Differentiated Instruction
Inclusion
Hopes and fears
Two Questions?
What do you hope happens today?
What do you fear might happen today?
now, please,
Cut out three equilateral triangles. On one triangle write your name. On a second triangle write your hope for this session. On the last triangle write your fear about this session. Finally tape your triangles together so you form a
Students think when entering your classroom:
I wonder if I'll like this class?
Will the teacher and other kids like me?
How will they get to know me? I feel scared.
Why am I nervous?
What will we be doing?
I wish this were the end of the day,
not the beginning.
Inclusion means gaining adequate recognition and the same opportunity to present oneself prior to engaging in tasks and agendas.
Ideas generously shared by Travis G. Smith, Program Supervisor, OSPI

A pdf for inclusion activites:
http://www.freechild.org/gamesguide.htm
Assessment
Reading
Writing
reflection
Does it make sense to take time to assess, unless you are going to take action with what you discover?
General Principles
Teachers can differentiate:
Content 
Process 
Product 
Affect
Learning Environment

Purposes to differentiate
Readiness 
Interest
Learning Profile


Five Steps to Differentiate
   1. Identify your essential and enduring knowledge
   2. Identify your students with unique needs, and what they will need in order to achieve: change  content, process, or product?
   3. Identify formative and summative assessments – useful feedback
   4. Design the learning experiences. Run a mental tape of each step in the lesson sequence -- Check lesson(s) against criteria for successful differentiated instruction
   5. Revise as necessary
General Differentiated Strategies
Use Anticipation Guides
Create personal agendas for some students
Use centers/learning stations
Adjust journal prompts and level of questioning to meet challenge levels
Incorporate satellite studies (“Orbitals”)
Ten Assessment Practices to Avoid in Differentiated Instruction
Penalizing students’ multiple attempts at mastery
Grading practice (daily homework) as students come to know concepts [feedback, not grading, is needed]
Withholding assistance (not scaffolding or differentiating) in the learning when it’s needed
Group grades
Incorporating non-academic factors (behavior, attendance, and effort)
Assessing students in ways that do not accurately indicate students’ mastery (student responses are hindered by the assessment format)
Grading on a curve
Allowing Extra Credit
Defining supposedly criterion-based grades in terms of norm-referenced descriptions (“above average,” “average”, etc.)
Recording zeroes on the 100.0 scale for work not done
Let's try weather first:

Temperature Readings for Norfolk, VA:
85, 87, 88, 84, 0        (Forgot to take the reading)
Average:  68.8 degrees

So, what's the problem?
A (0) on a 100-pt. scale is a (-6) on a 4-pt. scale.  If a student does no work, he should get nothing, not something worse than nothing.  How instructive is it to tell a student that he earned six times less than absolute failure? Choose to be instructive, not punitive. 
100 . . . 4
  90 . . . 3
  80 . . . 2
  70 . . . 1
  60 . . . 0
  50 . . .-1
  40 . . .-2
  30 . . .-3
  20 . . .-4
  10 . . .-5
    0 . . .-6
Let's try grade point percentages next:

What if we reversed the proportional influences of the grades?  That “A” would have a huge, yet undue, inflationary effect on the overall grade.  Just as we wouldn’t want an “A” to have an inaccurate effect, we don’t want an “F” grade to have such an undue, deflationary, and inaccurate effect.   Keeping zeroes on a 100-pt. scale is just as absurd as the scale seen here.

A = 100 – 40
B =   39 – 30
C =   29 – 20
D =   19 – 10
F =     9 –   0
Reasons for Differentiated Assessment

Provide feedback
Document progress
Guide instructional decisions
-----------------------------------
Other Reasons for Assessment

Motivate
Punish
Sort students
Attendance
Effort
Behavior
Will the ideology of Differentiated Instruction allow an electronic assessment system like Skyward which requires teachers to assign grades based on points and/or percentages and the mean based upon the sum?

