I had the opportunity to Elluminate with the two special guests who will join me when I present the workshop on November 3. The title of my workshop is borrowed from Drs. Grace and Stephanie’s book, “Differentiating Instruction with Technology in K-5 Classrooms”; it is called The Power of Two: Differentiation + Technology. Here is a rough skeleton of the day:
1. Brief overview of the day.
2. Elluminate with two special guests
What is differentiation and how can technology support it?
Differentiating by interest
3.) Differentiating by readiness
4.) Differentiating by learner profile
Obviously, I can only cover so much territory in 2 hours and 45 minutes. It gives me a chance to whet their appetite and then offer follow up sessions, thus making it a long-term PD opportunity.
My next step is to work backward. I’m going to craft some enduring understandings and essential questions to guide my thinking. I’ll use the questions I asked in a prior post but I really want to get at what deep understandings I want my participants to walk away with; I will share those with them at the beginning of the session.
My thoughts are beginning to crystallize, although there is still much to be done. I will continue to share my thoughts and ideas in this blog. Again, please feel free to add your 2 cents worth; I welcome it!
In two previous posts, I began to reflect on the planning process for a workshop I am offering to our staff on November 3. Using this blog has been extremely helpful in bringing clarity to my thoughts and ideas. In the last post, I shared some key questions I felt I needed to ponder to assist me in my planning:
Why am I offering this training?
What do I want teachers to know?
What do I want teachers to be able to do?
How do I assess their understanding?
How do I turn a one-shot deal into something sustained and embedded?
These questions are all part of the UbD process which I frequently use to help me plan for any type of professional development I am facilitating to staff. It prompts me to consider the whole rather than just the parts. So, here are some of my thoughts about those questions:
Why am I offering this training? To help teachers realize the benefits of using technology to support differentiation. To guide them to the understanding that differentiation is a way of thinking, not just something “more” to have to do.
What do I want teachers to know? I want them to know that we can respond to students’ needs according to their readiness, interest, learning style and affect by differentiating the content, process, product and learning environment.
What do I want teachers to be able to do? I want them to be able to access the resources provided to them during the workshop to help them begin to differentiate using technology.
How do I assess their understanding? I need more time to think about this one. Since it’s a “one shot” deal, I will need to figure out how to best assess their understanding and provide continuing support to them.
How do I turn a one-shot deal into something sustained and embedded? This is an important question for me to consider because I truly believe PD should never be isolated but rather embedded in teacher’s everyday work. I need to ponder this some more.
So, that’s where I am in my planning/thinking. I’m going to spend some time this week fleshing out the plan and will “meet” with my two Expert Voices to ascertain the content of their work with my teachers.
With November 3 looming ever closer, I have spent many sleepness nights pondering how I can create a learning experience worthy of the time the participants are willing to give me. I haven’t really started formal planning, although I know these things for sure:
I will use UbD to help guide my planning.
I want to inspire.
I will have two very special “Expert Voices” attend my session virtually. (Elluminate or Skype)
My district bought copies of “Differentiating Instruction with Technology in K-5 Classrooms” for each participant.
Although some theory will be shared, I want this to be practical, also.
I will use a wiki to share ideas, resources and research with teachers.
I want to share the document from our course, entitled, “Synopsis of Differentiated Instruction, its Traits and Elements.” While fairly simple, it has had a profound effect on my understanding of differentiated instruction. Although my prior training used these ideas, visual organization of this diagram helps me see the “whole picture”.
Some questions I need to ask myself as I plan for this workshop include:
Why am I offering this training?
What do I want teachers to know?
What do I want teachers to be able to do?
How do I assess their understanding?
How do I turn a one-shot deal into something sustained and embedded?
Obviously I have a lot of work to do. I’m hoping to really dig in this weekend. If you want to follow some of work I’m doing, you can check out my delicious bookmarks here:
Sometimes I wish I could replicate the situation in the movie “Groundhog Day”, where Bill Murray wakes up each day, only to repeat the same day all over again. I’ve now been out of the classroom for three years; overall, I am satisfied with that decision but as I learn more about good instruction, I often find myself wishing I could go back and do it all over again. The course I’m taking, “Differentiation Supported by Technology” has given me the opportunity to learn more about differentiation and how teachers can better meet the needs of their learners and that has me reflecting on my past experiences with my students.
