Instruction
Differentiating Instruction
" Differentiating for the diversity of learning styles, intelligences and thinking in your classroom does not mean that you have to know every detail of every theory and individualize for every student. Simply becoming conscious of the collective needs of students is a way to get to know them better, tap into their preferences through intentional planning, explore diversity that they bring to the classroom, and make the right choices for your classroom." Gayle Gregory
Differentiating Instruction by learning styles:
Learning Style Theories
Gregorc's Learning Style Channels
Kolb's Experiential Learning Profile
Lowry's Colors Inventory
McCarthy's 4MAT Model
Carl Jung's Psychological Types
Silver and Hanson's Learning Styles Profile
(Gregory p. 43)
This table shows the core parts of each of the above theories side by side. Using the puppy, microscope, clipboard and beach ball symbols helps organize the core aspects of the different learning style theories and makes them easier to remember and apply.
(Gregory p. 43)
Learning Style Theories
Gregorc's Learning Style Channels
Kolb's Experiential Learning Profile
Lowry's Colors Inventory
McCarthy's 4MAT Model
Carl Jung's Psychological Types
Silver and Hanson's Learning Styles Profile
(Gregory p. 43)
This table shows the core parts of each of the above theories side by side. Using the puppy, microscope, clipboard and beach ball symbols helps organize the core aspects of the different learning style theories and makes them easier to remember and apply.
(Gregory p. 43)
This table shows the tendencies associated with each of the learning types.
(Gregory p. 44)
(Gregory p. 44)
The following four tables give innate abilities, challenges, when each learning type learns best and what each needs to work on. These are not all inclusive, but they are a good resource to have when trying to differentiation instruction, assessments, curriculum or learning environment.
(Gregory p. 46-49)
(Gregory p. 46-49)
Lesson planning:
Beach Balls: Beach balls respond to choice and options for experimentation and creativity. But we also must recognize that these learners need deadlines, guidelines, and boundaries or else they may have trouble focusing or completing assignments, Balancing their creativity and spontaneity with time management and stick with it skills can be very important for beach balls.
Clipboards: These learners like to have order, structure, and routine with clear guidelines and expectations. But life is not always predictable and organized. The unexpected occurs and then what? Clipboards need to break out of the routine and learn to deal with ambiguity, spontaneity, and anomalies. Dealing with the unexpected is also a life skill.
Microscopes: Microscopes are more in-depth learners who like to analyze and investigate the truth they seek. They need sufficient time to go as deeply as they need for their learning while also recognizing that sometimes they have to move on. They also need help in working with others, developing collaborative skills, and seeing other people's points of view.
Puppies: Are generally collaborative learners and enjoy partner and group work, yet they also need to develop independent skills and to take risks and learn to trust their own judgment and work alone in new areas.
(Gregory p. 53)
Example: The Great Depression (Gregory p. 55)
Beach Balls: Beach balls respond to choice and options for experimentation and creativity. But we also must recognize that these learners need deadlines, guidelines, and boundaries or else they may have trouble focusing or completing assignments, Balancing their creativity and spontaneity with time management and stick with it skills can be very important for beach balls.
Clipboards: These learners like to have order, structure, and routine with clear guidelines and expectations. But life is not always predictable and organized. The unexpected occurs and then what? Clipboards need to break out of the routine and learn to deal with ambiguity, spontaneity, and anomalies. Dealing with the unexpected is also a life skill.
Microscopes: Microscopes are more in-depth learners who like to analyze and investigate the truth they seek. They need sufficient time to go as deeply as they need for their learning while also recognizing that sometimes they have to move on. They also need help in working with others, developing collaborative skills, and seeing other people's points of view.
Puppies: Are generally collaborative learners and enjoy partner and group work, yet they also need to develop independent skills and to take risks and learn to trust their own judgment and work alone in new areas.
(Gregory p. 53)
Example: The Great Depression (Gregory p. 55)
Nine strategies for differentiating instruction for learning styles:
- Rationalize the learning as desirable skills or knowledge that is needed: Give students a reason for learning. Connect to their world.
- Provide opportunities for accessing information from a variety of accurate sources: Provide models, concepts and time to explore. What? The substance and content are clearly exposed, shared, and examined. Technology, resource materials, and other hands-on activities help create understanding and memorable learning.
- Provide time for application and rehearsal: Practice with and find practical uses fro the skill or knowledge. How does this work? So what? Experimentation and application in practical ways is necessary for all learners and also provides rehearsal for long-term memory retention.
- Offer chances for creativity for dynamic interaction with the materials and skills: What if? Students select opportunities to transfer the new learning to new situations. Will there be chances for application and creativity, not just test regurgitation? Well-structured, monitored, useful, meaningful, and creative projects, presentations, role plays, and exhibitions let that clipboard and microscope have structure and parameters yet allow the puppies and beach balls to interact and create.
- Offer a flexible classroom: A classroom that has only desks in rows will not satisfy all learning styles. The ability to move furniture, set up centers or stations, and provide flexible groupings or partner work will be an asset to the diverse learners you teach. Quiet centers with headphones to block out noises for those learners who are easily distracted or, conversely, headsets to provide calming background music for reading will be a welcome addition to the room. Resources, materials, and technology will enrich and provide choice and freedom of access to all learners.
- Know your learners and provide variety: Teachers who make a conscious effort to get to know their learners are always father ahead in engaging and satisfying the diversity in the classroom. We use old adages that help us remember this. "Go with the flow", "sand with the grain" or "ride the horse in the direction it is already going".
