Overview

Here’s a different style of ASCD video that takes you on an in-depth field trip to a differentiated classroom.

Perfect for professional development meetings, study groups, teams, and individual teacher check-out, this video program provides an opportunity to observe a teacher who effectively addresses the learning needs of her students. Experience significant segments of a day in this teacher's 3rd/4th grade multiage classroom to understand how a differentiated classroom works.

Classroom sequences reveal many ways that teachers in every grade level can create and manage an active and engaging learning environment where instructional decisions are based on students' varied readiness levels and interests. While viewing the whole-class morning message meeting, language arts center time, a small-group portfolio session, a social studies lesson, and end-of-day activities, discover many tips that make a differentiated classroom work.

See how to

• Use a flexible approach to teaching and learning based on students' varied needs
• Frame a standards-based curriculum around important concepts and ideas
• Foster a strong sense of community with an emphasis on every student's value and growth as a learner
• Work with students who are active, involved learners and who make decisions and share responsibility for learning
• Engage in ongoing assessment of learning and encourage students to assess their own work each day

This program reveals the many reasons why teachers choose a differentiated approach and how they guide their daily practice based on this philosophy. Providing an up-close-and-personal view of one classroom turns the theory of differentiation into a reality that is practical and rewarding for every classroom.

(ASCD DVD, 2001) 60-minute DVD with an Online Viewer's Guide (ZIP).