Thoughts on Standards Based Instruction and teaching
POSTED AT 08:23 PM

rocky

I've been researching Small Learning Communities and the Principles of Learning for a school reform grant and came across this article, Reconcilable Differences? Standards-Based Teaching and Differentiation by Carol Ann Tomlinson, in Educational Leadership magazine.

"Standards and Differentiation
There is no contradiction between effective standards-based instruction and differentiation. Curriculum tells us what to teach: Differentiation tells us how. Thus, if we elect to teach a standards-based curriculum, differentiation simply suggests ways in which we can make that curriculum work best for varied learners. In other words, differentiation can show us how to teach the same standard to a range of learners by employing a variety of teaching and learning modes.

Choose any standard. Differentiation suggests that you can challenge all learners by providing materials and tasks on the standard at varied levels of difficulty, with varying degrees of scaffolding, through multiple instructional groups, and with time variations. Further, differentiation suggests that teachers can craft lessons in ways that tap into multiple student interests to promote heightened learner interest in the standard. Teachers can encourage student success by varying ways in which students work: alone or collaboratively, in auditory or visual modes, or through practical or creative means."