Hello again everyone! We’ve been reading through The Differentiated Classroom by Carol Ann Tomlinson. Last chapter was all about various instructional strategies to support differentiation. This chapter is titled… (wait for it)… More Instructional Strategies to Support Differentiation. Yay!
As you may remember, I really enjoyed the last chapter (which was all about instructional strategies) so I’m very excited to read this one as well.
The chapter begins with centres, which I already do in my classroom, but which I was excited to read about for more ideas of centres to incorporate as well as ways in which to include more subjects other than Language Arts and Math.
Indeed, reading through this section, I really enjoyed the examples included; they require a lot of extra prep work to set up, but they’re worth it in the long run. Also included were some dinosaur worksheets which I loved looking through as thy would be great for my dinosaur unit.
Also discussednin the chapter we’re entry points, tiered activities, learning contracts, compacting, problem based learning, group investigation, independent study, choice boards, 4MAT, and portfolios.
I’ve worked a lot with tiered activities (one of my personal favourite ways to differentiate) and choice boards, but what really peaked my interest in this chapter was learning contracts. I really liked the way the example in the chapter was set up, and felt like it was a great way to let students practice working independently.
I’m very excited for the final two chapters; I’m hoping they provide as much inspiration as these last few. Here’s a link to the book on Amazon, if you’d like more information or are thinking of buying it. Keep reading!
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