Differentiated Instruction is a buzzword in the educational playground in which I play. According to Wikipedia it is defined the following: "Differentiated instruction (sometimes referred to as differentiated learning) involves providing students with different avenues to acquiring content; to processing, constructing, or making sense of ideas; and to developing teaching materials so that all students within a classroom can learn effectively, regardless of differences in ability."
Providing different avenues to acquire content, to process, to construct and make sense of ideas. This piece of the definition really hits home to me. Don't teachers all learn differently and have different preferences for how we learn material?
Obviously I believe that not only should we be differentiating instruction for students we should also extend this idea into differentiated professional development, aka learning, for teachers. There are many different types of professional learning that allows us to do this:
1. Action Research
2. Case Discussions
3. Curriculum Design
4. Data Analysis
5. Journaling
6. Lesson Study
7. Mentoring/Coaching
8. Shadowing
9. Study Groups
10. Training the Trainer
11. Book Study
This is an extensive list but obviously not complete. The area I have been working on with math teachers the past couple of years is that of mentoring and coaching. This year I was a part of a
magnificent team of facilitators and we had the rewarding opportunity to work with 43 math teachers for two weeks as part of a Math and Science Partnership grant. These math teachers are devoted and looking forward to increase the mathematical understanding of themselves and their students. We spent two weeks this summer with the teachers to provide engaging, conceptual understanding of math. The process standards from NCTM, the five mathematical proficiencies, and other pedagogy were all important pieces of our ten days together. Now the school year is off and running and we get to go coach/mentor these wonderful teachers. So how do we differentiate for each of these teachers?
magnificent team of facilitators and we had the rewarding opportunity to work with 43 math teachers for two weeks as part of a Math and Science Partnership grant. These math teachers are devoted and looking forward to increase the mathematical understanding of themselves and their students. We spent two weeks this summer with the teachers to provide engaging, conceptual understanding of math. The process standards from NCTM, the five mathematical proficiencies, and other pedagogy were all important pieces of our ten days together. Now the school year is off and running and we get to go coach/mentor these wonderful teachers. So how do we differentiate for each of these teachers?
It started by teachers writing a letter to themselves the last day of our two weeks together. In this letter they were asked to identify three goals for themselves this year. We had just read,Never Say Anything A Kid Can Say (article attached in downloads) and had just discussed the 10% idea. Just think about changing 10% of your teaching based upon what you have learned the past ten days. Each teacher wrote their own three goals for the school year, this becomes how we differentiate our time with each teacher as we continue to mentor and coach.
Some of the ideas included are listed below:
- I will use higher order thinking and open questions when questioning students.
- I will differentiate lessons by scaffolding or giving student choice.
- I will increase writing about mathematics in my classroom to get at students reasoning and understanding.
- I will adapt textbook lessons to rich math problems once a week.
- I will encourage and provide a setting for students to engage in dialogue with each other about their math reasoning. (Let the students do most of the talking in my classroom.) (Facilitator of learning vs. director of learning)
- I will create a mathematical community by creating a classroom climate of risk taking.
- I will use activities that support the Five Strands of Mathematical Proficiencies (Adaptive Reasoning, Strategic Competence, Conceptual Understanding, Procedural Fluency, Productive Disposition).
- I will design lessons that incorporate different learning styles.
- I will evaluate and decide which activities to use based on the Characteristics of a Quality Task.
- I will help my students make connection and see relationships in problems.
The letters were written in June after we finished the two weeks of intensive math professional development in content and pedagogy and were placed in a self-addressed envelope. These letters were then sent to the teachers just before school started to remind them of the two weeks, what they were thinking and feeling, and the goals they had decided on for the year to try to improve the math teaching in the classroom 10%. These goals are also on each person's individual sheet that will be used as we meet with the teacher throughout the year.
Our visits consist of a pre-conference, attend a math lesson, and a post-conference to reflect not just on the lesson, but overall how are things going, how close do they see themselves to meeting their goals, what hurdles have they encountered, what resources do they need.
It is time we take what we know about human learning and do better not only for our students but also for our teachers. The days of one-shot sit and get need to continue to be replaced by more differentied, job-embedded professional learning. Our students and our teachers deserve better.
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