Differentiated Instruction & Visible Thinking Routines

Meaning of Differentiated Instruction

Affirming that students have different learning needs, strengths, styles, interests and preferences
Affirming the importance and value of all students’ work
Maintaining a commitment to learning standards and goals for all students
Increasing the variety in teaching, learning, and assessment in order to reach more students and respond to their preferences, styles, interests and strengths
Acknowledging what students already know and can do
Providing appropriate levels of challenge and active engagement in rigorous, relevant and significant learning
Based on the principle of inclusive education

Example of Differentiated Instruction and Assignments for a Transdisciplinary Unit (8-12 Years Old)

Students were asked to complete the worksheet according to what they liked and could do. For example, a 6th-grader boy finished more writing than a 2nd-grader did.

Assignment in Transdisciplinary Approach

BAR CHART

Instructor’s Feedback on the Lesson Plan

FEEDACK LP

Differentiated Success Criteria Based on Students’ Zone of Proximal Development

Co-decided by learners and teachers, learning objectives for both process and products are ordered as a progression to higher stages, with some of them to be revisisted across units, and parts of these repeated learning objectives to be the focus in each unit for reinforcing and consolidating new skills in different contexts. To achieve these learning objectives, success criteria are co-developed by learners and teachers, based on students’ zone of proximal development, i.e. what students can do with scaffolding from teachers and peers. Since each student as a unique learner, has various levels of competency, interest, learning style, learning preference, and learning needs, success criteria should be differentiated at appropriately challenging levels with personalized lesson planning, mid-term planning, and long-term planning archived in the student profile that should be co-developed by learners and teachers.

differentiated

References:

Courseware from the Introductory Training, Cambridge Primary English (0058)

Dr. Serhat Kurt, 2020, Vygotsky’s Zone of Proximal Development and Scaffolding

https://educationaltechnology.net/vygotskys-zone-of-proximal-development-and-scaffolding/

The Course of Assessment and Evaluation for the IB PYP Educator Certificate at the University of Windsor

Visible Thinking Routines

One inquiry-based practice I think I have been doing well is visible thinking. I have been using graphic organizers in reading for writing classes. Before that, students have already learned how to sort out information with graphic organizers in reading and thinking session, ‘compare and contrast’ in particular. After practice for a couple of times, some high performers have shown a trait of thinking routine to analyze information in different contexts by creating their own graphic organizers, while some low performers have managed to demonstrate deeper and diverse understanding of some materials after comparison and contrast. All of the students have shown a better performance in writing when they get used to such thinking routine.

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thinking routine s

https://www.thinglink.com/scene/857736449603141633

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