Busting Myths about Differentiated Instruction

Wormeli, Rick

Many teachers and principals claim that their schools differentiate instruction diverse learners, but when pressed to define differentiated practice, some of them offer contrasting and even misinformed descriptions. If teachers and principals are going to promote differentiated lessons and assessments, then both need to be clear about what they are and are not. So, let's bust a few myths.

Myth 1: Students Will Be Unprepared for Tests

First, differentiated instruction and standardized tests are not oxymoronic. Some principals think that if teachers differentiate in their classes, students will be disabled when they take state assessments that are not differentiated. Nothing could be farther from the truth. Students will do well on standardized assessments if they know the material well, and differentiated instruction's bottom line is to teach in whatever way students best learn. Here's a definition that works for many educators:

Differentiating instruction is doing what's fair and developmentally appropriate for students. It's a collection of best practices strategically employed to maximize students' learning at every turn, including giving them the tools to handle anything that is undifferentiated. It requires us to do different things for different students some, or a lot, of the time. It's whatever works to advance the student. It's highly effective teaching.

Students will do well on standardized assessments because of differentiated approaches. Do teachers also teach test-taking savvy and offer some classroom assessments that are similar to state tests? Sure, these are life skills. Educational Testing Service and other producers of standardized assessments, however, will tell you that their products shouldn't be the sole focus of educators. Such assessments can only sample learning, making observations about mastery inferential at best, and they are meant to look at trends and patterns for a school, not exclusive evidence about an individual student or teacher's performance. State policymakers and legislators want educators to focus on their true goals: to teach students how to interpret graphs, obtain insight from historical events, understand the scientific processes of living organisms, incorporate healthy diet and exercise into everyday life, and create the jarring beauty of music written with just the right dynamics. Anything teachers do to enable students to become their own advocates in this cause is worthy, and differentiated practices do just that.

Some educators think that we hurt students' performance on standardized tests when teachers offer alternative assessments in their classes. Students will expect it everywhere, they argue. Here's the rule of thumb: If the final product is required as part of the legally mandated state curriculum, then the product is nonnegotiable. In Virginia, for example, all students have to write a persuasive essay. Teachers do not yield to students' whining, "I don't write very well. Could I do a persuasive diorama instead?"

If, however, students are learning the Kreb's cycle in biology, the demonstration of mastery does not require a specific product. It really doesn't matter how students do it. Let them make a poster or Web site devoted to the topic. Let them conduct a debate or create a coloring book on the topic, or let them take the test orally. The goal is to get an accurate rendering of mastery. If a student can express what he or she knows more accurately by using an alternative format, get out of their way and let them do it. Teachers dilute a grade's accuracy and thereby usefulness when assessments are tests of the test format more than the content itself. Give students some training in how to take standardized tests, but don't get in the way of them demonstrating true mastery.

Myth 2: Differentiation Equals Individualization Differentiated instruction is not individualized instruction, although sometimes teachers may individualize as warranted. An

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individual teacher would go nuts implementing an individualized education program for every secondary student. No one expects educators to do this. When a teacher answers a confused student's question, stands near to a student to quiet him or her down, suggests an alternative research resource, or suggests that a student turns lined paper sideways to create columns, the teacher is individualizing and, yes, differentiating instruction. The individualizing is temporary, done as necessary.

Related to this myth is the idea that differentiated classrooms always ask students to work individually or in small groups. Some students learn primarily in whole-class instruction, some in small groups, and some working individually. Successful teachers offer all three formats over the course of a week or unit of study. This is the "ebb and flow" that differentiated instruction expert Carol Ann Tomlinson talks about in her books.

There is a problem in some classes, however: Teachers teach one or two of these ways on most occasions, rarely using the third, whichever it might be. Teachers who avoid this other approach are concerned that students might not be working, learning, ...

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