I wrote about beginning The Differentiated Classroom a couple of weeks ago and being excited to be able to encorporate ideas from it into my own classroom.
The first chapter was an introduction to differentiation and also provided some real classroom examples of differentiation in practice, which I appreciated.
Chapter two is titled Elements of Differentiation and begins to introduce what a teacher must do in order to effectively differentiate his or her own classroom.
It discusses the importance of teaching only the essentials, especially to struggling learners, who may become confused with too many useless facts.
Also discussed is what the teacher can and should modify in the classroom and when. For example, if a student is becoming bored then something needs to be altered; the teacher can change the product outcome to suit a child’s interest or the process of learning to be driven in a different way.
Also important was the discussion of assessment and instruction. Being able to use formative assessment in order to guide our teaching practice is a hot-button topic these days, and not without reason. Assessment should be used to help the student and their learning, not to cause them anxiety or to eliminate any creativity from the teacher who has to “teach to the test”.
There was also a great figure about differentiating instruction which listed some great ways to differentiate (which I what I’m always looking for)! If you’re interested in more information about the book, here’s a link to it on Amazon.
Stay posted for chapter three!!
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