We shouldn’t be framing
instruction around a pair of words. We frame instruction based on both the
population of our classes and the subject matter we teach. Creativity not uniformity of
instruction packets is the key.
Those of us who have taught
in urban districts, where diversity in the classroom is the norm have known
this from “back in the day” when we were students.
Differentiation is not an
instructional model. It is instruction. Period. Kids aren’t test tubes with
whom researchers experiment.
All learning is personal.
All students, even those without special needs of various sorts, have
individualized learning styles. My second grade teacher back in 1956-7 knew
that. In fact, the 36 of us from a
poor/working class neighborhood in the South Bronx felt it.
She, along with her
husband went on to research and train teachers in that for years, before anyone
mandated it.
https://dcgmentor.wordpress.com/2014/08/20/this-bears-repeating-i-am-the-seed-she-planted/
(http://wps.prenhall.com/wps/media/objects/863/884633/Volume_medialib/dunn.pdf,
http://www.learningstyles.net)
Frankly
I am tired of researchers and journalists telling us what differentiation is
via a “primer” like this article.
From the article:
“Differentiation”
tailors instruction by presentation.
A teacher may vary the method and assignments covering the material to adjust
to students’ strengths, needs, and interests. For example, a teacher may allow
an introverted student to write an essay on a historical topic while a more
outgoing student gives an oral presentation on the same subject. That
distinction is accepted by some, though far from all, in the field.
The ambiguity
has led to widespread confusion and debate over what differentiated instruction
looks like in practice, and how its effectiveness can be evaluated.”
Presentation? Who uses that word while teaching? Right there one knows the author never taught.
Ambiguity? Of course it is ambiguous. It is
individualized differentiation. There is no timed solution. Kids don't fit into
little prescribed boxes so effectiveness can be evaluated.
Shame on Ed Week.
Differentiated instruction is accepted by educators who understand human learning is as individual as our fingerprints. The "debate" over its efficacy ins't coming from our profession. It's been manufactured among shills for privatzation- those dilettantes in deformer world who can't figure out how to teach kids from a spreadsheet.
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