It is likely that classrooms in which you teach will be academically diverse. You probably
can’t escape academic diversity in your teaching career. What you can control
is your response to it. Even as you begin your career as a teacher, what you believe
about your work as a professional will begin to shape how you practice that profession.
YOUR TURN Examining Classroom Connections
in Responsive Teaching
1. Draw a flowchart or some other graphic representation
that shows the interrelationship among
who we teach, where we teach, what we teach,
and how we teach in the thinking and practice of
Mrs. Rex. Annotate your graphic to make sure the
connections you make are clear to colleagues who
look at your work.
2. Draw a similar flowchart that reflects the thinking
and practice of a teacher in a one-size-fits-all classroom.
Annotate this graphic with your thoughts,
too. Beneath the graphic, write a statement of comparison
and contrast for the two representations.
3. Develop a list of three or four of the most important
beliefs you now hold about whom you will
teach, where you will teach, what you will teach,
and how you will teach. Beside each of the beliefs,
write how you think that belief will shape your
teaching.
4. It’s easy to think of grading as a process that
is highly prescribed—that exists apart from a
teacher’s beliefs about teaching. In fact, it is
often the case that because we see grading as
fixed, grading shapes our beliefs about teaching
rather than our beliefs about teaching shaping the
way we grade. What impact would you suppose
Mrs. Rex’s beliefs have on her grading? How
would you grade to reflect the beliefs you listed in
item 3?
about teaching and learning, not when it is simply a collection of techniques
applied to a classroom in which students are often taught as though they
were indistinguishable from one another, or in a setting that is impersonal
or intimidating, or using a curriculum that feels stale and remote to
learners
To apply specific ways to differentiate content, activities,
and products in response to student readiness, interest,
and learning profile
Some Approaches to Responsive Teaching
There is no formula for differentiation—no single way to respond to student
variance. While that is uncomfortable in some ways, it’s also positive.
Teachers vary just as their students do, and it’s important for teachers to
be able to develop processes and procedures for addressing their learners’
needs in ways that simultaneously address the personality and developing
expertise of the teacher.
It is nonetheless helpful, however, for a teacher to have a way of organizing
his or her thinking about and planning for academically responsive teaching.
For that reason, it’s useful to think in terms of differentiation in response to
three student traits (readiness, interest, and learning profile) in regard to
three elements of curriculum (content, process, and product) and in terms
of two instructional roles (teacher role and student role).
This section presents just a few examples of how a teacher might
differentiate content (what the student should learn or how the student gets
To access the video, go to www.cengage.com/login. Watch the video clip, then reflect on the following
questions:
1. Why does it matter that the teacher starts planning for differentiation thinking about
common learning goals? What would change if she simply set out to “cover material”
without clearly delineating essential learning outcomes?
2. In what ways might it be helpful to the teacher and to the quality of her instruction that
she thinks about representative students when planning differentiated lessons, rather
than simply planning a differentiated lesson without particular students in mind?
3. The teacher says she feels it’s important to build on student strengths rather than
emphasizing their areas of need. To what degree does this approach make sense to you,
and why or why not?
4. This teacher enlists the help of specialists in this differentiated lesson. If you were not
able to access that support, how might you plan the lesson and carry it out so that it
would still work for the range of students in your class—and for you?
5. This video case shows a teacher planning for student readiness differences. What might
you do to adapt the lesson to address student interests? To address student learning
profiles (or preferred ways of learning)?
