Rigor And Differentiation In The Classroom

Learn how to differentiate instruction while maintaining a rigorous learning environment. In this practical book, rigor expert Barbara R. Blackburn shows that the differentiated classroom doesn’t mean extra work for top students and easy work for others; instead, you can have high expectations for all students and provide scaffolding so that everyone can reach success. She also addresses many of the greatest concerns teachers have about implementing differentiated instruction, including: How to manage your time so that you can create lessons, find resources, and grade assignments for students working at different levels; How to balance differentiated instruction and teaching standards; How to ensure rigor at all tiers of instruction; How to collaborate with teachers and other faculty members; How to differentiate homework and other out-of-class assignments; How to explain differentiated instruction to parents and families; And more... Each chapter includes practical tools and activities that you can use immediately to bring all students to higher levels of achievement. Many of these tools are available as eResources and can be downloaded for free from the book’s product page: www.routledge.com/9780815394471.

Learn how to assess students in a way that truly impacts learning. In Rigor and Assessment in the Classroom, bestselling author Barbara R. Blackburn provides a broad range of practical strategies for increasing the rigor and usefulness of your formative and summative assessments. You’ll discover how to... Create an environment where students are expected to learn at high levels; Evaluate and check student learning in a way that ensures growth; Strengthen the validity and reliability of your assessments; Plan assessments in conjunction with planning the instruction; Differentiate assessments to increase the rigor for all students; Enhance the effectiveness of your grading system and feedback; Use performance-based assessment to enhance rigor; and Design clear, reader-friendly rubrics and scoring guides. Each chapter includes ready-to-use tools, examples across the subject areas, and "Think About It" questions to help you reflect on what you’ve read. Many of the tools are also offered as free eResources at www.routledge.com/9781138936140, so you can easily print and distribute them for classroom use.

Although much has changed in schools in recent years, the power of differentiated instruction remains the same—and the need for it has only increased. Today's classroom is more diverse, more inclusive, and more plugged into technology than ever before. And it's led by teachers under enormous pressure to help decidedly unstandardized students meet an expanding set of rigorous, standardized learning targets. In this updated second edition of her best-selling classic work, Carol Ann Tomlinson offers these teachers a powerful and practical way to meet a challenge that is both very modern and completely timeless: how to divide their time, resources, and efforts to effectively instruct so many students of various backgrounds, readiness and skill levels, and interests. With a perspective informed by advances in research and deepened by more than 15 years of implementation feedback in all types of schools, Tomlinson explains the theoretical basis of differentiated instruction, explores the variables of curriculum and learning environment, shares dozens of instructional strategies, and then goes inside elementary and secondary classrooms in nearly all subject areas to illustrate how real teachers are applying differentiation principles and strategies to respond to the needs of all learners. This book's insightful guidance on what to differentiate, how to differentiate, and why lays the groundwork for bringing differentiated instruction into your own classroom or refining the work you already do to help each of your wonderfully unique learners move toward greater knowledge, more advanced skills, and expanded understanding. Today more than ever, The Differentiated Classroom is a must-have staple for every teacher's shelf and every school's professional development collection.

Teachers are required to increase the rigor for students, but how? This book by bestselling author and rigor expert Barbara Blackburn has the answer! It is a treasure chest of more than 200 practical and highly-effective tools that can be used across grade levels and subject areas to increase student rigor, leading your students to higher engagement and deeper learning. Topics covered include... Asking higher-level questions Scaffolding to help all students achieve success Differentiating instruction and using modifications Fostering independence through gradual release of responsibility Increasing text difficulty and teaching close reading Setting high expectations Changing students’ views of success Encouraging effort and goal-setting Creating an environment that is conducive to learning Using effective grading policies and assessment tools Working with parents, colleagues, and administrators And much, much more! Rigor in Your Classroom will be your go-to resource throughout the school year, as you continually return to it to try new tools with your students. Bonus: The tools are accompanied by graphic organizers, charts, templates, and reproducibles for easy implementation.

Learn how to increase rigor so that all students can reach higher levels of learning! With this new edition of a teacher-tested best seller, you get practical ideas for increasing text complexity, providing scaffolding during reading instruction, creating open-ended projects, and much more. The enhanced second edition provides important connections to the Common Core State Standards, plus new sections on problem-based learning, implementation of high standards, and working with special-needs students.

Offers a definition of differentiated instruction, and provides principles and strategies designed to help teachers create learning environments that address the different learning styles, interests, and readiness levels found in a typical mixed-ability classroom.

"We have never seen teachers work harder than we do now. These tools inspire kids to work as hard as we are." -Kate Roberts and Maggie Beattie Roberts What's DIY Literacy? It's making your own visual teaching tools instead of buying them. It's using your teaching smarts to get the most from those tools. And it's helping kids think strategically so they can be DIY learners. "Teaching tools create an impact on students' learning," write Kate Roberts and Maggie Beattie Roberts. "They help students hold onto our teaching and become changed by the work in the classroom." Of course, you and your students need the right tools for the job, so first Kate and Maggie share four simple, visual tools that you can make. Then they show how to maximize your instructional know-how with suggestions for using the tools to: make your reading and writing strategies stick motivate students to reach for their next learning goal differentiate instruction simply and quickly. Kate and Maggie are like a friendly, handy neighbor. They offer experience-honed advice for using the four tools for assessment, small-group instruction, conferring, setting learning goals, and, most important, helping students learn to apply strategies and make progress without prompting from you. In other words, to do it themselves. "It is our greatest hope," write Kate and Maggie, "that the tools we offer here will help your students to work hard, to hold onto what they know, and to see themselves in the curriculum you teach." Try DIY Literacy and help your readers and writers take learning into their own hands.

First published in 1995 as How to Differentiate Instruction in Mixed-Ability Classrooms, this new edition reflects evolving best practices, practitioners' experience, and Tomlinson's ongoing thinking about how to help all students access high-quality curriculum; engage in meaningful learning experiences; and feel safe and valued in their school. Written as a practical guide for teachers, this expanded 3rd edition of Carol Ann Tomlinson's groundbreaking work covers the fundamentals of differentiation and provides additional guidelines and new strategies for how to go about it. You'll learn What differentiation is and why it's essential How to set up the flexible and supportive learning environment that promotes success How to manage a differentiated classroom How to plan lessons differentiated by readiness, interest, and learning profile How to differentiate content, process, and products How to prepare students, parents, and yourself for the challenge of differentiation We differentiate instruction to honor the reality of the students we teach. They are energetic and outgoing. They are quiet and curious. They are confident and self-doubting. They are interested in a thousand things and deeply immersed in a particular topic. They are academically advanced and "kids in the middle" and struggling due to cognitive, emotional, economic, or sociological challenges. More of them than ever speak a different language at home. They learn at different rates and in different ways. And they all come together in our academically diverse classrooms.