Distracted by Differentiation
Last week, the topic on the Twitter #edchat was differentiated instruction ( archived here ). Steven Anderson did a great job summarizing the discussion in his post, What Exactly is Differentiation ? A few tweets in particular resonated with me. One said, "I have 130 students - how can I differentiate for all of them?" (Good question. You can't). Another said, "Differentiated Instruction requires differentiated assessment." (Absolutely!) A third tweet pointed out the need to have students determine their own learning styles through the use of surveys or inventories. Unfortunately, this was another missed opportunity to explore the tenets of Universal Design for Learning. Everyone knows the buzzwords of Differentiation Instruction, DI for short, or Understanding by Design, UBD, or Multiple Intelligences Theory. Where was the conversation about UDL? When UDL principles are embedded proactively into the curriculum, differentiation occurs seamlessly. UDL is about mu...