One of the sessions at this morning's CONTACT conference in Ch'town, PEI, put forth the idea that Differentiated Instruction might better be named Responsive Teaching since, really, the idea was for the teacher to respond to the needs of the individual and groups of students in her class.
I applaud the idea, and hereby pronounce this afternoon's tech session at Beanz Roastery an example of "responsive blogging", tee hee! I need to do some online work, and the boys wanted to grab a home-made green tea lemonade and a chocolate chip peanut butter cookie. So, rather than 'blog' (type) at home, where we have no internet, I picked Simon and Alex up after Art Camp at the Confed Ctr, and headed over to make use of the free wifi and get a (not free, sadly) cookie and lemonade to share while we satiated our collective appetites for connectivity!
I applaud the idea, and hereby pronounce this afternoon's tech session at Beanz Roastery an example of "responsive blogging", tee hee! I need to do some online work, and the boys wanted to grab a home-made green tea lemonade and a chocolate chip peanut butter cookie. So, rather than 'blog' (type) at home, where we have no internet, I picked Simon and Alex up after Art Camp at the Confed Ctr, and headed over to make use of the free wifi and get a (not free, sadly) cookie and lemonade to share while we satiated our collective appetites for connectivity!
The model explored at this morning's session was based largely on the work of DI guru Carol-Ann Tomlinson, and -- since I am more familiar with Karen Hume's work, which we had used quite heavily when I was teaching at Tyndale's Dept of Education -- I was interested to hear what the two gentlemen from PEI had to say.
In some sense, the messages were not new: Educate yourself about various models of "intelligence", be aware of make use of a variety of learning styles in your teaching bag of tricks, so that you can meet the needs of the greatest variety of learners possible, use formative assessment liberally (and adjust your teaching accordingly)....
Sternberg's Model (3 intelligences: analytical/creative/practical) was briefly addressed and intrigued me; will definitely need to delve into that a little more, as it is new territory for me.
The most interesting parts of it all for me, though, were the differentiation amongst the educators at the conference: In Atlantic Canada, administrators are still part of the teacher union, and so many of the attendees are full- or part-time principals (in addition to teaching part time in classrooms within their schools)! Due to the many smaller communities represented amongst the four provinces, there are also some interesting teaching situations: One fellow in a group I was working in at one point told me he is a teacher at a K-12 school with only 17 students and three teachers -- I was floored as I tried to imagine the implications (both positive and challenging)?! Finally, what struck me was the true blend of primary, junior, intermediate and senior educators. Since the model out here really is K-12, there were teachers in attendance from across the spectrum, working and socializing side by side! It was really neat to observe. (The presenters from this morning's session were an elementary school teacher/principal and a secondary school teacher/dept head, both of whom had heard Tomlinson speak in Texas a few years back.)
My own keynote address, on using mentor texts to develop rich questions that foster student communication-based learning through Social Justice in the classroom (yes, it's a big topic for a tiny little time slot, hehe!) is less than 48 hours away now... I will have to listen carefully and respond intentionally as I share my learning from Ontario, just a few provinces over, but sometimes a world away!!
In some sense, the messages were not new: Educate yourself about various models of "intelligence", be aware of make use of a variety of learning styles in your teaching bag of tricks, so that you can meet the needs of the greatest variety of learners possible, use formative assessment liberally (and adjust your teaching accordingly)....
Sternberg's Model (3 intelligences: analytical/creative/practical) was briefly addressed and intrigued me; will definitely need to delve into that a little more, as it is new territory for me.
The most interesting parts of it all for me, though, were the differentiation amongst the educators at the conference: In Atlantic Canada, administrators are still part of the teacher union, and so many of the attendees are full- or part-time principals (in addition to teaching part time in classrooms within their schools)! Due to the many smaller communities represented amongst the four provinces, there are also some interesting teaching situations: One fellow in a group I was working in at one point told me he is a teacher at a K-12 school with only 17 students and three teachers -- I was floored as I tried to imagine the implications (both positive and challenging)?! Finally, what struck me was the true blend of primary, junior, intermediate and senior educators. Since the model out here really is K-12, there were teachers in attendance from across the spectrum, working and socializing side by side! It was really neat to observe. (The presenters from this morning's session were an elementary school teacher/principal and a secondary school teacher/dept head, both of whom had heard Tomlinson speak in Texas a few years back.)
My own keynote address, on using mentor texts to develop rich questions that foster student communication-based learning through Social Justice in the classroom (yes, it's a big topic for a tiny little time slot, hehe!) is less than 48 hours away now... I will have to listen carefully and respond intentionally as I share my learning from Ontario, just a few provinces over, but sometimes a world away!!
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