Welcome to the June 2007 electronic newsletter of the National K-12 Foreign Language Resource Center at Iowa State University!

Tous les enfants ont mérité
La connaissance, la joie et la santé
Tous en naissant devraient gagner
Le droit à l'Amour et la Verité.
Youssou N’Dour

"Tous les enfants," ("all the children"), as the song La Ronde des Écoliers du Monde by Youssou N'Dour begins, continuing with a vibrant, lively, and endearing beat, chanting that all the children deserve joy, health, and certainly the right to love, truth, and knowledge. N'Dour and his group of powerful West African singers continue their uplifting melody with the magic words of "hope is within the children." This song, dedicated to inspire and help the many children of Africa who have been orphaned because of the AIDS epidemic, has a much deeper message. This message with its rhythmic sound similar to the beating heart of a child is about honoring and supporting each child's talents, gifts, and abilities in order that each may manifest into a glorious, contributing member of our global community. No matter how challenging the tasks or the conditions, each child is worth it. As Youssou D'Nour passionately cries out in his song: "Essayons de donner une chance à la vie." ("Let's try to give a chance at life"), so do we, the teachers of the world, passionately pursue this quest.

Cherice Montgomery, Newsletter Editor
Marcia Rosenbusch, Director, NFLRC
Sonmez Pamuk and Jacob Larsen, Web Designers
Guest Writers: Susann Davis, Greta Lundgaard, Martha Pero, Toni Theisen

Why differentiate instruction

"If a child can't learn the way we teach, maybe we should teach the way they learn"
Ignacio Estrada

As teachers, we are constantly researching and exploring new ways to design curriculum and deliver instruction to reach all children-we are trying to find the magic that may unlock each mind of every child. Therefore, just as there are many students with varying abilities and needs, there are many strategies and types of content to match these students. For example, in an elementary Spanish class, there may be a group of heritage speakers in the same class as those children that are just starting the language for the first time. In a middle school French class there may be a group of high-ability learners mixed with those who struggle to read. In a German III high school class there may be students who learn best by working alone, or by using manipulatives, or even by using music as a memory device. Therefore, the old mantra of, "I believe that each child is unique, that's why I treat them all the same" is no longer the model we can use in today's education. Our language classrooms are tapestries of the world around us. Students come to us with diverse abilities, a variety of interests, an assortment of learning profiles, as well as many language and cultural backgrounds (Theisen, 2001). All these students need engaging and relevant lessons, a supportive, safe, and caring learning environment where they can learn at varied rates and in many different ways. They need variety, choices, challenges, respectful tasks, flexible grouping opportunities and honoring ongoing assessments (Heacox, 2002). Therefore, they need differentiated instruction. Furthermore, research on learning, as well as brain-based strategies, the Multiple Intelligences Theory, and learning styles inventories have offered educators many new practices and strategies. So now that we are aware of all of these resources, how can we, as teachers, ignore them?

What is differentiated instruction?

"Each person is known to have a certain gift and certain ability and is therefore able to make a contribution to the whole"
Hiwi Tauroa, 2001, p. 44.

Differentiation is just a teacher acknowledging that kids learn in different ways, and responding by doing something about that through curriculum and instruction. A more dictionary-like definition is "adapting content, process, and product in response to student readiness, interest, and/or learning profile." Take a peek through the looking glass and view the wonderment of differentiated instruction. In one elementary Spanish class, one group of students is creating a song for a recent Maya legend they have just read together. Another group is drawing posters and using graphic organizers to retell the legend, while another group is making a set of puppets. All are working to create a play that the teacher will video so parents can also learn about not only the legend, but also understand the cultural practices and products represented in this legend.

Meanwhile, in an elementary Chinese class, students have been learning Chinese characters through songs, games and pictures and practice activities. But today, they are at the computer in pairs listening to and watching Chinese characters with an animated online program.

