Every teacher we’ve ever worked with has wanted his or her students to succeed. The challenge has always been finding the right tools and strategies to make it happen, and using these tools and strategies strategically and habitually.
Is There Research to Support Differentiation?
Though research doesn’t use the term differentiation specifically, it does strongly support all the pieces that go into differentiation as we define and explain them in this book. For example, we know formative assessment has strong effect sizes, and that responding to student needs is the last step in the process. This is differentiation. To move students forward, you look at their learning (evidence) and make changes. Then, we give feedback, which has a very strong effect size of 0.73 (Hattie, 2009). When you take time to differentiate, you can move all students to “Got it” with their own tools, support, and time.
There are so many ways to differentiate, and we must choose the most powerful evidence-based strategies for efficiency. For example, one differentiation technique is to provide texts at the students’ instructional level, so they can better comprehend it. Another technique is to preteach vocabulary words to English learners (ELs) before beginning a science lab. If your students are struggling to comprehend text and disengaging during reading, you might want to try the strategy reciprocal teaching (chapter 5, page 81), which has an effect size of 0.74 (Hattie, 2009). When teachers base their teaching on students’ prior learning, there is an effect size of 0.85 (Hattie, 2009). Reteaching is part of this response; data from the previous lesson tells you to base a new lesson on what students need.
Responding to student needs further looks like relating to students and conveying competence. When students perceive that their teacher is credible, the effect size on student learning is 0.91 (about two years of growth). Hattie (2009) defines teacher credibility as a teacher’s passion about his or her work, trust, and a teacher’s competence. Finally, we must mention one more effect size: when teachers work collectively to improve student achievement and believe their major role is to evaluate their impact on student learning, there is an effect size of 1.57 (Hattie, 2009). That is about three years of growth. That’s worth it. We would call this team differentiation—using the data from their classrooms to reflect, discuss, and create a response plan for the goal of improving student achievement. All of these effect sizes support the practice of differentiated instruction.
How Did We Merge Neuroscience, the Formative Assessment Process, and Differentiated Instruction Into Four Steps?
We have taken the formative assessment process and added what we’ve learned about neuroscience and differentiation to develop a four-step cycle for successful instruction. Figure 1.2 shows that cycle.
Three critical questions are part of Hattie’s (2009) and Black and Wiliam’s (1998) feedback effects, which form a process for teaching. Each leads to the next.
Figure 1.2: The framed four-step instructional cha-chas cycle.
1. Where am I going? (Planning includes the teacher sharing learning targets and criteria for success toward this learning target; students understand these learning intentions and can use them to give self-feedback.)
2. Where am I right now? (The teacher has taught, or chunked, and students are showing what they know, or chewing. To know where students are right now, the teacher must check for understanding.)
3. How do I close the gap to get to the learning intentions? In other words, how do I get from here to there? (The teacher, via change, helps students see the gap and guides students as they determine the next steps.)
Notice that the steps are a continuous feedback loop, a cycle. In other words, after you change instruction, you might move forward with the next chunk, or you might need to respond differently. It’s all based on what you learn during the check. The cycle can occur several times in one lesson. You could also look at this cycle as a daily one: the last checkpoint in the lesson should tell us how to change the next day’s learning target, and thus, the cycle starts over with the next day’s lesson.
Notice also that all four steps of the instructional cha-chas cycle revolve around the standard or daily learning target. Achieving the daily learning target and reaching the standard are the goals of every lesson. And finally, notice the cha-chas cycle is framed by planning. Of course, we know that no teacher ever steps in front of class without first planning. In fact, we believe that planning is the foundation for quality lessons. Therefore, we framed our four steps to remind you that the cycle is only powerful if you plan for all four pieces. This planning frame is so important that the cycle can be thrown off if planning isn’t thorough. Once you plan, it’s time to instruct using the steps, which the following sections explain in more detail.
Chunk (Instruct)
This is where we look at evidence-based instructional strategies and brain research to determine how to teach the lesson, so students can receive it powerfully for stronger retention. Researched tools from Robert J. Marzano, Debra J. Pickering, and Jane E. Pollock’s (2009) Classroom Strategies That Work book, show us what works, but not all tools will work perfectly for all students. Because students differ in the way they learn, differentiating how we teach the content is very important.
We take the copious content we need to teach in order for students to understand the learning target and start chunking the content into meaningful, smaller, similar, interrelated sections. That helps the brain perceive each section as a coherent group of ideas. The teacher craftily ensures that students are making these chunks meaningful, and therefore, more memorable. You can present the chunks as a short video clip, reading sections, online research, software programs, learning centers, teacher directed, student led, and more.
The first chunk should always introduce the learning target. Students should know what they are supposed to learn, why they are learning it, and how they will know where they are within the learning process each day. Chapter 4 (page 49) talks about chunking in detail and offers approximate time limits and strategies.
Chew (Learn)
During this step, students chew, or process, the chunk to enhance their learning. Sometimes we give them choices in their chews and other times we give one chew directive for the whole class. Let them decide how to think about the content. It’s what the students do with what they just learned—create a website, graph, sort, act out, analyze, synthesize, research—that encourages retention. Chapter 5 (page 81) talks about chewing in detail and offers strategies. Advance to the third step while the students are doing, making, thinking, or writing about their learning.
Check (Evaluate)
Checking for understanding happens while the students are chewing the content. This formative assessment checkpoint allows you to offer regular descriptive, actionable feedback about where the students are in relation to the learning target. Students can also check their own learning. Teach them to self-assess and self-monitor. Chapter 6 (page 117) talks about checking in detail and offers a variety of strategies for checking.
Change (Differentiate)
Let students practice what they learn and revise their work based on feedback from you, other students, or self-reflection. This might be a time to reteach or enrich.