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Professional Readings includes reviews of recent publications and highlights of reports on current issues that affect schools. Your contributions are welcome. Send them to principal@osu.edu. Please indicate if we may use your name in the “contributor” credits.
Differentiated Instruction: One District’s Journey
Baehr, L., & Ralston, C. (2000). Differentiated instruction: One district’s journey. Ohio ASCD Journal 3, 7-11.
Louise Baehr is Director of Testing, Assessment, and Gifted Education for Gahanna Public Schools. Carol Ralston is the language arts Middle School Gifted Intervention Specialist.
The authors propose that recognizing different learning needs and preferences is like “acknowledging that students at any given age aren’t all the same height: It is not a statement of worth, but of reality.”
In a district known for its diverse student population, these two leaders are showing the way for teachers and administrators to reach and challenge all learners.
Here is their triangle of support:
Interventionist Support
At the outset, differentiating instruction wasn’t limited to students. As the Intervention Specialist writes, “Each teacher’s needs varied as did their teaching style.”
Key to making differentiation work in the classroom, then, was regular work with teachers to plan tiered assignments, pretesting, student work products, and rubric-based assessment.
The Intervention Specialist also spent time teaching collaboratively with the classroom teacher, helping to introduce whole-group and flexible, small-group instruction based on student “interest, modality, and readiness.”
Support via Materials
Differentiated instruction required new materials, which the authors began purchasing with grant funds. (With or without a grant, we principals need to make this support a priority in the school budget.)
From Bloom’s taxonomy, to differentiation-friendly classroom units, to professional publications and videos, the authors list multiple resources to build teacher confidence and promote teamwork.
As the authors state, these materials created “a number of unanticipated benefits.” Among them: growing numbers of interested teachers; more principal involvement in instruction; higher expectations for all students; and greater student “self-efficacy,” leading to increased achievement throughout the district.
Support via Staff Development
Like the byproducts of new materials, staff development for differentiated instruction grew beyond those teachers serving gifted students in the regular classroom.
The Differentiation Academy, with beginning and advanced levels, now serves teachers and administrators on a regular basis.
“Today,” note the authors, “the focus is on introducing a menu of differentiation strategies that is applicable to all students and encouraging the teacher to incorporate these in daily plans and long-range units.”
Support for teachers new to the process also comes from powerful presentations by fellow teachers, who have taken ownership of ensuring that the district’s differentiation journey will continue.
For information on reprints of the article, contact OASCD: http://www.ohioascd.com/contact.php.