In an advanced level high school French class students are focusing on the theme of problems in the world. After learning the key concepts of the unit, student groups are researching topics of interest. Some are examining desertification, another group is interested in global warming, and still another group is learning about malaria. Their final products, which are their choices, must present an interpretation of the data, an analysis of the facts, and then propose solutions. All students in these three classes are highly engaged in their activities because of choice and variety.

Elementary students’ developmental focus is all about how and why the world works. They have a fascinating desire to create and explore. Middle school students need a sense of belonging, community, and positive role models. They long for emotionally meaningful curriculum and opportunities for their voices to be heard. High school students, who are moving into young adulthood, seek to reflect on who they are and where they are going. They want to know how to get along with others and how to discover their inner preferences and unique paths to success in adulthood. Our PreK-12 World Languages classes are filled with these students who are ready to explore both the language and its cultures, but they need guidance and support. Students also come with individual talents, gifts, and abilities, so their access to learning needs to provide choice, flexibility, and a safe and positive learning environment in order to unlock that curiosity (Armstrong, 2006).

A differentiated classroom provides a variety of learning choices that are designed to reach readiness levels, involve interests, and activate learning profiles. In a differentiated class, the teacher uses:

1. a variety of ways for students to explore curricular content (the input)

2. a variety of activities or processes through which students can come to know and understand the content, as well as make their own sense out of it, and

3. a variety of products (the output) through which students can demonstrate what they have learned.

Differentiated instruction is a philosophy where teachers provide instruction to students based on individual needs. It is engaging students where they are, rather than where they should be according to published curriculum or preconceived notions of what "every" student in a particular grade level should do. It involves the assignment of respectful tasks and groups that are flexible.

In order for teachers to be able to identify the best ways to instruct students, they first must be able to identify the traits that identify that student as unique (Center for Advanced Student Learning, 2001). Ongoing assessment supports this and allows for adjustment of instruction based on student proficiency. It employs a range of instructional strategies and management techniques.

Differentiated instruction is an organized yet flexible way of proactively adjusting teaching and learning to meet children where they are and help them to achieve maximum growth as learners. A teaching philosophy based on the idea that instructional approaches should vary and be adapted in relation to individual and diverse needs of the students is the fundamental belief of differentiated instruction (Tomlinson, 1995).

How does a teacher effectively respond to the diverse needs of the learner?

"The biggest mistake of past centuries has been to treat all children as if they were variants of the same individual and thus to feel justified in teaching them all the same way"
Howard Gardner, 2001, p. 86.

Fairness is not giving everyone the same thing. Fairness is giving everyone what he or she needs to grow. In the world of learning, one size does not fit all. Differentiation does not change WHAT we teach; it refers to HOW we teach. The goal of a differentiated classroom is to plan actively and consistently to help each learner move as far and as fast as possible along a learning plan. What each learner needs in order for this to happen will be different. It is fair to provide each student or each set of grouped students the instructional support they need in order to achieve to their optimal level.

Differentiation must always be an extension of, not a substitute for, high quality curriculum. Any high quality curriculum will be focused, engaging, standards-based, demanding, authentic, and scaffolded. Differentiated instruction expects every lesson plan to be, at its heart, a motivational plan. By reflecting on student interest, readiness, and learning profiles, all learners in the classroom can be motivated and engaged to cause substantive understanding to occur (Littky, 2004).

How do teachers vary instruction and assessment in order to be responsive to the needs of all students?

“Teachers open the door, but you must enter by yourself”
Chinese Proverb, Center for Advanced Student Learning, p. 30.

Effective critical and creative thinking can be more effectively developed with a foundation in basic knowledge of a content area. Differentiation provides the scaffolding that students in different readiness levels need in order to put this foundational knowledge in place. Only when a student works at a level that is both challenging and attainable does learning take place. By diagnosing student readiness within a class, the appropriate complexity of work can be provided for each readiness level. By varying how students encounter information that is essential in a unit or series of units, they are more apt to have meaningful access to the required content. Differentiated instruction also has an affective benefit: building confidence and security in students as they respond to grouping and tasks that are respectful to their learning profiles and readiness levels. Teachers use what they learn about readiness, student learning profiles, and interests to modify content, process, product, and learning environment to ensure maximum learning for each member of the class. The mood or tone of a differentiated classroom should balance seriousness about work with the celebration of successes.

