True Confessions

Well, I've been presenting at conferences and staff development programs for the last year on various topics: Twice Exceptional Learners, Formative Assessment Strategies, and yesterday at the OCTE conference, Design for Differentiation. My confession is that I always feel like a bit of a fraud at these moments. After all, what do I know that everyone else doesn't also know? I guess the deal is that if you put your time and energy into learning about a topic that matters to you, if you put the ideas into practice in a way that works and makes sense for you, if you take the time to figure out what the key ideas are and how you can communicate them, then you do have something to offer your colleagues. Not a definitive end-all and be-all, to be sure, but a springboard or platform for others to use as they dive into the task of upping their teaching game to the next level.

At OCTE yesterday, the room was pretty packed, an indication that differentiation has found its time, that we educators know it's something we really need to do, that we know it's really challenging, and that we need to collaborate with each to figure out how to really implement it in our classrooms. Tim Gillespie, one of the keynote speakers at the conference mentioned three big ideas that he has extracted from his 37 years in the biz: 1) It's about the students; 2) Go blalah (Hawaiian for big) or go home; in other words, stick to the big learnings; and 3) Keep your enthusiasm. Presenting for colleagues who want to be part of the process, getting good questions and good feedback, and recommitting myself to the task of creating a truly differentiated classroom definitely fed my enthusiasm for this demanding work.

On to my second confession, which I guess I should let my co-diva hear before posting publically. It has to do with clarifying what that commitment looks like in my room. Kacy mentioned at the workshop that we were going to differentiate every lesson and every unit this year. I have to confess that I am not going to attempt this for every lesson. Every unit will have differentiation woven throughout - entry points arrived at through preassessment, different inputs in terms of materials, varying amounts of practice along the way, and differentiated products for the students to show what they have mastered. But I know there are some core lessons that are going to be whole group activities because they get at core knowledge that all the students need. I'll use student engagement strategies and formative strategies so I know where to go from there, to be sure, and allow students more than one way to interact with or respond to the lesson. But some days, I know we're all going to be doing pretty much the same thing at the same time. Again, it's about going big, not sweating each and every day, lesson, etc. It's a long journey and I want to get to June in one piece!