For most of the ten years I spent in the gifted resource room, a large portion of my teaching was in the area of math. I utilized learning contracts and flexible grouping but in hindsight, I didn’t vary those methods very much. When I consider what I’ve learned in this course, I recognize that I could have responded to my students’ needs more broadly; finding out more about their interests and their learning style would have made their experience more personalized and relevant to them. I distinctly remember giving students interest inventories but inevitably, I would read through them and then file them in their designated folder, never to be looked at again. I’m not sure I understood the significance of how truly knowing your students could help you create learning experiences that provided maximum impact.
Then there is the plethora of tools available to help students learn better. Intuitively, I understand the incredible promise they hold for enhancing and supporting learning. It is not difficult for me to understand how they can help differentiate the curriculum, making the job so much more efficient for teachers. One of the barriers to effective differentiation is the time consuming factor of trying to maintain momentum in designing those experiences. I look forward to further exploration of how technology can support differentiation.
On November 3, I will be facilitating a 3-hour workshop on using technology to differentiate instruction to our K-6 teachers.I’ve learned so much through participating in this course and feel there is a need for our staff members to re-imagine what differentiation looks like with the advent of these tools.Most teachers I talk to feel like differentiation is “just one more thing to do”; they haven’t yet seen the power of differentiation to more readily meet their students’ needs.
So what are my goals for the session?Well, for one, I want to help them shift their thinking; instead of seeing differentiation as something we “do” to the students, they need to see it as a way of thinking about learning.If we truly understand and believe that each person comes to us with a unique learning style and differing needs, then the natural consequence is to design learning experiences that reflect that belief.Secondly, I want to re-introduce them to differentiation strategies such as learning contracts, surveys, pre-assessments and compacting.Finally, I want to expose them to some of the tools available to make differentiation more effective and efficient.
That’s about as far as I’ve gotten in my planning.I know I want to “walk my talk” and differentiate the session for my learners.I know I want to bring in some expert voices to bring multiple perspectives to the learning.I know I will create a wiki to house all of the session information.What do you think?If were going to plan a three hour workshop on using technology to differentiate instruction, what might your plan look like?I would love to hear your thoughts.
So I am taking a course through Wilkes University called “Differentiation Supported by Technology”. Surprisingly, it has been an eye opening experience. I say “surprisingly” because I have had a great deal of training in differentiation through my work with gifted education and felt I understood it well.As I reflect back on my experiences, however, it occurs to me that I didn’t internalize the deeper meaning of differentiation and in fact, interpreted it from a very narrow lens.Through this class, I have had many “AHA” moments, particularly when considering the use of technology to support differentiated strategies.
According to Wikipedia, “differentiated instruction Is a way to think about teaching and learning”.This definition seems to imply that differentiation is a philosophy, not simply one more thing to tick off on our “To Do” list…IF we have the time.Recognizing and responding to our students’ unique learning styles and needs becomes essentialwhen sitting down to create learning experiences for our students.Using differentiation strategies such as iSearch, compacting and tiered lessons provides teachers with a road map of sorts.Add the plethora of tools out there to support differentiation and you have the potential for some powerful learning experiences.
Another outgrowth of this experience has been my new “eye” towards differentiating for my adult learners.I realized I’ve been moving along this continuum of growth in my role as a professional development provider.This course has opened my eyes to the need to find ways to meet the needs of the teachers I work with when helping them understand how to use technology to support teaching and learning.I’ve already begun to capitalize on some of the ideas I’ve learned through this course and I look forward to expanding my repertoire.Surveying staff members prior to meetings, providing options when structuring meetings and allowing for independent exploration or guided instruction are just a few of the ways I’m designing PD.I look forward to discovering more ways to meet their needs.
So, what have you learned through your experience in this course?