Content refers to the “input” of the unit: ideas, concepts, information, and facts. It is what the student must know and understand as a result of the lesson. Content is differentiated by focusing on the unit’s essential components and varying them to meet learners’ needs by providing choices (Berger, 1991). Here are just a few examples of some of the choices you might consider providing to learners:

BookBox is a web-based jukebox of digital books in more than 21 languages from around the world. Although you can purchase downloads of each story, you can preview them online for free.

Lit Gloss - This site links to original selections of literature in many different languages. Each entry also includes context for the piece and additional resources to help students better understand it.

Literacy Center - Beginning literacy activities for elementary students in English, French, German, and Spanish

Odeo - Need extra listening practice? Odeo has lots of audio files, including audiobooks-just check-you can even make your own.

Olga’s Gallery is an excellent searchable resource on famous artists that includes bios and paintings, as well as indices of artistic movements, artists, countries and world literature in art.

The Globe Center is a worldwide hands-on interactive science program in English with navigation available in Dutch, English, French, German, Russian, & Spanish.

Process refers to the ways students make their own sense of the content. Process is the how of teaching. To modify the process, the teacher can apply a variety of flexible grouping strategies such as ability grouping, interest grouping (such as these interactive activities in French from different disciplines), or grouping by learning profile. Process can also be differentiated by modifying the complexity (such as this site in Russian, English, or German that allows users to sort activities by age level, complexity, etc.) or abstractness of tasks and by engaging students in critical and creative thinking (Center for Advanced Student Learning, 2001).

A product is the output of the unit or the ways that students demonstrate their understanding of the content. Possibilities for varying products include brochures, essays, graphic organizers, multimedia presentations, news broadcasts, plays, posters, research reports, slide shows, songs, stories, videos, webquests, and varied homework assignments, tests, and writing assessments.

Students connect better in their learning when their readiness level, interests, and/or learning profiles have been respected and valued (Gregory & Chapman, 2002). Teachers can use a number of strategies to differentiate for readiness, such as layering curriculum content—constructing tasks at varying degrees of difficulty and making them more or less familiar or complex based on the ability level of the learner. In order to meet learners’ interests, the teacher can align key understandings of the unit with topics that intrigue students, encourage investigation, and give them a choice of products or tasks, including student-designed options.

A number of variables comprise a student’s learning profile including the desire to work alone or in groups, preferring hands-on activities over developing logical-sequencing activities such as an outline, learning better when listening over viewing, and demonstrating a strong musical-rhythmic intelligence. Teachers can address these variables and create positive learning environments with flexible learning options; a choice of both cooperative, independent, and competitive learning experiences; and modification of the content, process, or product to align with the different learning styles of the students in the class (Gregory & Chapman, 2002).

How do respectful tasks and flexible grouping give students equitable access and support?

“The greatest danger for most of us is not that our aim is too high and we miss it, but that it is too low and we reach it”
Michelangelo, Center for Advanced Student Learning, p. 36.

Flexible grouping can only take place when a teacher has pre-assessed the class and determined the interests, learning profiles, and readiness levels of the students in the class. The grouping is flexible because the teacher groups differently according to the task s/he is asking her students to perform. If the task involves a skill and practicing that skill, s/he may group according to student readiness. If the task involves intake of content for knowledge, s/he may group according to learning profile. If the task involves application of a skill inside content, s/he may group according to student interest. Groups are also flexible in number. Whole-class activities can segue into pair or small group work. It is also important to remember to bring partner or small group work back into a whole-class level to reinforce big ideas and culmination activities (Tomlinson, 1999).