Five Steps to Differentiate
   1. Identify your essential and enduring knowledge
   2. Identify your students with unique needs, and what they will need in order to achieve: change  content, process, or product?
   3. Identify formative and summative assessments – useful feedback
   4. Design the learning experiences. Run a mental tape of each step in the lesson sequence -- Check lesson(s) against criteria for successful differentiated instruction
   5. Revise as necessary
2. Identify your students with unique needs . . .
Refer students without data to your Title/LAP specialist.
Places to find phonemic awareness/phonics assessments:
Woodcock Reading Mastery, "Word Attack"
choose from a menu of reading assessments at http://teams.lacoe.edu/reading/assessments/assessments.html
download the complimentary Diagnostic Decoding Survey from http://www.reallygreatreading.com/phonics
2. . . . and what they will need in order to achieve: change  content, process, or product?
Vocabulary
Content: Use reading of books and articles of different text complexity. Have students code the text with post it notes responding to these prompts.
This reminds me of . . . (background knowledge)
I wonder if . . . (curious question)
I wonder what . . . (clarifying question)
I wonder why . . . (lingering question)
I think that . . . (inference or conclusion)
Process: students read the same book
but for different goals based upon assessed unique needs.
fluency/vocabulary/literal comprehension/analytical comprehension/critical comprehension
individual response/small group response (always individually assessed)
literature circles (different roles: discussion leader/passage selector, question generator, summarizer, illustrator, vocabulary clarifier, predictor, character analyzer)
Product: students read the same book but create a different product based upon their reading.
written--advertisement, brochure, crossword puzzle, letter, poem, story, web site, etc.
oral--debate, radio program, podcast, rap, skit, speech, song, etc.
visual--cartoon, collage, diagram, drawing, map, model, poster, scrapbook, video
Word Attack
Underline the vowel SOUNDS
Divide into syllables
Identify each syllable by one of the six syllable types
Categories
name a category and an example [analysis: science . . . as in dividing an experiment into parts]
sort three or more words under one category
Sentence Arrangement
use three words in a sentence of exactly 12 words (or choose another number)
use three words in word positions 3, 6, and 9 (or choose other positions)
use words in a sentence where the word form (part of speech) is changed
Assessment and Reflection
write all ten words and show their meaning by choosing ONE of three methods: draw a picture, write a sentence, write a definition
code each word on the pre-assessment with one of these four numbers
      1. I don't know the word
      2. I've seen the word
      3. I know but don't use the word
      4. I know and use the word
Pre-assessment
Code each word on the pre-assessment with one of these four numbers
1. I don't know the word
2. I've seen the word
3. I know but don't use the word
4. I know and use the word
English teachers, use Tier 2 AWL (Academic Word List) general academic words
Content teachers, use Tier 3 AWL (Academic Word Lists) technical words from your discipline
Ten AWL Sublist 10, Tier 2 Words
1. adjacent
2. albeit
3. colleague
4. conceive
5. incline
6. levy
7. notwithstanding
8. persist
9. pose
10. so-called

Five Steps to Differentiate
   1. Identify your essential and enduring knowledge
   2. Identify your students with unique needs, and what they will need in order to achieve: change  content, process, or product?
   3. Identify formative and summative assessments – useful feedback
   4. Design the learning experiences. Run a mental tape of each step in the lesson sequence -- Check lesson(s) against criteria for successful differentiated instruction
   5. Revise as necessary
3. Identify . . . – useful feedback
4. Design the learning experiences . . .
It is absolutely necessary to give up the practice of grading for content and organization and voice and sentence structure and grammar and punctuation and spelling and realize that writing is a never-ending process. There is no such thing as a final draft and there is no such thing as a final assessment.
.
Assessing Writing Is Like Assessing Anything
Control for Background Knowledge
Think backward from writer's block, often graded as failure.
A research paper for the masses
1. List ten people/and or activities which are important to you.
2. Read information from the internet and/or the library and/or interview people to find out more than you know.
3. Write down the Works Cited entry for each internet, library, or people source you find.
4. Write a paragraph (150 words or more) about each person or activity which combines what you already knew with what you’ve learned from your reading and interviews.
5. Use pictures, color, line, and your paragraph to create a word document, scrapbook, or altered book page for each person or activity.
6. Add internal documentation to each paragraph and picture.
7. Make your Works Cited page.
8. Write an introductory paragraph (150 words or more).
9. Make a table of contents and title page.

1. Decide what is essential, single trait scoring what was taught from a rubric.
2. Remember, web-based generic rubrics are about as good as government surplus cheese. “Sometimes classroom rubrics resemble “bean counters”; for example, if a student does four of something, it’s deemed to be better than three (Tomlinson and McTighe 21). Rubrics should be continuously revised and based upon specific scoring criteria which are . . .
3. tied to exemplars, “work samples, which vary in quality, [and] are placed around the target [think gallery walk] and linked to different levels in the rubric (Tomlinson and McTighe 121).
Teach Signal or Trigger Words
AKA Spoonfeeding
Writing task or paragraph starters which signal trigger or cluster of the neural web to perform a thinking process
Chronological Sequence
after
before
during funally first
following
immediately . . .

Comparison/Contrast
although
as well as
both
instead of
on the other hand
similarly . . .

Concept/Definition
for instance
in other words
as characterized by
put another way
refers to
thus
usually . . .

Description
above
across
behind
below
down
near . . .

Episdode
a few days later
as a result
because of
first
led to . . .
Generalization/Principle
additionally
because of
first
for example
in fact
never
therefore . . .

Process/Cause-Effect
as a result
because
consequently
first
finally
if . . . then
in order to
therefore . . .

