Choosing Prevention Before Intervention
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As teams answer these questions in recurring cycles on a unit-by-unit basis, they determine essential learning outcomes, create common formative and summative assessments, and plan and implement interventions and extensions for student learning. This means they plan for differentiation to ensure learning for all.
This process of responding to student learning is embedded in Tier 1 instruction. (See figure 1.1.) It is important to note that in this sense, differentiation is not a set of strategies but is instead a way of thinking about the teaching and learning process. Differentiation is not about who will learn what but rather how you will teach so that all students have access to, and support and guidance in, mastering the district and state curriculum. 4 How do we respond when they have already learned?
Teach what all students must know and be able to do.
Plan a common formative assessment.
Give end-of-unit test. 3 How do we respond when they do not learn?
1 What do we expect students to learn?
Reteach and extend.
2 How do we know they are learning it?
Figure 1.1: Tier 1 instruction.
Teams plan for differentiated instruction by following these six steps. 1. Determine the major standards for a unit or chapter; these are the must-knows (power or priority standards). 2. Unwrap the standards to build shared understanding of their meaning and to determine the depth of knowledge each standard requires. 3. Determine the learning progression, target, and key concepts.
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Differentiating instruction involves creating multiple paths of learning so that students of different abilities, interests, or learning needs experience equally appropriate ways to absorb, use, develop, and present concepts as a part of the daily learning process. The only way to truly differentiate to meet the needs of all learners in a classroom is through a collaborative team effort. Differentiation is too difficult for one teacher. In an elementary classroom, there are too many content areas, standards, and learning targets to expect one teacher to go it alone.