include on level, above level and below level activities and assignments, effective differentiation involves much more than that. It takes into account each student's prior knowledge like guided reading, interests and preferences, learning styles and academic ability.

Difficulty: Moderately Challenging

Instructions  

1)Teach educators the vocabulary of differentiation. As teachers learn about differentiation they will come across terms such as flexible grouping, on-going assessment, learning profiles, learning styles, rigor and higher level questioning. Just as teachers provide content vocabulary instruction for students as part of their lesson plans, staff development professionals need to provide instruction on key terms found when studying differentiation.

2)Educate teachers on differentiated instruction strategies. Most teachers are familiar with the concept of learning styles, and have learned to teach to auditory, visual and kinesthetic learners. However, these are only three of the eight learning styles that resulted from Howard Gardner's work on multiple intelligences. Gardner, who wrote "Frames of Mind: The Theory of Multiple Intelligences," noted eight intelligences or learning styles: the visual-spatial learner, verbal-linguistic or auditory learner, the bodily-kinesthetic or physical learner, the logical-mathematical learner, the interpersonal learner, the intrapersonal learner, the naturalistic learner and the musical learner. Teachers will benefit from studying the attributes and preferences of each learning style and incorporating assignments and activities that fit each in their lesson plans.

3)Encourage teachers to consider students' personal experiences, interests and preferences when planning differentiated instruction. The greatest learning takes place when lessons are meaningful to the student as an individual. Beyond their different learning styles, students bring with them a variety of personal experiences, interests and prior knowledge about the subject matter. They also have varied preferences for the types of activities they like to do. Connecting with the learner as an individual is a key aspect of differentiation. To do that, teachers should consider all of these elements when planning instruction.

4)Introduce teachers to Bloom's Taxonomy. Benjamin Bloom was an educational psychologist whose research and work in the 1950s resulted in a hierarchy of questioning used by educators. The lowest level on the hierarchy -- originally referred to as "knowledge" -- requires students merely recall information. The terminology was updated in the 1990s to: remembering (lowest level), understanding, applying, analyzing, evaluating and creating. Teachers can use this system to create assignments and activities at different learning levels. They can challenge students by asking higher-level questions on tests that require students to apply and evaluate, using what they have learned instead of just regurgitating facts. They can provide rigorous lessons in which students are required to create by using what they have learned. While matching the level of questioning or demonstration of mastery to the student's ability can help all students be successful in the classroom, working with the higher end of Bloom's Taxonomy pushes students to go deeper in their learning process.

5)Demonstrate methods for on-going assessment throughout the learning process. The key to differentiation is on-going assessment. Assessing students throughout the learning process helps teachers learn what concepts the students understand and what skills they have mastered, and to see the areas with which they are struggling. From there, teachers can adjust instruction to better meet the learning needs of each student throughout the learning process. On-going assessment can include informal observations, skills checklists, quizzes, tests and various projects and class assignments.

6)Reassure teachers that differentiation takes practice to perfect. Hardly anyone will get differentiation right the first time. Encourage teachers to create differentiated lesson plans for just one or two learning goals for a unit and to treat these as practice. After the lessons, review what worked and what did not work and make adjustments for the next set of plans. Then try again.