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This book explores how school leaders can develop responsive, personalized, and differentiated classrooms. Differentiation is simply a teacher attending to the learning needs of a particular student or small group of students, rather than teaching a class as though all individuals in it were basically alike.
Try going a week without hearing a call for a massive overhaul of our educational system. Parents, students, educators, bureaucrats, pundits . . . everyone says "something" must be done. But what? And who should do it? In this environment, school leaders must build bridges for change. As the system now stands, many students spend great portions of their lives feeling inferior if they struggle, invisible if they already know the material, problematic if they're not a child of the dominant culture, and perverse if they question the school agenda. This book explores how school leaders can develop responsive, personalized, and differentiated classrooms. Differentiation is simply a teacher attending to the learning needs of a particular student or small group of students, rather than teaching a class as though all individuals in it were basically alike. Expert educators teach individuals the most important things in the most effective ways. No single approach works with all students. Classrooms function best when teachers and students join to develop multiple avenues to learning. Until every student is growing and successful, our own growth is unfinished. The authors show how school leaders can encourage and support growth in our classrooms.
Offers teachers practical suggestions and practices that can help them address student differences and meet the needs of their students in a differentiated classroom setting.
The proposed book maintains that schools face distinct types of challenges requiring distinct types of leadership. There are not, however, an infinite number of types of challenges, at least not for practical purposes. The book focuses on four sets of challenges that any principal might confront, depending on local circumstances. A principal can address each set of challenges successfully, but only by recognizing the distinctive nature of the challenges and adjusting his/her approach accordingly. This recognition of the need to make adjustments in leadership is referred to as differentiated leadership.The idea of differentiated leadership has its roots in contingency theory, situational leadership theory, and path-goal theory (Northouse, 2007). That the concept of leadership requires differentiation is further evidenced by the variety of adjectives used to modify the term instructional leadership, moral leadership, distributed leadership, servant leadership, normative leadership, and so on. In recent years, educators have been attracted to the notion of differentiated instruction. They have recognized that one form of instruction is unlikely to address the needs of all students. The approach begins with actual situations confronting contemporary principals and then analyzes the kinds of leadership functions most likely to handle the situations effectively. The book opens with an introduction to the idea of differentiated leadership and why it is important for principals to understand how different schools may face very distinct sets of challenges. Trying to apply a one-size-fits-all type of leadership can have disastrous results. The introduction also contains an overview of organizational diagnostics and the kinds of data needed to assess the particular kinds of challenges presented by a particular school at a particular point in time.
To differentiate instruction is to act on the belief that all kids deserve access to the richest, most compelling learning experiences and to provide the scaffolding they need to seize that opportunity. While a handful of teachers in a school might be using differentiation to great success, it takes a collaborative, schoolwide approach to maximize differentiation's effectiveness and improve outcomes for all students. Leading for Differentiation lays out the reflective thinking and action-oriented steps necessary to launch a system of continuous professional learning, culture building, and program assessment that will allow differentiation to flourish in every classroom. Incorporating their own experienced insights, real-world examples, and practical tools, world-renowned differentiated instruction expert Carol Ann Tomlinson and change leadership authority Michael Murphy explore * Why a move to schoolwide differentiation makes so much sense for today's students and today's standards- and accountability-focused climate * How to transform a vision for schoolwide differentiation into manageable, year-by-year plans to achieve it * How to incorporate the principles of differentiation, motivation, and adult learning into respectful, responsive, and truly effective professional learning throughout all stages of the change initiative * How to foster and recognize growth in teachers' differentiation practices, and how to chart the impact differentiation is having on student learning * How to recognize, understand, and respond to resistance—in both its predictable forms and surprising ones * What schoolwide differentiation looks like when it's fully established, and how to tend to it for long-term success Leading the change to a differentiated school means creating an environment in which each individual feels valued, challenged, supported, and part of a team working together for success. In this book, school leaders will learn how to set the course for positive change and create the structural supports that will help teachers grow as differentiators so that their students will thrive as learners.
Offers a definition of differentiated instruction, and provides principles and strategies designed to help teachers create learning environments that address the different learning styles, interests, and readiness levels found in a typical mixed-ability classroom.
Looking for advice and guidance on how to implement differentiated instruction throughout your school? Learn from the experts. Administrators and teachers alike will find viable ideas and answers to questions as leaders at two schools share milestones and vignettes from their real-life experiences in converting entire faculties to this dynamic approach to teaching and learning. The authors balance broadly applicable guidance with specific illustrations of how two schools—a middle-income elementary school and a mixed-income high school—experienced the change process in dramatically different ways. In both instances, the new approach to teaching and learning had sweeping, positive results for staff and students. Carol Ann Tomlinson, Kay Brimijoin, and Lane Narvaez have combined their expertise with differentiation in schools—including professional development, research, leadership, coaching, and teaching—to highlight factors that contributed to the continuing success of school reinvention efforts such as *Approaching change with the particular school culture in mind. *Leading a staff toward change with appropriate pushes, pauses, and acknowledgments. *Fostering continued growth in understanding and skill with differentiation in the classroom. *Encouraging teachers to reinforce one another's strengths. *Monitoring progress toward expanded flexibility in instructional approaches. *Nurturing teacher leaders who can sustain the effort beyond one principal's tenure. *Providing strong support and role models for deep and broad changes in the school's teaching practices and learning potential. Every educator seeking to move beyond isolated efforts to differentiate instruction will find practical support and inspiration in this book. At the same time, you'll gain understanding about the key characteristics needed for deep, lasting instructional change that taps into the learning potential of all students in your classrooms and schools.
Examine the basic principles of differentiation in light of what current research on educational neuroscience has revealed. This research pool offers information and insights that can help educators decide whether certain curricular, instructional, and assessment choices are likely to be more effective than others. Learn how to implement differentiation so that it achieves the desired result of shared responsibility between teacher and student.
Although much has changed in schools in recent years, the power of differentiated instruction remains the same—and the need for it has only increased. Today's classroom is more diverse, more inclusive, and more plugged into technology than ever before. And it's led by teachers under enormous pressure to help decidedly unstandardized students meet an expanding set of rigorous, standardized learning targets. In this updated second edition of her best-selling classic work, Carol Ann Tomlinson offers these teachers a powerful and practical way to meet a challenge that is both very modern and completely timeless: how to divide their time, resources, and efforts to effectively instruct so many students of various backgrounds, readiness and skill levels, and interests. With a perspective informed by advances in research and deepened by more than 15 years of implementation feedback in all types of schools, Tomlinson explains the theoretical basis of differentiated instruction, explores the variables of curriculum and learning environment, shares dozens of instructional strategies, and then goes inside elementary and secondary classrooms in nearly all subject areas to illustrate how real teachers are applying differentiation principles and strategies to respond to the needs of all learners. This book's insightful guidance on what to differentiate, how to differentiate, and why lays the groundwork for bringing differentiated instruction into your own classroom or refining the work you already do to help each of your wonderfully unique learners move toward greater knowledge, more advanced skills, and expanded understanding. Today more than ever, The Differentiated Classroom is a must-have staple for every teacher's shelf and every school's professional development collection.
Three educators share powerful, real-life accounts of how two schools successfully built differentiated instruction into every classroom and achieved sweeping positive results for their staff and students.