Inside each one of these groups, the teacher has developed tasks that are at the proper level of difficulty for each group. Respectful tasks maintain high expectations for all students, expect all students to achieve at optimal levels, and are equally engaging for each readiness, interest, or learning profile group. Development of a range of tasks that have the same instructional goal or objective allows students with an advanced readiness level to skip practice on previously mastered skills and move to activities and products that are complex, open-ended, or multi-faceted, controlling their own pace through the instructional sequence. Students with less developed readiness may need more opportunities for direct instruction, practice, and verbal meta-cognitive scripting. Their activities or products are more structured or more concrete with fewer steps. Application activities are slower paced, closer to their own experiences, and require simpler reading skills.

What is ongoing assessment?

Ongoing assessment provides the teacher with data to design respectful tasks and to use flexible grouping. Continual or ongoing assessment requires the teacher to monitor student interests, learning profiles, and readiness in order to adjust to the growing student. This does not mean continual pre-tests or pop quizzes, but rather, the regular use of strategies such as anticipation guides, class polls, exit cards, fist of five, Frayer diagrams, journal prompts, knowledge rating charts, KWL charts, me graphs, rubrics, student self assessments, student surveys, thumbs up-thumbs down, and traffic light cards (green, yellow, red). All of these activities can give the teacher more accurate knowledge of what the students have actually acquired from learning experiences than the question, “Does everyone understand?” or “Any questions?”

Although continual or ongoing assessment should happen daily, a culminating activity or summative assessment evaluates the success of students in attaining the knowledge and skills, understanding the concepts and principles, and applying the learning of the teacher-established goals and objectives of the unit. In order for all students to have an opportunity to be successful with this culminating assessment, the learning experiences of the classroom must have been targeted at achieving and integrating this set of goals and objectives. Characteristics of a good culminating assessment include: a clear match between the expected outcomes of the classroom learning experiences and the task or tasks provided; tasks which sample the most important outcomes of the goals and objectives; and a variety of tasks which allow for student performance at the level of learning expected.

How does an assessment like this look in the classroom? It is a learning experience that allows the students to demonstrate what they have learned using their preferred mode of learning with clearly specified criteria at each level of achievement.

Final Thoughts

In order to differentiate, sound teaching principles must be honored and a quality curriculum must be in place. Applying standards while organizing instruction, a teacher must realize what all students need to know, understand, and be able to do at the end of the unit. The teacher is familiar with student differences that affect the unit and builds on these differences, making adjustments in the content of the unit, the multiple ways students process the content, and the various products they create in order to demonstrate what they have learned. To enhance learning for all students, the teacher must establish a balance between a student-centered and teacher-facilitated classroom (Tomlinson, 1999). Tous les enfants, (all the children) deserve joy, health and certainly the right to love, truth, and knowledge.

Quotes to Ponder

"Children already come to us differentiated. It just makes sense that we would differentiate our instruction in response to them"
Carol Ann Tomlinson, 1999, p. 24.

Memories of Iowa

I have been surprised how many times during this school year that I have referred back to our program, and how often I have used the materials and experiences that Cindy and Cherice developed for us. The "Digital Immigrants, Digital Natives" article insights have been a recurring theme in my interactions with teachers as we transition from a paper-based system to a digital system. One of our district initiatives this year is development of instructional strategies training videos.  I have created three digital movies already, using Adobe Premier Elements.  We used Audacity to record all of the listening sections to our common semester exams, and I posted these to our curriculum data base in a playlist. The wikispaces have had a great impact on how I work with my multilevel classes. Wow!! I didn't know I was so on the cutting edge!!

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This Newsletter was prepared with funding from the U.S. Department of Education, Office of Postsecondary Education under Title VI grant #P229A020023. The publication of products and website URLs in this newsletter is provided for informational purposes only and does not imply an endorsement by the National K-12 Foreign Language Resource Center, Iowa State University, or the positions or policies of the U. S. Department of Education.