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Please read and answer
1. Does everyone in class have to do the same thing at the same time?
2. What is the difference between content, process and product?

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Differentiated Instruction

Every teacher already has the tools to differentiate in powerful ways for all learners.

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.

Content, process, and product are what teachers address all the time during lesson planning and instruction. These are the areas where teachers have tremendous experience in everything from lesson planning to assessment. Once the curtain is removed for how these three areas can be differentiated, meeting students' diverse needs becomes obvious and easy to do-because it's always been present.

Differentiating Content

Content comprises the knowledge, concepts, and skills that students need to learn based on the curriculum. Differentiating content includes using various delivery formats such as video, readings, lectures, or audio. Content may be chunked, shared through graphic organizers, addressed through jigsaw groups, or used to provide different techniques for solving equations. Students may have opportunities to choose their content focus based on interests.

For example, in a lesson on fractions, students could:

Watch an overview video from Khan Academy.

Complete a Frayer Model for academic vocabulary, such as denominator and numerator.

Watch and discuss a demonstration of fractions via cutting a cake.

Eat the cake.

This example should reassure teachers that differentiation could occur in whole groups. If we provide a variety of ways to explore the content outcomes, learners find different ways to connect.

Differentiating Process

Process is how students make sense of the content. They need time to reflect on and digest the learning activities before moving on to the next segment of a lesson. Think of a workshop or course where, by the end of the session, you felt filled to bursting with information, perhaps even overwhelmed. Processing helps students assess what they do and don't understand. It's also a formative assessment opportunity for teachers to monitor students' progress.

For example, having one or two processing experiences for every 30 minutes of instruction alleviates feelings of content saturation. Reflection is a powerful skill that is developed during processing experiences. Some strategies include:

Of these three DI elements, process experiences are least used. Start with any of the shared strategies, and see long-term positive effects on learning.

Differentiating Product

Product differentiation is probably the most common form of differentiation.

Teachers give choices where students pick from formats.

Students propose their own designs.

Products may range in complexity to align to a respectful level for each student. (I discuss readiness in another post.) The key to product options is having clear academic criteria that students understand. When products are cleanly aligned to learning targets, student voice and choice flourish, while ensuring that significant content is addressed.

For example, one of my favorite practices is providing three or four choices in products. All but the last choice are predeveloped for students who want a complete picture of what needs to be done. The last choice is open-ended, a blank check. Students craft a different product idea and propose it to the teacher. They have to show how their product option will address the academic criteria. The teacher may approve the proposal as is or ask for revisions. If the proposal is too off-focus, the students work on developing a new idea. If they can't come up with an approved proposal by a set due date, they have to choose from one of the predetermined products.

Reach Higher

Content, process, and product are key elements in lesson design. Fortunately, educators have many instructional tools that can differentiate these core areas of instruction, such as these 50+ social media tools, which set the stage for students to respond through the next three DI elements in this series:

I do an activity where I ask participants to stand and reach as high as they can. Then I ask them to reach even higher. They do. When considering your students' needs, reach even higher in your practice-that extra stretch is inside us all-and students will benefit.

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3 Ways to Plan for Diverse Learners: What Teachers Do

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Differentiated Instruction Every teacher already has the tools to differentiate in powerful ways for all learners. 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.

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Please read and answer:
1. What is differentiation in the classroom?
2. What tip do you find most useful?

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18 Teacher-Tested Strategies for Differentiated Instruction from the Edutopia Community

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Get access to files anywhere through secure cloud storage and file backup for your photos, videos, files and more with Google Drive.

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Please read and answer:
1. What is a teacher's role in small groups.
2. How can small groups be managed?

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Research into the effectiveness of mathematics education by the Institute of Education Sciences in 2010 ( Slavin, Lake, and Groff) found that programs that are designed to change daily instructional practices and implement differentiating instruction strategies are most effective. Their research also discovered that small group instruction and cooperative learning have a significant impact on student achievement.

Because small group instruction is a highly effective differentiating instruction strategy it is widely used in elementary classrooms. Teachers who already use this strategy know that successful implementation doesn't happen overnight. The work involved in preparing students to operate within a small group instruction model takes time and patience. But the work will pay off!
As you prepare to use small group instruction in your classroom remember to:

1. Work on building stamina

Small group instruction, when implemented effectively, requires students to work independently when not with the teacher. The stamina for this type of independent work doesn't happen immediately. Take time at the beginning of the school year to build student stamina though progressively increasing the amount of time they spend in small group instruction.

2. Establish strong management routines

Working with students to establish strong management routines is just as important as building stamina. Students should know and understand your expectations for small group instruction and independent work including material management, work completion procedures, and methods for requesting help. Taking the time to establish and practice these routines will pay off with highly engaged learners.

