Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums General Discussion Is differentiated instruction a hollow promise?

Yes, it's hollow. "Differentiated instruction" is a supplement to ability grouping, not a replacement for it. Even if you divide 60 children in a grade into 3 ability groups, there will still be differences in knowledge and aptitude within the classes that teachers need to deal with. But why make the job harder by maximizing the spread within each class?

http://www.edexcellence.net/comment...ferentiated-instruction-a-hollow-promise
Is differentiated instruction a hollow promise?
Chester E. Finn, Jr.
Fordham Institute
May 01, 2014

It looks to me as if one of the most acclaimed reforms of today’s education profession—not just in the U.S. but also all over the planet—is one of the least examined in terms of actual implementation and effectiveness. How often and how well do instructors, whose administrators and gurus revere the concept of differentiated instruction, actually carry it out? How well does it work and for which kids under what circumstances? So far as I can tell, nobody really knows.

I’ve been roaming the globe in search of effective strategies for educating high-ability youngsters, particularly kids from disadvantaged circumstances who rarely have parents with the knowledge and means to steer them through the education maze and obtain the kind of schooling (and/or supplementation or acceleration) that will make the most of their above-average capacity to learn.

As expected, I’ve found a wide array of programs and policies intended for “gifted education,” “talent development,” and so forth, each with pluses and minuses.

But almost everywhere, I’ve also encountered some version of this assertion: “We don’t really need to provide special programs, classrooms, or schools for gifted children because we expect every school and teacher to differentiate their instruction so as to meet the unique educational needs of all children within an inclusive, heterogeneous classroom.”

A thoroughly laudable goal, say I, but how realistic is it? How well is it being done? And does it really meet their needs, or is it ultimately a politically acceptable excuse for not doing anything special for high-ability children?

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My kid's school doesn't get that the root of differentiation is DIFFERENT. GRRRRRR, I've grown to hate the word.

ETA - I should print a copy of the article for our next meeting.

I printed this article last night!

I hate to say it, chay, but I think this is part of a larger provincial initiative to ensure all enrichment and differentiation is still at grade level. It's utterly perverse.

Preaching to the choir.

DS has Wonder Woman for a teacher and somehow she manages to give him work at the right level. She seems to put in a ton of hours doing prep work that other teachers do not necessarily do. And since the school has a very open layout, I think she gets the help of paras, at times. She also uses the computer with DS....for instance puts him on the computer when she is teaching to the 60 percent so that he doesn't have to sit through that. Not an ideal situation, and it would be better for him to be in a class learning with kids of similar ability (i.e. a higher grade for math), but there are all kinds of logistical problems with that as well, for instance the class schedules not matching up.

I am grateful that our district has a magnet for highly gifted upper elementary kids, but it only has room for about 25-30 kids per grade (coming from many elementary schools all over the district), and so few kids qualify. My fear is that at some point someone is going to decide that this is no longer "politically correct" and scatter the kids back into the neighborhood schools. Teachers/principals are already griping & making noise about how they lose the best scoring kids to the magnet, dropping the averages for their schools.

What grade are your kids, aquinas? I think non-accelerated enrichment has loads more options once they're in 4th and up. In first it's just painful.

School districts like giving so many tests like MAP. I don't know why they then ignore the results. DS's teacher gives him work based on that. The test report shows what he has mastered and what he answered wrong, so she goes online and prints out appropriate level worksheets. She spends about 5 minutes with him one-on-one each day to teach the concepts, like how do you find an angle measurement on a protractor or how do you compare fractions. Then sets him loose to do the worksheets, sometimes with a para helping.

I think it boils down to teachers spending just a little bit of extra time to get themselves organized. DS's teacher probably took the assessment results and then immediately took an hour to print everything out all at once, and put it in a binder. She gave me a list of everything that she wants to cover with him, so it was planned ahead of time.

I can see how if you have 30 kids in your class this would be difficult. But most of those kids are in the middle and the normal curriculum works for them. The kids on the bottom (in our district at least) are pulled out by interventionists. So that leaves just a few kids at the top who need special lesson plans made up.

Between my two kids, they've had 12 general education teachers in gen ed classes. We've seen exactly one example of consistent and appropriate differentiated instruction and curriculum (DS's 2nd grade teacher.)

She had to hand write DS' math homework. She had to pull him aside individually a few times a week to teach him. And, she only did a decent job on the math, not in other areas. He did not make nearly as much progress as he could have with daily instruction exceeding 5 minutes. Much of that instruction happened after school.

Teachers must be able to (1) identify the need and magnitude, (2) know more than the child in that area, (3) have material and time resources to provide both curriculum and instruction, and (4) be sufficiently motivated to take the time to plan and carry out the differentiation. They also have to be able to establish a classroom atmosphere where the child does not feel singled out or other kids feel left out.

It's not that hard to plan what work an accelerated child gets; but it is very hard to plan the actual delivery of instruction and feedback mechanisms. Who will instruct the accelerated child? When? What will that child be doing while the rest of the class gets their instruction? Who will give the accelerated child on-the-spot feedback about his unique work?

Ultimately, you need staff to do this properly. It costs money. I think it should be creatively solveable, but it's hard to do well.