Concluding Post (TE 823; Summer 2013)

Esteemed Assistant Superintendent for Curriculum and Instruction;

For the 2012-2013 academic school year you made an attempt to help our new school improve on the dismal state exam results of 2011-2012. Thank you for taking such a dedicated interest in our campus. Teachers were excited and welcomed any and all assistance. However, the approach was one that only addressed state testing. It did not address our students in the manner that is readily expressed to us at the beginning of the year convocation where we are urged to know our students so that we can address underlying problems in their education or help to motivate them to excel and succeed. It was not in a manner that challenged teachers by stating “if you continue to do things the way you always have, you will continue to get the same results.” Instead, a consultant with a product to sell was sent to our campus, and state-mandated testing end results were the highlight of our teaching. Although test preparation could have been incorporated into the delivery of instruction, it should not have been the dominating factor. I believe there was a grossly missed opportunity here.

Opening a new school presented the perfect opportunity to implement those changes that are so vocally called for at the beginning of every school year. We had the opportunity to know that “every grade has a face, has a name, has a story.” Our school could have been, and I believe still can be, the model for the use of Differentiated Instruction and Understanding by Design (Tomlinson and McTighe, 2006).

Differentiated instruction, through staff meetings and even professional development sessions offered by the district, is somewhat pigeon-holed to address struggling learners. We see differentiated instruction as something that applies only to students labeled in special education and/or students who require remediation. In short, we see it as the “prescription” for those students who are not passing a given subject matter or for those students who would not pass otherwise. It is watered down to mean modifications and accommodations. At this point, rather than to view differentiated instruction as a benefit to the student, it is viewed as extra work for the teacher.  However, if we were to view differentiated instruction as an entirely different way of teaching every student every day in every subject area, rather than strictly modifications and accommodations, we would have an entirely new ball game. If we were to look at differentiated instruction beginning at the teacher level, have the teacher understand that we are going to live up to those beginning of year statements and change the manner in which we deliver instruction so that it is meaningful to those grades with faces and names, then we have a new level of learner understanding to look forward to in the coming months and years.  If we differentiate delivery of instruction from the outset, we will not only challenge ourselves out of our comfort zone, but I truly believe that our students will rise to the occasion.

Where we define differentiated instruction as an addition to our already burgeoning workload, Tomlinson and McTighe state that they “have ample evidence that students whom we often think of as “low performing” fare better with rich, significant curriculum” (p.84). Additional research references indicate that low performers “increase their grasp of advanced skills at least as much as their high-achieving counterparts when both experience instruction aimed at meaning and understanding” (p.84, citing Knapp, Shields, & Turnbull, 1992, p.27). Clearly defined lesson expectations for all students and clearly defined outcomes with rubrics to indicate appropriate completion can be laid out for all students. Drill and kill is not the best learning approach for any student because it doesn’t have meaning. Is the memorizing of multiplication facts or significant dates in history important? Certainly, but if a student does not know how to apply those rote skills to real world situations, it will not mean anything to him and will be lost as quickly as they were gained. The student will also not have the ability to apply it to standardized testing questions, which quickly becomes our primary goal.

One potential toward Differentiated Instruction and Understanding by Design to consider is taking a step back from, and maybe even leaving behind, the teacher editions/manuals. A teacher edition/manual could very well be the downfall to differentiated instruction. My son had a teacher who refused to deviate from the reading teacher manual. I could tell the day of the week from the homework he had. We mustn’t fall prey to what the sales representative tells us about their product. “Although the…textbook can proclaim it, few students will comprehend its meaning without some active intellectual work, guided by the teacher (p.108). Teachers cannot chain themselves to the teacher manual. There is very little differentiated instruction offered, and that which is available is, again, addressed to the strugglers or the high achievers. There is no suggestion of different instruction.  In addition, many of the teacher manuals repeat the instructional routine every week with no variance to introduction of a concept or skill, delivery of instruction, or assessment. This can provide some semblance of classroom management, but wouldn’t it be just as easy to maintain respect within the classroom community through student engagement in authentic learning situations? “When a teacher comfortably and appropriately uses an array of instructional strategies, tasks become more engaging to learners” (p.52).  Through Differentiated Instruction and Understanding by Design (DI and UbD), teachers maintain an active role through presenting the content/concept of instruction and by providing needed and essential guidance. However, “[T]he UbD emphasis on “uncoverage” of meaning (vs. “coverage” of the content) arises from our awareness that understanding must be constructed by the individual” (p.85). On still another note, at a recent Education Service Center ELAR training, we were informed that no textbook adoption in the state of Texas includes (auto)biographies which are a state-tested genre. If we are sticking to the textbook and teacher editions for assurance in “coverage of the content,” then we have come across a potentially damaging gap. Further more, as teachers we should use the “knowing of our students” to guide our delivery of instruction alongside the ideas of DI and UbD to see past grabbing the typical copy of a Cesar Chavez biography and reach for about Selena Gomez, Sin Cara, Ellen Ochoa, and Hector Cantu and Carlos Castellanos instead because the “different individuals [in our classrooms] will construct meaning fro their different experiences, abilities, and interests…” (p.85). “We are [also] teachers of human beings” (p.39). Our human beings happen to be Hispanic, bi-lingual, and some even Spanish-speaking only. We should envelope them in the richness of their culture and surroundings so that they know that they are a living breathing part of their environment.

In making this change, we will not be back at square one, perhaps one foot in square one and one in square two, but not entirely at the beginning. We already have a strong foundation for the implementation of differentiated instruction through specific professional development sessions. Kilgo trainings and CSCOPE rollouts have talked to us about identifying verbs in our Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS). CSCOPE already has Performance Indicators laid out for each unit where the targeted TEKS are addressed, and these Performance Indicators in many instances are project-based, feeding directly into DI and UbD. In addition, the sheltered instruction initiative that our campus embarked on last year addresses similar ideas to that of Figure 3.1: Planning Template (p.30), Figure 3.2: Planning Template with Design Questions (p.31), and Figure 6.1: Instructional Strategies That Support Various Teacher Roles (p.87). We have this knowledge to get off to a strong start, but “[R]esearch [also] suggests to us that few teachers in fact translate that ideal (attending to learner variance) into classroom practice” (p.39). At our campus, as part of being a Title I-funded school, we engaged in a book study of The Fundamental Five which speaks to transparency of the content of instruction and the expectation after all the learning has been done as do DI and UbD.

Implementing a new style of teaching brings to light many questions and anxiety. We must remember and be continuously reminded that we are not starting entirely from scratch. One proactive way to view the pending change is to note that if we prepare a lesson with differentiated instruction for all in mind, then we will not have the additional task of having to do so for only a handful of students. It will be built-in to the day’s routine. An added bonus is that we have a substantial amount of professional development based on research under our belts and still available to us and experienced educators available share their bag of tricks. And in terms of cost effectiveness, the experienced educators are in-house…free! In addition, there are surely at least a handful of teachers who already strive to teach in this “new” manner, they dimply do not recognize that it is, in fact, whole-class Differentiated Instruction.

There is still time.  We are on the threshold of a new school year and because we are a new campus, are not faced with the same state testing number issues with which other campuses in our district are. It should be a directive and actively monitored and feverously supported. There should be collaboration amongst our teachers and administrators. We can make this change for our school, for ourselves as teachers, and most importantly for our students.