You may, or may not, have read or heard about last week’s opinion piece at Education Week titled Differentiation Doesn’t Work. It’s gotten a lot of circulation and over one hundred comments. Those comments are more interesting than the column itself, which reads more like a “I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take it anymore” rant that demands we return to tracking than a reasoned reflection on differentiation. It just doesn’t have much substance to it.
As most teachers know, we have to differentiate and there are plenty of ways to do it without killing ourselves.
Here are some helpful resources:
The Five-by-Five Approach to Differentiation Success is the title of an Ed Week piece my colleague Katie Hull Sypnieski and I co-authored.
The Best Resources On Differentiating Instruction
The Best Resources For Learning About Ability Grouping & Tracking
My four Education Week Teacher posts on differentiation include contributions from many of the foremost educators in the field, including Donalyn Miller, Rick Wormeli, Carol Ann Tomlinson and more:
Several Ways To Differentiate Instruction
More Ways To Differentiate Instruction — Part Two
Larry,
I too found the article to be more of a rant than a research. But there’s a reason for the rant. The “just do it” message that teachers are given instead of actual support and training creates the rants. I’m glad we are revisiting the concept of differentiation. I hope that continued professional development and use of the type of information you posted will be used to help teachers to reach students. Then we can really get to differentiation.