Apr 05 2006
Rick Wormelli. “Differentiating for Tweens.”
Educational Leadership. Apr. 2006: 14-19.
Wormelli recommends five means to differentiate instruction:
Teach to developmental needs; Treat academic struggle as strength; Provide multiple pathways to standards; Give formative feedback; and Be unconventional.
1. Teach to developmental needs. At this age, students need : – competence and achievement, self-definition, creative, physical, social interaction with adults/peers, structure and limits, meaningful participation in family, school, and community
2. Treat academic struggle as strength – be willing to ask difficult questions that you (yourself) don’t know the answer to and modle the process of finding the answer, explore and examine things over time, allow students to struggle through a problem so that they feel a sense of achievement and learn tenacity
3. Provide multiple pathways to standards – show students different examples and strategies (i.e. multiple ways to take notes) then help them decide when to use each format. Do a 15 minute global lesson and then have students work in groups at their ability/readiness level OR anchor an activity with a mini-lessons on basics or advanced material – Allow students to determine the best way for them to demonstrate their mastery, whether it be a test, essay, powerpoint, poster, website, interview, etc. – Allow them to redo assesments until they master content. If they need to know this, then they need to do the work until they can show they know it. If they don’t (need to know it), then why are they wasting precious time learning it?
4. Give formative feedback – compare what they are doing now with where they were at the beginning of the year—show them their growth so they feel a sense of achievement, focus on one or two areas so feedback can be absorbed and used in the future – 321 exit cards to demonstrate student learning (three differences, two facts, one reason)
5. Be unconventional – give answers and have students tell how you arrived at that answer, ask them to conduct an intelligent conversation without verbs (i.e. Tarzan), create videos for younger students teaching concepts on their level, literary magazine to place in local establishments, meeting of the minds debate
