Teachers who are most successful at differentiation plan for thinking, not merely for content.
All Of MyTechniques
My Favorite Models of Instruction
I used to teach without any structure. Just “blah blah blah”ing. Then I only knew Direct Instruction. THEN I learned that there are more than a dozen models of instruction to build my lessons around.
Embed A Classic
An easy way to spice up any lesson is to remove the god-awful samples and replace them with selections from great works of art, music, film, tv shows, and historic moments. You get the added bonus of exposing students to new ideas.
Find The Controversy in Any Topic
By leveraging a point of contention, we can get students interested in just about any topic. Yes, even boring old spelling has controversy we can exploit!
Plan Lessons Using Deductive Thinking
When we write a deductive lesson, we purposefully plan around a juicy big idea and then let our students prove or disprove it with specific evidence.
Synthesize: Make A Change, Explain The Effect
I love the term “Synthesize” from the classic Bloom’s Taxonomy, but it can be hard to know exactly what it looks like. My favorite “Synthesize Recipe” is to ask students to make a change to existing content and then explain the effects of that change to me.
Get Ridiculous!
One technique for finding complexity in a topic is to look for the edge cases, the outliers, the really big or small versions.
Students Need More Than Independent Work
It’s so easy to just ask advanced students to work by themselves in a corner. But, the more advanced the kid, the more they need advanced instruction and adult guidance.
Moving Between the Specific and Abstract
When differentiating, it’s helpful to note where on the “spectrum of abstraction” your content lies. Then, see what happens when you move that content to be more abstract or more specific. It often unlocks lots of new opportunities for thinking.
Four Types of Questions You Can Ask
Asking questions is such a basic tool of teaching, yet how many of us have ever been taught to ask good questions? In this opening to a series about questioning, we’ll explore how to get students asking each other questions.