Overview

Educational Consultant: Carol Ann Tomlinson

In just about every classroom, teachers find students with a wide range of exceptionalities--students with one or more learning problems, students with various degrees of English language proficiency, students with different interests, students who are very advanced, and students without a "label" but whose learning needs are just as unique. How can teachers face this challenge and meet such a variety of student learning needs?

Help teachers answer that question and maximize learning for all students with the commonsense approach featured in this new ASCD DVD. Use the DVD with the workshops in the accompanying Facilitator's Guide to take teachers inside elementary, middle, and high school classes to show how a differentiated approach helps teachers:

• Identify the diverse learning needs of their students
• Understand learner needs that impact students' achievement of learning goals
• Adapt instructional plans to maximize success for each learner
• Create classroom routines that support differentiation

Program 1, Discovering Learner Needs, examines how teachers identify and understand learner needs that can affect students' performance. Classroom scenes show how teachers can determine their students' learning needs by

• Assessing students' status related to the prerequisites for a particular unit
• Pre-assessing students' knowledge, understanding, and skills that are the focus of an upcoming unit
• Using ongoing assessment to understand each student's progress toward essential goals
• Assessing for insights about students' interests and learning preferences

Then use Program 2, Techniques for Adjusting Instruction, to help teachers explore techniques for addressing students' diverse learning needs. Teachers in the video explain and demonstrate how they determine "clusters" of learning needs among students in their classroom and use a range of techniques to help students draw on their strengths and overcome learning problems.

Program 3, Classroom Routines, explores routines that help teachers address learner needs in ways that are comfortable and predictable for both teachers and students. Scenes from elementary and secondary classrooms demonstrate classroom routines that anticipate and address variance in learner needs and support differentiation. Teachers explain why they use particular routines and how they taught the routines to their students.

(ASCD DVD, 2005) Three 35- to 45-minute programs on one DVD and a comprehensive Facilitator's Guide.

Also Available on videotape.

Related Resources:

• At Work in the Differentiated Classroom DVD and Facilitator's Guide
  
• Differentiated Instruction in Action Video Series DVD Three Disc Series
  
• The Differentiated School: Making Revolutionary Changes in Teaching and Learning DVD
  
• Differentiating Instruction DVD Set
  
• Leadership for Differentiating Instruction DVD and Facilitator's Guide