- Work with other teachers: It is so much more comforting (important for puppy-like teachers) to work with colleagues when you are trying something new. Planning lessons and units of study with learning styles in mind can be more fun and less stressful with a grade group team or a department teaching partner. The teachers learning styles vary and bring different ideas to the planning table. We often teach as we learn best. do with a variety of teachers, more diverse learning strategies are considered and built into the lessons.
- Build in reflection for students and yourself: Build on strengths, but also challenge students to stretch in their styles.
- Build the curriculum: Teachers can build their curriculum with a variety of learning strategies and assessment tools that accommodate all learners.
Howard Gardner's Multiple Intelligences:
(Gregory p. 70-71)
(Gregory p. 70-71)
Even though brainstorming on how to incorporate learning styles and multiple intelligences occurs not all of the ideas that are generated need to be used. A teacher decides which to use by asking:
(Gregory p. 72)
Teachers may also use choice boards to allow the students to have a hand in deciding how they learn. Some generic activities that can be applied to a wide range of content.
An example of this strategy:
Ex. Romeo and Juliet
- What their students need.
- What might appeal to their students.
- How much time they have to spend on the unit being planned.
(Gregory p. 72)
Teachers may also use choice boards to allow the students to have a hand in deciding how they learn. Some generic activities that can be applied to a wide range of content.
- Verbal/Linguistic: Prepare a report, write a play or essay, giver directions for...,
- Musical/Rhythmic: Create a rap, a song, or a ballad, write a jingle, write a poem
- Visual/Spatial: Create a mural, a poster, or a drawing, illustrate an event, draw a diagram, design a graphic organizer...
- Bodily/Kinesthetic: Create a role play, construct a model or a representation, develop a mime
- Logical/Mathematical: Create a pattern, Describe a sequence or a process, develop a rationale
- Naturalist: Discover, experiment, categorize materials or ideas, look for ideas from nature, adapt materials to a new use
- Interpersonal: Work with group or partner, Discuss and come to conclusions, solve a problem together, survey or interview others
- Intrapersonal: Think about and plan, write in a journal, keep track of...and comment on...
An example of this strategy:
Ex. Romeo and Juliet
- Verbal/Linguistic: Insert and act out a scene that you wrote for the play
- Musical/Rhythmic: Create a theme song or a rap with lyrics for Romeo and Juliet
- Visual/Spatial: Design a map or paint/draw a picture of Verona
- Bodily/Kinesthetic: Create a photo essay or a brochure to chronicle the sequence of events in the play.
- Logical/Mathematical: The dilemma: Did they have to die? What could have happened? Finish the story with a different ending.
- Naturalist: Analyze the role of the monk. Was it in the best interests of the couple or was it part of something more sinister?
- Interpersonal: With a partner act out a scene from the play. You may videotape if you wish.
- Intrapersonal: Write in a journal from Juliet's, Romeo's or the nurse's perspective on the course of events.
Universal Design for Learning
This is an instructional approach that helps to meet the challenge of diversity by suggesting flexible instructional materials, techniques, and strategies which empower educators to meet students varied needs.
Multiple Means of representation: Teachers should provide multiple means of representation so that learners can acquire information in various ways. Students differ in the way they perceive and comprehend information.
Ex. Students with learning disabilities or language or cultural differences may require different ways of approaching content.
This is an instructional approach that helps to meet the challenge of diversity by suggesting flexible instructional materials, techniques, and strategies which empower educators to meet students varied needs.
Multiple Means of representation: Teachers should provide multiple means of representation so that learners can acquire information in various ways. Students differ in the way they perceive and comprehend information.
Ex. Students with learning disabilities or language or cultural differences may require different ways of approaching content.
- Provide options for perception: To be effective in diverse classrooms, curricula must be presented in ways that are perceptible to all students. To reduce barriers to learning, teachers can provide the same information through different sensory modalities, provide information in a format that will allow for adjust-ability by the student,
- Provide options for language, mathematical expressions and symbols: Students vary with their facility with different forms of representations, both linguistic and linguistics. A teacher can provide options that clarify vocabulary and symbols, clarify syntax and structure, support decoding text, mathematical notations and symbols, promote understanding across languages and illustrate through multiple media.
- Provide options for comprehension: To facilitate comprehension teachers can use options that activate or supply background knowledge, highlight patterns, critical features, big ideas and relationships, guide information processing, visualization and manipulation, and maximize transfer and generalization.
- Provide options for physical action: Teachers can vary the methods for response and navigation and optimize tools and assistive technologies.
- Provide options for expression and communication: Teacher can use multiple media for communication, use multiple tools for construction and composition and build fluencies with graduated levels of support for practice and performance.
- Provide options for executive functions: Provide options that guide effective goal setting, support planning and strategy development, facilitate managing information and resources and enhance capacity for monitoring progress.
- Provide options for recruiting interest: Provide options that optimize individual choice and autonomy, optimize relevance, value and authenticity and minimize threats and distractions.
- Provide options for sustaining effort and persistence: Provide options that heighten the importance of goals and objectives, vary demands and resources to optimize challenge, foster collaboration and communication, and increase master oriented feedback.
- Provide options for self-regulations: Provide options that promote expectations and beliefs that optimize motivation, facilitate personal coping skills and strategies, and develop self-assessment and reflection.