Differentiation


 * Differentiation **


 * Find and download the article “**Using the Primary Years Programme as a Viable Curriculum for Educating the Gifted** By Barbara A. Leonard” (Try Google translate if you wish)


 * Special educational needs within the International Baccalaureate programmes


 * Research one of the following online - Multiple Intelligences, Learning Styles, VAK, Blooms Taxonomy


 * Discuss the following practices which Kath Murdoch suggest supports a differentiated classroom -
 * Work on relationships. Know your students – as people, as learners.
 * Elicit ‘early thinking’ – gather evidence of prior knowledge and skills and use this to inform plans
 * Build the skill and /language set for independent learning and autonomy – explicit teaching of independent learning skills
 * Design open ended and/or ‘layered’ tasks that offer multiple pathways and outcomes
 * Personalize the learning – opportunities for choice
 * Invite student voice into planning decisions
 * Vary ways of learning – cater for different kinds of learners
 * Vary groupings


 * Suggested activities**

Look at one of the summative assessments you have completed. Adapt it to include a range of product options to cater for different learning needs. (You could do a tic-tac-toe grid with different product choices – any none negotiable go in the middle)

Create a list of strategies (also use the teaching strategies) that would help students in your class become independent learners.

Complete a graphic organiser to show tasks that would fit with the 8 practices, suggested by Kath Murdoch, that support a differentiated classroom.

Create a learning styles plan/grid for one of your units or create a menu of possible tasks drawing on Blooms Taxonomy.

Make a concept cartoon ([] ) to prompt discussions about differentiation.

As you complete your reading complete a first thinking/ second thinking strategy to show how your thinking has changed.