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Professional Development
Effective differentiated instruction is critical to student success, yet it can be difficult to develop and implement. Given the diversity of today’s classrooms and the variability of in-person, hybrid, and online learning, how can teachers provide instruction that offers equity, access, rigor, and engagement for all of their students?
Differentiated Instruction Made Practical provides targeted professional development that enables teachers to differentiate instruction as part of their daily classroom routines. The program is based on a four-step decision-making framework and structured classroom routines rooted in research on student cognition and motivation.
Over the course of seven modules, you’ll learn the agile thinking you need to analyze problems of student learning and effectively differentiate instruction within a range of time and curriculum constraints.
Students come to the classroom with diverse experiences, understandings, interests, strengths, and needs. Differentiated Instruction Made Practical will teach you the why and how of building differentiated instruction into your daily teaching habits and routines.
Course content includes theory and practice, emphasizing sustainability for instructors and engaging, flexible, deep, and durable learning for all students. Through videos, readings, personal reflection, and online forums, you'll experience differentiated instruction for yourself and learn methods for implementing it in your classroom.
Teams of 3-6 are encouraged to apply. Teams may be comprised of people from within or across schools or organizations. Teams should be prepared to try out course ideas with students/learners in classrooms or other learning environments. Teams should also be able to meet synchronously, in person, at least once per module to engage in group-based activities.
Individuals are also invited to participate; they will be placed in a virtual team with others who have enrolled as individuals. Individuals will be expected to meet synchronously (via phone call or video conference) with the teams once per session. We will strive to group individuals with others who are in the same or similar time zones; if this is not possible, exceptions to the team meeting requirement can be made.
There is one required textbook for this program, Differentiated Instruction Made Practical: Engaging the Extremes through Classroom Routines, by Rhonda Bondie and Akane Zusho. Please order the required textbook early to ensure you have it by the program’s start. You can buy a paper copy or a digital edition from Amazon or Routledge. If you order from Routledge, you may use the following coupon code to receive a 20% discount: FLR40.