Allows learners to take a metacognitive stance toward their individual and collaborative learning and the relative strength of their skills to learn more (Travis G. Smith). Reflection is a trait which separates us humans from other species. Reflection is what allows our learning to become intentional and powerful!
Mill to the Music

Mill around the room while the music plays. When the music stops, participants form pairs and discuss the answer to a question.
1.Review with your partner what you knew about DI before this session.
2.Review with your partner one thing you learned about DI.
3.How is what you learned about assessment and DI similar to your assessment practice in your classroom?
4.How is what you learned about assessment and DI different from your assessment practice in your classroom?
5.What do you think is a benefit of applying DI principles to reading instruction.
6.What do you think is a barrier to you applying DI principles to reading instruction.
7.What makes you hopeful about applying DI principles to writing instruction.
8.What makes you fearful about applying DI principles to writing instruction.
9.Why do you think inclusion and reflection activities are an essential part of DI?
Ghost Stone (Triangle) Reflection

1.Participants sit in a circle and is given or has chosen a stone (for our purposes we will use our “Hope/Fears Pyramid.”
2. Participants after a period of reflection one by one come to the center of the circle and tell what was their hope and what was their fear and how their attitude toward that hope and fear has changed or remains the same.
3.After speaking, each participant will place their stone (pyramid) on in a growing pile in the center and then returns to the circle, this time standing.
4.Once all have spoken and are standing, the facilitator takes a digital photo of the pyramid and explain to the group that the photo with an explanation of the activity will posted on the district website.
Let's play, "So What's the Problem?"
What We Can Learn from Finland’s Successful School Reform
One wonders what we might accomplish as a nation if we could finally set aside what appears to be our de facto commitment to inequality, so profoundly at odds with our rhetoric of equity, and put the millions of dollars spent continually arguing and litigating into building a high-quality education system for all children. To imagine how that might be done, one can look at nations that started with very little and purposefully built highly productive and equitable systems, sometimes almost from scratch, in the space of only two to three decades.
As an example, I am going to briefly describe how Finland built a strong educational system, nearly from the ground up. Finland was not succeeding educationally in the 1970s, when the United States was the unquestioned education leader in the world. Yet this country created a productive teaching and learning system by expanding access while investing purposefully in ambitious educational goals using strategic approaches to build teaching capacity.
I use the term “teaching and learning system” advisedly to describe a set of elements that, when well designed and connected, reliably support all students in their learning. These elements ensure that students routinely encounter well-prepared teachers who are working in concert around a thoughtful, high-quality curriculum, supported by appropriate materials and assessments—and that these elements of the system help students, teachers, leaders, and the system as a whole continue to learn and improve. Although no system from afar can be transported wholesale into another context, there is much to learn from the experiences of those who have addressed problems we also encounter.
Finland has been a poster child for school improvement since it rapidly climbed to the top of the international rankings after it emerged from the Soviet Union’s shadow. Once poorly ranked educationally, with a turgid bureaucratic system that produced low-quality education and large inequalities, it now ranks first among all the OECD nations (Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development—roughly, the so-called “developed” nations) on the PISA (Program for International Student Assessments), an international test for 15-year-olds in language, math, and science literacy. The country also boasts a highly equitable distribution of achievement, even for its growing share of immigrant students. . . .
Although there was a sizable achievement gap among students in the 1970s, strongly correlated to socio-economic status, this gap has been progressively reduced as a result of curriculum reforms started in the 1980s. By 2006, Finland’s between-school variance on the PISA science scale was only 5 percent, whereas the average between-school variance in other OECD nations was about 33 percent. (Large between-school variation is generally related to social inequality.)
The overall variation in achievement among Finnish students is also smaller than that of nearly all the other OECD countries. This is true despite the fact that immigration from nations with lower levels of education has increased sharply in recent years, and there is more linguistic and cultural diversity for schools to contend with. One recent analysis notes that in some urban schools the number of immigrant children or those whose mother tongue is not Finnish approaches 50 percent.
Although most immigrants are still from places like Sweden, the most rapidly growing newcomer groups since 1990 have been from Afghanistan, Bosnia, India, Iran, Iraq, Serbia, Somalia, Turkey, Thailand, and Vietnam. These new immigrants speak more than 60 languages. Yet achievement has been climbing in Finland and growing more equitable.

Darling-Hammond, Linda. "They're Number One." NEAToday. v 29, n 2, 30-32.
Find the signal or trigger words
Ideas from Rick Wormeli's open-source PowerPoint presentation, "Fair Isn’t Always Equal:
Differentiated Instruction, Assessment, and Grading"
http://www.authorstream.com/Presentation/aSGuest15381-166757-differentiated-instruction-enter-tags-exam-ii-ppt-education-powerpoint/
 [Based on an idea by Doug Reeves, The Learning Leader, ASCD, 2006]
Tovani, Cris.  I Read It, But I Don’t Get It. 
      Stenhouse Publishers, 2001.
Tomlinson, Carol Ann and Jay McTighe.
Integrating Differentiated Instruction and
Understanding by Design. ASCD. 2006.
Grades 3-6 RTI Kit: Good Habits, Great Readers
On-line Database skill based, lesson and unit planning for Good Habits, Great Readers library
Pearson SuccessNet: 5000 book, on-line leveled, Good Habits, Great Readers library in pdf form and for silent and shared reading
Grade 6-10 Adapted Readings for Elements of Literature
DRA 2 K-3 reading assessment
DRA 2 4-8 reading assessment