3. Use frequent formative assessment

One of the most important characteristics of small group instruction is using assessment wisely. Ongoing assessment is one of the greatest assets to differentiating instruction strategies. It allows you to know, in real time, what students have mastered and what they are still struggling with. It also provides information on how you can adapt grouping to best meet the needs of all learners. Forget about assessment as a cumbersome task. Asking a group of students to complete a math problem on white boards and then making note of their strategies and solutions is an example of a quick and easy assessment.

4. Know who needs you most

Make sure you use your assessment data to know who needs the most teacher time and who has already reached mastery and can extend their learning independently. This doesn't mean you won't ever meet with your mastery students, it simply means they may not spend as much time in direct instruction. After struggling students complete a lesson with the teacher, they may work on an assessment based computer program.

DreamBox Learning offers engaging computer based activities that correlate with the Common Core State Standards. These activities are designed to meet the needs of learners and align with the classroom curriculum.They provide an additional mode of learning and a proven way to implement differentiating instruction strategies.
What are some other tips to implementing small group instruction?

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Small Group Instruction as a Differentiating Instruction Strategy: 4 Tips to Remember - DreamBox Learning

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Research into the effectiveness of mathematics education by the Institute of Education Sciences in 2010 (Slavin, Lake, and Groff) found that programs that are designed to change daily instructional practices and implement differentiating instruction strategies are most effective. Their research...Read more ›

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Please read and answer:
1.  What is Flow Theory?

2.  How does it apply to the classroom?

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by Steve Wheeler, Associate Professor, Plymouth Institute of Education

This is number 6 in my blog series on major learning theories. My plan is to work through the alphabet of psychologists and provide a brief overview of their theories, and how each can be applied in education. In the last post we examined the work of Craik and Lockhart on Levels of Processing theory. In this post, we explore the work of Mihály Csíkszentmihályi on Flow Theory. This is a simplified interpretation of the theory, so if you wish to learn more, please refer to the original work of the theorist.

There is an interesting news report on the BBC News website this morning. It is a piece claiming that children who use technology at home are finding that they are not able to concentrate in school. They are not able to focus, claims the report, because 'they're spending so much time on digital games or social media.' Yeah right. It's easy to blame lack of concentration on technology, but what about the quality of the lessons they are attending?

The onus is on teachers to make lessons more interesting, and that is what they are trained to do. Part of the solution might be to incorporate these digital games and social media into some of the lessons. Just how can we engage students more effectively? Here's Flow Theory:
The Flow Theory
You know that moment when you are in the zone, on the ball, completely focused? You become so absorbed by what you are doing that your forget what the time is, you forget to eat, you miss sleep. That's essentially what flow is. According to Mihály Csíkszentmihályi, being in the flow is the ultimate in focused intrinsic motivation.

In simplistic terms, being in the flow is where students find themselves in that narrow channel between disinterest and fear. There is a fine balance between the challenge of the task, and the skills the learner has at their disposal. Maintaining this balance avoids disillusionment if your skills don't measure up to the challenge, or boredom if the task is too simple and easy to achieve.
Applying The Flow Theory In The Classroom
Learners who are immersed in their studies tend to be single-mindedly motivated to explore their topic. Getting them to the place where they fall so in love with learning that little else matters is another matter entirely. One of the ways teachers can help students to focus more on their studies is to make learning so irresistible that there is seems to be no other option.

Games and gamification may offer students the fine equilibrium between boredom and anxiety, as will other forms of immersive learning such as role play, simulation and problem solving. As long as the learning resource is designed to have the appropriate levels of challenge built into it, students will be interested. The graphic illustrates this clearly. P2 and P3 are positions that should be traversed quickly if students are to remain in the flow. (See also our post on Why We Play Video Games.)

To be successful, challenge-based learning requires achievable goals that require some incremental development of skills beyond the average, and where the challenge rises commensurately to match those skills (student progresses from P1 to P4). If the subject matter is made interesting and enjoyable enough, teachers won't have to work too hard to encourage students to actively engage.
Reference
They will do so naturally, because they will want to rise to the challenge, and succeed because they see no other possible outcome.

Csíkszentmihályi, M. (1990) Flow: The psychology of optimal experience. London: Harper and Row.
This post first appeared on Steve's personal blog; image attribution the man himself (Steve Wheeler); The Flow Theory In The Classroom: A Primer
Previous posts in this series:
Anderson ACT-R Cognitive Architecture
Argyris Double Loop Learning
Bandura Social Learning Theory
Bruner Scaffolding Theory
Craik and Lockhart Levels of Processing

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The Flow Theory In The Classroom: A Primer

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by Steve Wheeler , Associate Professor, Plymouth Institute of Education This is number 6 in my blog series on major learning theories. My plan is to work through the alphabet of psychologists and provide a brief overview of their theories, and how each can be applied in education.