Every teacher already has the tools to differentiate in powerful ways for all learners.
July 23, 2014 Updated August 28, 2015 close modal
In The Wizard of Oz, Dorothy and crew are so intimidated by the Wizard’s enigmatic personality that they struggle to talk with him on equal footing. Fear and frustration overwhelm them as they blindly accept a suicide mission to slay the Witch of the West. In return, they each receive a treasured prize: a heart, a brain, courage, and a way home. Ironically, they already have these gifts—which they only discover after unveiling the man behind the curtain posing as the grumpy wizard.
Differentiated instruction (DI) casts a spell on educators as to how it meets all students’ needs. The skill set required to differentiate seems mystical to some and incomprehensible to others in this environment of state standards and high-stakes tests. Where does one find the time? The reality is that every teacher already has the tools to differentiate in powerful ways for all learners. I address some of these elements, such as assessment fog, in other Edutopia posts.
The DI elements were first introduced to me in How to Differentiate Instruction in Mixed-Ability Classrooms by Carol Tomlinson, and my understanding later deepened thanks to my friend and mentor Dr. Susan Allan. The core of differentiation is a relationship between teachers and students. The teacher’s responsibility is connecting content, process, and product. Students respond to learning based on readiness, interests, and learning profile. In this post, we’ll explore the teacher’s role for effective planning of DI, and in the next three posts, we’ll look at how students respond.