access to the information and ideas), process (activities, or how the student
comes to make sense of and “own” the content), and/or product (how the
student shows what he or she has come to know, understand, and be able to
do) in response to student readiness (proximity to a learning goal), interest
(affinity for a topic or task), and/or learning profile (preferred way to learn),
depending on whether the focus of instruction at a given moment is teacher
as presenter or student as worker.17
In Response to Learner Readiness
Readiness has to do with a student’s current understandings and skills
relative to a particular learning goal. A task presented at a readiness level
appropriate for a student will be just a little too difficult for the student to
complete independently. Often, the learning goal for a task will not change
in response to student readiness, but the degree of difficulty, or degree of
complexity at which the student is asked to work with the goal, should match
the student’s current preparedness for the work. Recall that when tasks
are too difficult or too simple for a learner’s readiness level, achievement is
likely to be impaired. Thus the goal of readiness differentiation is to make
sure a learner (1) has enough background to understand the assigned
material or task, (2) has to work to link what he or she already knows to
something unfamiliar introduced in the material or task, (3) has a support
system in the classroom to help bridge the known and the new, and
(4) generally finds that success follows effort. (Watch the video case, Academic
Diversity: Differentiated Instruction to see how an elementary teacher thinks
about addressing variance in student readiness in a writing lesson.)
The following table lists strategies teachers can use to make the classroom
fit better for a range of learners. The list is by no means complete, but it
illustrates ways in which teachers teach important content with the needs of
learners forming a central part of their instructional thinking and planning
SOME APPROACHES TO DIFFERENTIATING INSTRUCTION FOR STUDENT
READINESS
Adjusting for Readiness: When the Teacher Presents
Provide organizers to help
students follow the presentation
sequence and focus on main
ideas.
To support students who have difficulty following a lecture
or other oral presentation, Mr. Jameson gives students blank
graphics with spaces to record main ideas and illustrations. He
also completes the graphic on the overhead as he talks.
Use concrete illustrations of
complex or abstract ideas and
pre-teach academic vocabulary.
To support students who have difficulty with abstract
information, Ms. Higgins nearly always uses objects she’s brought
from home to demonstrate how principles of physics work.
List key vocabulary for student
reference.
To support second-language learners and other students with
reading or writing difficulties, Ms. Ahmad posts a chart of
important words about a topic and discusses what students know
or guess about the words before she begins a discussion on that
topic. She then has her students adjust their thoughts about the
words as they gain new information.
Use small-group instruction as
a regular means of teaching.
Ms. Abel frequently conducts mini-workshops on skills or ideas she
knows will be difficult for some of her students. She individually
asks some students to attend and also invites anyone who’d
like help with the topic to come to the session as well. She also
regularly plans reteaching sessions for students who struggle with
fundamental ideas and skills and small-group sessions to extend
the thinking of students whose thinking and skills are advanced.
Stop often for student reflection
and questions.
Mr. Garcia stops about every seven to ten minutes when he
is explaining and demonstrating at the board or overhead.
Sometimes he asks students to summarize key points or apply
a skill with a partner. Sometimes he asks students individually
to write a summary statement or question about what they are
understanding. He walks around the room to hear or read student
ideas and then concludes with questions from the class before
moving ahead. He also uses what he hears to shape his teaching.
Ask questions of escalating
difficulty.
To make certain everyone in the class is challenged by
discussions, Ms. Rentz plans question sequences that begin by
asking for fundamental information and concepts and continues
by increasing the complexity of questions until everyone in the
class has been both affirmed and stretched by her questioning.
Provide materials at varied
readability levels.
Strategy Example
Ms. Glenn uses text materials, supplementary print materials,
and Internet resources at a wide range of reading levels on the
same topics to ensure that each student has resources that are
appropriately challenging for that learner.
Bridge the language gap for
second-language learners.
Ms. Hendrix finds resource materials in the native languages of
students whenever she can. She also ensures that in group work,
there are students who can speak both English and the language
of students who are just learning English. She encourages new
English learners to write first in their own language and then
SOME APPROACHES TO DIFFERENTIATING INSTRUCTION FOR STUDENT
READINESS (CONT.)
translate into English so their ideas are not muted by language
difficulties. In addition, she meets with these students as often as
possible to coach them in their new language.
Assess often and use findings to
adjust plans.
Mr. Peterson thinks of